Now after years of testing, a new version of CDA was found to be the fastest degrading bioplastic material tested in seawater—and it’s a promising replacement for other foam plastic materials, like Styrofoam, which can linger in the environment for many years. In a new paper published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, WHOI scientists Bryan James, Collin Ward, Chris Reddy, Yanchen Sun, and Kali Pate, found that adding small pores—called foaming—to CDA material made it degrade 15 times faster than solid CDA, and even faster than paper.

Why should biomedical engineers care about research on ocean plastics?

Moldable Plastics (Polycaprolactone) can be Acutely Toxic to Developing Zebrafish and Activate Nuclear Receptors in Mammalian Cells

Now, researchers have developed a sustainability metric for the ecological design of plastic products that have low persistence in the environment. Adhering to this metric could provide substantial environmental and societal benefits, according to a new study led by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and published in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.

Now, researchers have developed a sustainability metric for the ecological design of plastic products that have low persistence in the environment. Adhering to this metric could provide substantial environmental and societal benefits, according to a new study led by researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and published in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.

Bryan and team present at Eastman Chemical Company

Bryan speaks at the Rhode Island School of Design’s Nature Lab about materials science and eco-design.