印度企业制出百分百降解可食用“塑料袋”
In an effort to combat plastic pollution, Indian startup EnviGreen has come up with a combination of natural starch and vegetable oils that looks and feels just like plastic, but is 100 percent organic, biodegradable and eco-friendly. You can even dispose of such a “plastic” bag by eating it.
为了解决塑料污染问题，印度新兴企业EnviGreen用天然淀粉和植物油合成出一种塑料状的材料，这种纯有机材料是百分百可降解的，也绝不会损害环境。你甚至可以通过食用来处理这种“塑料袋”。
EnviGreen founder Ashwath Hedge came up with the idea for these revolutionary bags after seeing people struggling to find alternatives to plastic bags, following bans imposed by several Indian cities.
"People were concerned about how they would carry products from the market now. Everyone cannot afford a bag worth Rs. 5 or Rs. 15 to carry a kilogram of sugar," he told The Better India. So the 25-year-old decided to work on something that would solve this problem while being environment-friendly.
Hedge spent four years researching and experimenting with various materials, but one day he discovered a combination of 12 ingredients, including potato, tapioca, corn, natural starch, vegetable oil, banana, and flower oil, that looked and felt like plastic, but posed none of the environmental problems.
The manufacturing process is obviously a closely-guarded secret, but the young entrepreneur did reveal that the raw materials are first converted into liquid form, and then taken through a six-stage process to create the bags.
The cost of an EnviGreen bag is about 35% higher than that of a plastic bag, but the benefits of using the former are more than worth the extra cost. Once discarded, EnviGreen bags biodegrade naturally in less than 180 days, and if placed in water at room temperature, they dissolve in less than a day. For quick disposal, they can be placed in boiling water, and they dissolve in about 15 seconds.