‘people are now prepared to move into biodegradable polymers for single-use plastics, but if it turns out that it creates more problems than it’s worth, then the policy might revert back,’ said ting xu, UC berkeley professor of materials science and engineering and of chemistry. ‘we are basically saying that we are on the right track. we can solve this continuing problem of single-use plastics not being biodegradable.’
‘it turns out that composting is not enough — people want to compost in their home without getting their hands dirty, they want to compost in water,’ xu continued. ‘so, that is what we tried to see. we used warm tap water. just warm it up to the right temperature, then put it in, and we see in a few days it disappears.’
xu believes that programmed degradation could be the key to recycling many objects. ‘imagine using biodegradable glue to assemble computer circuits or even entire phones or electronics, then, when you’re done with them, dissolving the glue so that the devices fall apart and all the pieces can be reused.’
Via designboom