Exploring the pathways to sustainability: A comprehensive review of biodegradable plastics in the circular economy
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This review article explores the multifaceted landscape of biodegradable plastics, delving into their synthesis, production, degradation mechanisms, recycling methods, and socio-economic implications within the framework of a circular economy. Beginning with the synthesis process, it discusses the diverse sources of building blocks for bioplastics , ranging from terrestrial plants to ocean biomass and animal-derived macromolecules. Bioplastics production is examined through bottom-up approaches, including microbial biosynthesis and chemical polymerization techniques. The biodegradation process of these plastics is explored in depth, encompassing various types such as compostable plastics, oxo-degradable plastics, and enzyme-mediated biodegradable plastics, along with strategies for designing enzyme mixtures for effective plastic degradation. The article also investigates the recycling avenues for biodegradable plastics, including mechanical, chemical, and bio-recycling methods, highlighting their potential to contribute to a more sustainable plastic lifecycle. Mechanisms underlying the biodegradation process are elucidated to provide insights into the environmental fate of these materials. Furthermore, the concept of a circular economy of plastics is examined, emphasizing the importance of closing the loop through efficient resource utilization and waste management practices. Socio-economic impacts associated with the utilization of biodegradable plastics are analyzed, along with the prospects and obstacles influencing their adoption. Overall, this comprehensive review offers valuable insights into the current state and future directions of biodegradable plastics, addressing key challenges and opportunities in their development and implementation.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".