The prospect of biodegradable plastics

With the increase in global environmental awareness and the attention paid by governments around the world to plastic pollution, the degradable materials market has ushered in unprecedented development opportunities. It is expected that the global degradable plastics market will reach tens of billions of dollars by 2025, showing huge market potential. As one of the world’s largest producers and consumers of degradable plastics, China’s market size is also constantly expanding. China’s degradable plastics market size will exceed 18.9 billion yuan in 2024, and is expected to maintain rapid growth in the next few years.

The development of degradable plastics has been driven by many aspects:

Policy promotion: The Chinese government has issued a series of policies to restrict the use of traditional plastics and encourage the development and application of degradable materials. For example, the “Opinions on Further Strengthening the Control of Plastic Pollution” clearly proposes to ban and restrict the production, sale and use of some plastic products, and to promote alternative products such as degradable plastics.

Technological innovation: With the integration of cutting-edge technologies such as nanotechnology and biotechnology, the performance of degradable materials has been further optimized. For example, biodegradable materials such as PLA (polylactic acid) can be completely decomposed into carbon dioxide and water under the action of microorganisms. They have excellent degradation properties and are currently the mainstream products for degradable material applications.

Market demand: With the popularization of environmental awareness, consumers’ demand for environmentally friendly products is increasing. Biodegradable materials are favored because of their environmental protection, safety, economy and other advantages, especially in packaging, agriculture, medical and other fields.

In addition, the global degradable materials market is currently in short supply. However, with the continuous advancement of technology and the gradual release of production capacity, the supply and demand situation of degradable materials is expected to improve in the future. In particular, China, as one of the major producers of degradable materials, is rapidly expanding its production capacity. It is expected that China’s degradable material production capacity will reach millions of tons in the next few years, especially the planned production capacity of PLA.