Biodegradable plastics are potential alternatives to petroleumbased
materials that can be incorporated into organic recycling
schemes based on anaerobic digestion or composting. They also
could potentially reduce the pollution associated with conventional
plastics and therefore lead to the development of products that are
more environmentally friendly. Ideally, biodegradable materials
must be useful for a predetermined service life and then biodegrade
in a short period of time, leaving no visible fragments and no toxic
residues when composted or anaerobically digested. Disposal of
these materials in landfills as opposed to anaerobic digestions is not
recommended since under anaerobic conditions they biodegrade to
form methane and most landfills capture only a small fraction of
the methane created [56].