Book 3 - Technology, use and potentialities of Latin American starchy tubers

Chapter 18
Starch-based plastics
Olivier Vilpoux1 & Luc Averous.2

18.1. Introduction
Brazil disposes of approximately 240,000 tons of waste per day, an amount lower than that in the USA (607,000 t./day), but fairly above those in countries such as Germany
(85,000 t./day) and Sweden (10,400 t./day). Of that total, a large amount goes to open waste deposits. Only a small quantity is disposed of in appropriate places. A city like
São Paulo spends, per day, US$ 300,000 with waste. According to the Instituto de
Pesquisas Tecnológicas – IPT (Institute of Technological Research), only few municipalities have specific teams and public policies engaged in dealing with the waste.
When it is not treated, waste becomes a serious sanitary problem, since it exposes the community to illnesses like diarrhea, amebiasis, and parasitosis, apart from contaminating the soil, waters and water tables.
Among solutions, there are the creation of sanitary landfills in appropriate places, adoption of selective collecting and recycling programs, conducting of campaigns with the aim of both making society conscious about the problem and demanding a greater participation of government authorities (Editora Abril, 2002). The manufacturing of biodegradable material offers an interesting solution for plastic materials. Like it happens with organic residues, such as foodstuff, elimination of biodegradable materials is not automatic and is considered as a recycling process by many experts. Biodegradable materials go through a composting process, for the obtaining of a stable compound, considered the final product of recycling.
The bioplastics found in the market are made mainly from starch. Starch-based bioplastics represent from 85% to 90% of market’s bioplastics (Bastioli, 2000). Among
starch