Name : Novira Chandisa

NIM : 16013291
Faculty : Mathematic and natural science
English essay second presentation (UTS)

CORN PLASTIC
Every day, many from us used plastic in their daily activity. Look around you, I am
sure that you will find many thing based plastic, your handphone, your glass, your kitchen
stuff, your bathroom stuff etc. And we can find many plastic throw to the sea. Thousand of
animal in sea are die because they eat plastic. Thousand of plastic are made each year but just
about 5 % goes to recycling, 50% goes to landfill.
Now our great sciencetic have found a good solution for decrease using of nonbiodegradeble plastic. What is the solution ? Corn plastic is a good solution. We can make a
good plastic from corn. This essay will inform you about why we must not use nonbiodegradable plastic, what is corn plastic, how to make corn plastic, what is the advantages
and disadvantages of corn plastic.
There are many reason why we must not use non-biodegradable plastic in our daily
life. The reason are non-biodegradable plastic can make toxins, wildlife endangerment,
difficult recycling, green house gasses and the plastic industry has quite a public relations
problem on its hands.
Bioplastics are a form of plastic that come from renewable sources, such as corn,
vegetable oil or corn starch, for example. They differ from the standard plastics, made from
petroleum, that we have come to depend on in society over the past several decades. For
example, many clear plastic containers today are made from PLA or polylactic acid which is
a resin produced from corn. NatureWorks in the USA is the worlds largest producer of PLA.
Their containers are compostable in industrial composting facilities only. PLA is also used in
cups and containers as an impermeable liner.
How is corn plastic manufactured? First, the harvested corn crop is soaked and ground
so that the endosperm can be separated from the gluten and fiber. This step is typical in grain

crop harvesting, too. Next, producers add enzymes to the starchy endosperm, which converts
the endosperm into a simple sugar called dextrose. Then, the addition of bacterial cultures
causes the sugar to ferment into lactic acid in the same way brewers use fermentation to
produce beer. The resulting acid consists of lactide molecules, which bond into long chains
called polymers. At the end of this process, bioplastics producers have pellets of polylactic
acid plastic, which can then be spun off into fibers or melted to take just about any form.
The advantages of PLA derived from corn which is a renewable resource. PLA
products are compostable in industrial composting facilities. PLA is cost competitive with
regular petroleum-based resins such as PET and most likely cost advantaged in the future
given rising petroleum prices. Producing PLA uses 65% less energy than producing
conventional plastics. Producing PLA creates 68% fewer greenhouse gases than producing
conventional plastics. PLA contains no toxins. From a safety perspective it will not blow up
like oil might
There are not just the advantages,many disadvantage of PLA. PLA is only
compostable in industrial composting facilities access is limited as only few sites in the USA .
PLA in large amounts may interfere with conventional composting because the resulting
polymer will make the compost wetter and more acidic. Consumers will dump PLA in with
their regular PET recycling which can contaminate the PET recycling stream if it happens in
large quantities. Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) have to pay to sort out PLA and pay
again to dispose of it. Because of the lack of infrastructure, the majority of PLA packaging is
likely to still end up in landfills.Most of the corn used to produce PLA is genetically
modified. Some individuals raise morality concerns in using food for packaging if so many
people in the world are starving.
Now you have know about plastic based corn or corn plastic. Corn plastic is a biodegradable plastic made from polulactic acid (PLA). There are many a negative effect if we
use non-biodegrable plastic than this corn plastic. And producing corn plastic is not hard, we
know especially in our country corn is easy to find and so cheap. There are any advantage
and disadvantage too. We are as a young generation must study hard to find a way to reduce
the disadvantage of corn plastic and make it easy to producing in our country. Lets save our
earth by using a bio-degradable corn plastic.