Chayote (Sechium edule)-made Bioplastic

as an alternative to normal Plastic.

Padpad, Philippe Joaquin N.

Lao, Rachel Franz M.

Tan, Yyannah Kiss S.

Introduction

For decades, plastic waste management served as one of the most major
environmental crisis the world has ever faced. Plastic affects many things not only
marine life, but wildlife habitat, water source, and even daily human living. Many
scientist ought to invent machines or alternatives to lessen the impact of plastic to the
environment, but the problem never seems to cease. According to Rick Leblanc (2019,
May 16) of normal plastic takes 10-1000 years to decompose, leaving it very durable,
indestructible and unsafe for animals especially in the sea. Plastic also contains
Polyvinyl chloride, which releases heavy metals and has a significant quantity of lead
output (from Madesafe.org, 2016).

Earthday.org (2018) states that about one-trillion single-use plastic bags are used yearly
all across the globe, nearly reaching 2 million plastics every minute. 5.25 trillion pieces
of plastic debris lie beneath and below the ocean surface, making at least 100,000
marine creatures dying every year. Burning plastic can also be very harmful to the
environment, doing so releases dioxin and furan, a chemical that results to skin lesions
when high-levels of said chemical is exposed. Long-term exposure to Dioxin can cause
cancer (TheJakartaPost, 2018, April 1). According to Alixandra Vila of South China
Morning Post, the Philippines produces 2.7 million tonnes of plastic waste yearly,
6,237,653 kg (6875.84 tons) in 2015, leaving it to contribute about 81% of the world’s
plastic pollution percentage as per 2015. The Philippines is also ranked third-largest
source of discarded plastic that ends up in the ocean.
Sechium Edule, also known as mirlitons squash (English) or sayote (local) is an edible
plant belonging to the gourd family (Wikipedia). Starch can be extracted from it, which is
essential on making bioplastic. Our study is expected to be effective in terms of
reducing the time the bioplastic takes to decompose. We aim for an organic bioplastic
that targets the decomposition span of 3-6 or less months, subtracting at least 0.6
percent of the plastic waste pollution population in one year.

The study is limited to the time we aim for the output product of the bioplastic to
decompose. We need to see the significance of the difference on how long normal
plastic decomposes compared to our bioplastic. We also need to test the comparison
between the durability between bioplastic and normal plastic.

The significance of our study is to aim on lessening the production of single use
plastics, which brings along harmful effects to the environment. Bioplastic is an organic
material that brings no toxicity and less harmful chemicals that decomposes in a shorter
amount of time, helping the drop of plastic waste distribution not only in The Philippines,
but across the globe. Bioplastic aims for lesser harmful materials that the regular plastic
brings to help the environment evolve into a safe and better place for humans.