Recycling Bioplastics (HS)

Many of the materials we use in our daily lives are polymers, chemicals made of short
repeating units (monomers) linked to one another. In the 20th century, we learned how to synthesize artificial polymers, or plastics, from fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas. Today, increased awareness of the environmental effects of mining these fuels has led to the development of plastics that can be synthesized from natural feedstocks, these plastics are referred to as “bioplastics”. In today’s first activity, you will take one bioplastic, polylactic acid (PLA), and degrade it back into lactic acid using sodium hydroxide (lye), ethanol (drinking alcohol) and water. You will then neutralize (render harmless) the lactate/lye solution by adding vinegar to lower the pH of the solution. In our second activity, you will compare the hardness of biopolymers to traditional fossil fuel-based polymers.