Abstract
Due to the continuous rise in conventional plastic production and the deficient management of plastic waste, industry is developing alternative plastic products made of biodegradable or biobased polymers. The challenge nowadays is to create a new product that combines the advantages of conventional plastics with environmentally friendly properties. This study focuses on the assessment of the potential impact that polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-based polymers may have once they are released into the marine environment, in terms of biodegradation in seawater (assessed by the percentage of the Theoretical Oxygen Demand, or % ThOD, of each compound) and aquatic toxicity, according to the standard toxicity test using Paracentrotus lividus larvae. We have tested three different materials: two glycerol-containing PVA based ones, and another made from pure PVA. Biodegradation of PVA under marine conditions without an acclimated inoculum seems to be negligible, and it slightly improves when the polymer is combined with glycerol, with a 5.3 and 8.4% ThOD achieved after a period of 28 days. Toxicity of pure PVA was also negligible (<1 toxic units, TU), but slightly increases when the material included glycerol (2.2 and 2.3 TU). These results may contribute to a better assessment of the behavior of PVA-based polymers in marine environments. Given the low biodegradation rates obtained for the tested compounds, PVA polymers still require further study in order to develop materials that are truly degradable in real marine scenarios.
Highlights
IntroductionPlastics are one of the most used materials nowadays due to their low cost, light weight, high durability and excellent isolation properties
Two of them consisted of a mixture of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and glycerol, a common plasticizer used in the production of bioplastic [37], and the third one was a plain PVA resin
For the PVA.031 sample, composed by PVA only, we observed that the biodegradation was negligible
Summary
Plastics are one of the most used materials nowadays due to their low cost, light weight, high durability and excellent isolation properties. The annual production in 2019 reached almost 370 million tons [1]. This high demand and long environmental persistence caused their widespread accumulation into the environment. Environmental weathering of plastics leads to fragmentation into smaller particles, and fractions less than 5 mm are called microplastics [3]. Microplastics pose a potential risk for filter feeders, which can end up consuming plastic debris [4] and for all trophic levels [5]. The bioavailability, translocation and toxicity to organisms increases [6]
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