Bioplastics are used as a solution to environmental problems caused by plastic. The most commonly used is PLA. It is produced from maize, manioc, beet, etc. And it's labeled as biodegradable and compostable. But one thing is that it is degradable under certain industrial conditions and another in the environment. In fact, this research focused on knowing what's going on at sea.

Ten types of tissues were analyzed: wood cellulose, cotton, PLA, petroleum plastics (polyethylene, polypropylene and terephthalate), and mixtures of petroleum and cellulose derivatives. They are all common in the textile industry, packaging, etc.

These tissues were placed on the sea surface and at the bottom of the sea about 10 meters deep. And every seven days, the samples were analyzed in the lab. Those manufactured with cellulose and cotton degrade for one month, while PLA and petroleum derivatives found no signs of degradation during the 424 days that the experiment lasted.

In view of these results, researchers claim that to classify a material as biodegradable or compostable it is necessary to standardize environmental degradation studies of materials. In fact, although they are degradable under certain conditions, they also pollute the environment.