Category: Articles

An Indian entrepreneur is using sugar, cellulose, and corn fibers to create a plastic-like bag for small Indian businesses. His company, Bio Reform, has already replaced 6 million plastic bags at checkout counters across India.

Based in Hyderabad, Mohammed Azhar Mohiuddin conceived the idea during the pandemic. He focused on society’s heavy reliance on plastic, particularly plastic shopping bags, and sought an alternative.

While large brands were switching to paper or jute alternatives, small and medium businesses in India found biodegradable bags too expensive. Mohiuddin researched a biodegradable polymer called PBAT (Polybutylene adipate-co-terephthalate), developed in the 1980s using corn and potatoes.

After navigating scams and government quarantines to find suitable machinery in Gujarat, his presentation on PBAT secured nearly $100,000 (RS1 crore) in seed funding, allowing him to launch the project. “I tried to balance both my studies and the operations of the company—from collecting raw material, assisting workers to manufacture bags, delivering the products in the market,” Mohiuddin told The Better India. “I used to sleep in a corner in the factory.”

Despite facing bankruptcy, university challenges, and a backlog of orders, Bio Reform eventually turned a profit and now produces nearly 500,000 bags annually, with a gross revenue of $180,000.

“Issues related to plastic pollution are not limited to affecting aquatic life and animals anymore. Today, microplastic has reached our bloodstream. Bottled water contains microplastics. Addressing this is an important and urgent problem,” he told TBI.

Earlier this week we featured an article about two highschool students that developed a novel water filtration device that uses sound waves to remove microplastics from water. They are now working on a way to implement this technology across a wide range of industries and use cases that are badly in need of such a device.

However, researchers just recently discovered another method of removing microplastics contamination from drinking water that is right at your fingertips.

A group of scientists discovered that simply boiling water can remove between 25% and 90% of the microplastics present.

In a study conducted by Guangzhou University, researchers tested two types of tap water—hard water and soft water. Hard tap water is richer in minerals, especially calcium carbonate (limescale), compared to soft water. Anyone who uses an electric kettle or coffee maker is familiar with the limescale buildup that requires periodic cleaning. When the scientists boiled the hard tap water, the calcium carbonate precipitated out of the solution, effectively trapping a variety of plastic particles ranging in size from 5 to 10 micrometers. Remarkably, 90% of these particles were captured in the limescale layer.

The researchers noted, This simple boiling water strategy can ‘decontaminate’ [nano and microplastics] from household tap water and has the potential for harmlessly alleviating human intake of NMPs through water consumption,” in their paper published in February. Even in soft water, which contains less calcium carbonate, roughly 25% of the microplastics were removed. It’s worth noting that most bottled water sold in the U.S. is hard water, as is much of the tap water across the country. Some brands use reverse osmosis or other methods to dissolve minerals, then sell the water as either soft water or ‘mineral water’ after re-adding minerals.

It is estimated that there may be as much as 7 credit cards’ worth of plastic circulating in your body at any given time. While the long-term effects of this contamination are still unknown, studies in mice have found microplastics in every organ, including the brain and placenta.

If you don’t want to wait for the slower, more comprehensive solutions, like the sonic filter, filtering and boiling your drinking water could be a great option. Or just drink tea I guess.