Australia's first certified soil biodegradable plastic mulch | Landline | ABC Australia 

The neighbours run a 100 acre strawberry farm in SE QLD. The stench each year when they burn tons of plastic is horrendous. I'll let Him know about this. Thank you

As an aside; cellophane is biodegradable. I buried a piece in 1986 to test this theory. I check on it every 2-3 years. It hasn't biodegraded one bit, it looks the same as the day I buried it.

Avoiding plastic in the first place is the only solution moving forward. Government should tax all oil based plastic asap and fund projects like this!

Is there really such a thing as biodragable plastic? Or is it only recycled plastic that breaks down into minute particles in the soil?

My grandfather was using plastic for strawberry farming 55 years ago. What biodegradable plastic will do to the soil will remain to be seen

What a brilliant and beautiful set up for agricultural use

Plastic mulch film is often believed to be a significant contributor to microplastic pollution in farmland soil, however, its direct impact in areas with high human activities remains unclear due to the presence of multiple pollution sources.

Great to see progress in this area. It's just a shame that herbicides are still being used even if it was 'just once'.

Game changer! Thanks for sharing

Very cool. Should be used everywhere

It’s insane to be using acres and acres of non biodegradable plastic every single growing season. Governments need to support this and subsidize them instead of subsidizing waste.

Doesn't the mulch degrade into microplastics?

Absolutely this should be subsidised AND funded!

Dumping plastic has to become way more expensive as its just a problem being stored up for future generations…

Great thx

Awesome!

Great it's great achievement

I wanted to find out about soil treatment we have soil with a low Ph (acidic) the lab recommended 4 tons of lime per hectare which is an (alkaline) to balance the ph when using drip and mulch do you treat the whole field or around the root area since the rest of the field is covered with plastic .

I need this in Uganda.

Working right, this would be an absolute game-changer for organic farmers.

What about the drip line?

How about the big two supermarkets chipping in?

Kallstrom Sweet Corn likes . From Ephrata , Washington state U.S,A,

All this plastic going to landfills, and I can't get a plastic straw ......Great work

the timing is very coincidental. a so called more environmentaly friendly plastic mulch right when the asbestos in mulch scandal just comes out. whats the long term study say on this ?

Micro plastics?

Governments should charge environment cess and duty making. plastics costly. The problem with plastic is that its so cheap that nothing else can replace it, not even paper. If the price increases only, organic and eco friendly alternatives can survive.

I love micro plastics and phytoestrogen in my food

Cool... more plastic

Bout time that the pros and cons are very similar as well as price. As soon as everyone else realises and it becomes the norm the price will decrease further which is always a great thing for our environment

They still end up with micro plastic in the soil if it has petroleum derived polymers.

What's the cost...

Does it last the full season?

Soil for growing things in should be alive with living organisms that benefit the plant. Any herbicide will have a detrimental effects on these organisms. Using the bioplastic should help minimize the use of herbicides. However the farmer needs to be aware that introducing any artifical substances into the soil, will have longer term consequences.

And cassava all similar

Let this come to India also...

One downside is now you're growing corn for your plastic. That requires fossil fuel for the fertilizer and production.

Plastic. Nice.

So is is compostable not biodegradable? The latter could mean anything and could mean microplastics as a result. The title of video should be updated as I’m sure it’s certified compostable not certified biodegradable

As we see a lot of bad solutions from Australia for the time being. I would fear that this one will turn out bad to and be Not as biodegradable as advertised 😮

I can't see how that benefits the soil and the soil microbiome. Much better to go regenerative farming

still contains petroleum, if only partially. still greenwashing, if only partially.

Not convinced it isn't toxic. Like every other "biodegradable" plastic that has existed. Ok watched to the end, I'm slightly more convinced it might be ok...

Why make it with "fossil raw material"? Does the plastic have softeners in it like almost all normal plastics? If so, that will leave a harmful residue. It's hard to detect, so I don't think we can say yet that it totally biodegrades. I *would not buy* any veggies grown using it, until many reputable labs test the soil for the usual chems.

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It boggles the mind that these Aussie farmers aren't all in on solar and full electric implements. If a cherry farm in Cromwell South Island New Zealand can do it every horticulture farm in Australia can. We hear farmers have good business sense but do they really? Cherry farmer exception.

Biodegradable plastic is basically just plastic that is not UV stabilized. Biodegradable Plastic decomposes into smaller and smaller pieces but chemically it doesn't change; think of biodegradable resins and polymers as a granite countertop. Decomposed granite as a garden additives are the same as the countertop only it has decomposed/degraded. Micro plastics are carbon molecules, so to say it breaks down completely is not entirely true. It becomes visually unrecognizable so the amount applied per volume of land is sufficiently small to claim that nothing remains after it decomposes in the environment. The manufacturer uses conventional plastics in the feed-stock, what did they add to make it dissolve into nothing in the environment? In Pennsylvania loaded with fly-ash drive the roads with hundreds of thousands of tons annually as a means of redistributing it and other toxic substances into the environment: they leave their dump gates ajar and the wind and rain spread it out. The residual part per whole amount applied relative to the vast expands of farm land is mathematically small enough to say that the plastic never existed but that is only due to a rounding error. Take a short ton of it, dig a hole, take a soil sample of the soik in the pit, put your bio film in a hole, don't cover it because it will turn into dark "carbon" rich soil, finally take a soil sample after 1 year and see what you've got and think about what has been left for your grandchildren through the miracle of "science" through agricultural laziness.

🤦‍♀

Is this going to be like plastic water bottles? A few years later....sorry guys nano plastics are in your food now

Don't rely on the government to help.

😂😂😂😂😂😂

its against the law to burn horticulture plastic

Is this bad for the earth though?

Couldn't they just use cardboard as everyone else?

Big PASS