Extraction and modification of chitosan from fishery waste to develop biodegradable polyethylene films

Abstract

Polymers made of petroleum by products have come into wide use throughout the world. With an increase of their applications, the treatment of waste polymers has become a serious environmental problem because of the difficulty of ensuring refilling land and burning. The principle methodologies of waste management of polymer based products are mechanical recycling, incineration and biodegradation. Mechanical recycling and incineration have technological and ecological limitations but biodegradation is an environmental friendly economical process compared to above two methods. Conventional polyethylene products can take longer than 100 years to degrade, but a biodegradable product has the ability to break down, safely and relatively quickly, by biological means, into the raw materials of nature and disappear into the environment. Therefore these polymers can be considered as a solution for the plastic waste disposal problem.