Plastic products have been widely used in various fields, such as packaging, food industry, electronics, construction, and many other industries; among which about 16 billion disposable coffee cups are consumed every year and half a billion plastic straws are discarded every day worldwide. However, it takes as long as 450 years or even longer for some plastics to degrade, especially single-use plastics such as plastic bags, lunchboxes, and disposable cups, accounting for 40% of the total plastic production and rendering severe “white pollution.”Meanwhile, every year about 8 million tons of plastic waste is dumped into oceans, which has caused significant harm to marine life. Current “white pollution” treatment includes landfilling, incineration, and recycling, among which landfill treatment is the primary approach to handling single-use plastics; however, it is difficult for plastics to degrade naturally, which causes water pollution and restricted agriculture development. For plastic incineration, toxic substances produced such as fluorine, chlorine, and carbides can deplete the ozone layer and harm human health. Waste plastic recycling is the best solution so far to reduce the “white pollution” but complex and high-cost treatments are generally involved, which has significantly hindered its development. In fact, about 14% of the 78 million tons of plastic packaging produced last year were recycled and only 2% of the recycled plastics have been recycled into the same or similar-quality applications. Therefore, developing environmentally friendly and biodegradable alternatives to current plastics represents an emerging need for a sustainable future.
Synthetic plastics, especially those used for food packaging, have been ubiquitously used worldwide over the past decades. Most of these plastics are nonbiodegradable, which have led to severe environmental concerns. Replacing the plastics with biodegradable, compostable, and environmentally friendly materials represents an urgent need. In this work, we developed all-naturally biodegradable, hygienic, water- and oil-stable, mechanically durable, low-CO2-emission, and low-cost tableware using eco-friendly sugarcane bagasse fiber and bamboo fiber through a scalable pulp-molding method. Furthermore, CO2 emission from the production of molded pulp tableware was lower than that of PS plastic products and traditional papermaking. Meanwhile, low production costs made molded pulp tableware an excellent alternative to plastic and even the expensive PLA products. Therefore, this scalable molded pulp tableware is a desirable substitute for traditional nonbiodegradable plastics, especially for food packaging.
