Bioplastics are an increasingly well-known alternative to petroleum-based plastics. World need them badly due to environmental pollution (disposal isssues; landfill), global warming , human health concerns, threat to marine life and water bodies, rapid depletion of fossil fuels & legislation. They are derived from biological sources instead of oil. Bioplastics are found to be superior to petro plastics in terms of energy efficiency, petroleum consumption, degradability, carbon emissions, intoxicity, sustainability and safety but inferior to petro plastics in cost.

Different types of Bioplastics were made in the laboratory by varying the source of base polymer (gelatin based, banana based etc) ; by varying the composition of constituents (glycerin, water); by varying the drying technique (Freeze dried, oven dried etc); by adding additives (calcium carbonate, charcoal etc) and tests (i.e measurement of stress, % elongation, density, effect of heat and degradability) were carried out to identify their properties. It has been concluded that bioplastics are more environment friendly in the sense that they can be broken down by environment in weeks in contrast to conventional plastics that take years. They were found to have good general physical properties like tensile strength and heat resistance. Their properties can be manipulated.

Big brand owners like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Tetra Pak, Mercedes, Toyota, Nestle, Nike, Procter & Gamble and Unilever have launched/integrated bioplastic products. However, the Bioplastics can't completely replace the conventional plastics right now since more research and work is required in this field because the sooner we switch to Bioplastics from conventional plastics the better.