The popularization contest « Present Your Research in Ecotox » is back ! We start this 2025 edition with a poster by Marie-Ève Blanchette, an INRS Master student supervised by professors Isabelle Lavoie, Julien Gigault and Jérôme Cachot.
Title : Oxodegradable Plastics: An Invisible Threat to Our Waters.
Summary of the research project :
Her project focuses on oxodegradable plastics: An invisible threat to our waters. Unknown to us, oxodegradable plastics are present in many of the objects we use every day: bin liners, straws, and so on. Thanks to special chemical compounds in these plastics, they break down faster than other types of plastic when exposed to heat and UV rays. They then break down into tiny pieces of plastic called microplastics. Good news? Not at all! Oxo-degradable plastics were invented with the idea that they would disappear completely when exposed to sunlight, much like snow melting in the sun. But in recent years, researchers have discovered that oxodegradable plastics do not disappear completely quickly. Even when they are no longer visible to the naked eye, they remain in the environment in the form of microplastics for hundreds or even thousands of years before they finally disappear. These pieces of plastic can be found throughout the environment, in rivers and soil. As a result, they pose a greater threat to the reproduction and survival of terrestrial and aquatic organisms than other plastics. However, there are alternatives to the use of oxo-degradable plastics.
