Can biodegradable polymers make microplastics?

The more people hear or read about microplastics turning up in air, drinking water, placentas, and brains, the more they want solutions. “It becomes very personal,” says Shannon Pinc, senior circular economy manager at NatureWorks , a Minnesota-based company that makes polylactic acid (PLA), one of the most common compostable plastics. NatureWorks and other makers of biodegradable plastic are putting forward their products as one of those solutions. But even biodegradable plastics shed microplastics, though they won’t persist indefinitely. They will continue to break down and eventually become food for microbes. While some experts emphasize that this is an unambiguous improvement on conventional plastics, which will stick around for hundreds of years, others stress that the degree of improvement depends enormously on what these polymers are used for and where they wind up at the end of their lives. Richard Thompson , director of the Marine Institute at the University