Will the large-scale production and application of biodegradable plastics affect the food crisis?

At present, the global production capacity of biodegradable plastics is about 1 million tonnes, with an annual growth rate of about 20%-30%. At present, biodegradable plastics such as PBAT from fossil-based sources are still predominant. The main biodegradable plastic prepared from corn starch among these plastics is PLA, which currently has a global production capacity of about 280,000 tonnes/year and an apparent consumption of about 160,000 tonnes/year. Even if all the reported PLA production capacity construction is realized in recent years, the biodegradable plastics prepared from corn starch will only be about one million tons, which will not yet have a fundamental impact on food. In addition, companies such as Anhui Fengyuan have developed and stockpiled technologies to prepare chemical monomers such as lactic acid using non-food raw materials for fermentation. Therefore, the degree of impact of developing biodegradable plastics on the food crisis is very low from the last 5 years and even longer.