Comparison study on degradation of plastic hygiene products by using Pleurotus Ostreatus

Abstract

Research was conducted to determine the degradation of sanitary pads, Drype rs diapers and Giant diapers, which are made up from Polyethylene (PE) and Polypropylene (PP) plastics. These types of plastics is non degradable and can cause environmental problem such as increase the greenhouse effect and water pollution. The analyses including mechanical properties, morphology of the samples by using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), weight loss, and chemical properties of the samples by using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) were performed in this research. Abiotic degradation, biotic degradation and combination of biotic and abiotic dedgradation were examined in this research. A fungus Pleurotus ostreatus was used as a degrader via its mycelium for biotic degradation. The weight loss for sanitary pads are 17%, 31% and 60% while 33%, 46% and 67% respectively for Drypers diapers after 90 days of abiotic, biotic and combination degradation. For Giant diapers, the weight loss are 21%, 39% and 36% respectively after 90 days of abiotic, biotic and combination degradation. During degradation, tensile reduction also increased for all the samples. The changed in the result reflected in most of the properties, the intensity in the FTIR spectra decreased and surface properties were changed because of the degradation occur. The research showed that combination of biotic and abiotic degradation were faster to degrade due to the higher weight loss, higher tensile reduction, have an obvious physical alterations such as cracks and holes.