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Polyhydroxybutyrate: Plastic Made and Degraded by Microorganisms

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Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology

Abstract

The United States discards approximately 25 million tons of plastic household waste every year; most ends up in landfills, where it may remain undegraded for decades (Palmisano and Pettigrew 1992). Because plastics account for 20% b volume of solid municipal waste (Stein 1995), there is increasing motivation for society to find alternate disposal methods for them.

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George W. Ware

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© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Hankermeyer, C.R., Tjeerdema, R.S. (1999). Polyhydroxybutyrate: Plastic Made and Degraded by Microorganisms. In: Ware, G.W. (eds) Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, vol 159. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1496-0_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1496-0_1

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4612-7167-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4612-1496-0

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