Optimization of bioplastic’s tensile strength

The amount of plastic waste is increasing every year. Indonesia per year produces around 5.4 million tons plastic waste, which is 43.4% of plastic packaging waste. Every person throws 700 plastic bags per year and continues due to an increase in consumption of bottled water in each year by 10%. Indonesia is the second of world rank after China, as the largest plastic waste maker in the World with 3.2 million tons of waste. 87 percent of the 3.8 million tons of plastic waste is disposed in each year and dumped into the sea. Hence Indonesian population in the coastal area is responsible for 17.2 kilograms of plastic waste that floats and poison the animals inside. In Indonesia, the potential in developing research and development on bioplastic technology is enormous. Furthermore the biodiversity of agricultural and marine products owned by Indonesia can be used as biopolymers that is very large, including corn, cassava, soybeans, potatoes, and seaweed. Among these natural polymers, material to be carried out in this research is corn. The choice of corn material is based on the abundance of corn in Indonesia. The experimental design was to examine the optimal composition of bioplastic samples made from corn starch and glycerin. The Surface Response method is proposed for optimizing composition materials which are used. D-Optimaly response was obtained by the value of the desirability function. The optimal conditions were 0.5 ml glycerin and 4.72 g corn starch with a tensile strength of 17.18 Mpa.