In vitro study of mineralization in a market gardening ground of photodegradable film of polyethylene mulching: case of ende plast

The use of the plastics experienced a considerable development these last decades in all the spheres of economic activity. One of the characteristics particularly interesting of the plastics is to be only with difficulty degradable for certain applications. However, elimination can pose problems in the sewage farms. The adopted solutions (incineration, composting, controlled discharge) present major disadvantages in particular the polluting gas emission at the time of the incineration. In the case of the applications leading to a great dispersion of this material which is thrown in nature in the form of "waste sauvage" constituting a visual pollution very badly felt aesthetically like the case of films used in agricultural mulching. To rectify such a situation an interesting solution among so much of others was proposed. It consists with the development polymer film easily degradable by the solar U.V and the telluric flora. The description of the modifications of the mechanical properties of these films, thanks to the additives containing iron stearate according to the Ende-plast process, thus will weaken film in small pieces which are then reinstated in the ground during the ploughings. In order to answer on becoming it of these pieces of film in the ground, we directed this present study on the telluric phenomenon of biological breakdown of these polymers. Using tests led to the laboratory thanks to a device of aerobic incubation we studied the mineralization of the organic matter of a market-gardening ground and added substances which are the glucose and of the photo polyethylene artificially degraded under lamps U.V. the experimental results obtained make believe that the degraded photo plastics conceal a positive effect on the mineralisatrice activity of the ground. They do not induce in any moment an inhibition of the biological activity. The results still showed that some is the amount of the substances incorporated on the ground their curves of total mineralization remain with the top of that of the witness (ground). This is probably due to the additives containing iron stearate which are easily metabolisable by the microorganisms of the ground.