A team of researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have developed a plastic that can degrade by 98 per cent in home compost within a few days.
The new material uses enzymes to chew the plastic down to non-toxic molecules, eliminating microplastics.
Co-Study author Professor Ting Xu says the molecules turn PLA into lactic acid, a food source for soil microbes.
"If you want to get a material to become a part of nature, we should go with what nature has already developed," says Professor Xu.