Branch of Water Spinach Ipomoea Aquatic (Kangkong) as Main Component for the Productionof Biodegradable Pot

Abstract

Plastic is the most exploited material in the society because of its versatility to be used in thousands of product from food storage to plastic bags even to some furniture. Unfortunately, the use of plastic is also the biggest source of soil, water and air pollution. Plastics cannot be degraded and will take hundreds of year before it will decompose in landfill. Plasticulture uses plastic for agricultural purposes like soil film and plastic pots. Water spinach, Ipomoea aquatic (kangkong) branch, a waste material, was used as the main component for bioplastic pot. Bioplastic pots were prepared and moulded mixing 10g and 25g of water spinach pulp in 12x12 glass plate. The film was tested for Strength Test or the Tensile Test (ASTM D882) in the Department of Science and Technology. Soil burial method was done for the biodegradability of the film. The result showed that both samples with water spinach undergo rapid degradation in 5 days after calculating the weight loss. The biopot film with 25g of water spinach tensile strength has mean of 28.6 MPa, which is close to 22.8MPa mean tensile strength of biopot with 10g of water spinach. The elongation at yield for biopot with 25g and 10g water spinach pulp has a mean of 5.17% and 2.52% respectively. The bioplastic pot made from water spinach, Ipomoea aquatic (kangkong) branch exhibits fast degradability and the result of the tensile and elongation allows the film to be used as pots for plants, which may replace the use of non-biodegradable plastics.