ask our experts about
your home-made bioplastic project!

The basic recipe for any plastic is:

- a polymer
- a plasticizer
- any additives you want to change the properties of the plastic

For bioplastics, you can use gelatin or starch for the polymer: you can use corn starch or potato starch or tapioca... as long as it is a pure form of starch and doesn't have other things in it. If you use gelatin use plain unflavored gelatin.

For the plasticizer, the most common is glycerin which you can buy at any drug store. If you have access to a chemical supply store, you can try to get sorbitol or agar, which also work well.

Although you need at least one polymer and one plasticizer, you can use different amounts of each and you can combine them, and the end result will be a slightly different kind of plastic.

In the video, Brandon uses: 1 tablespoon of potato starch, 4 tablespoons of cold water, 1 teaspoon of glycerin, and 1 teaspoon of vinegar.

Here are a couple of other possible combinations you can use:

Combine 36.0 g (12 tsp) gelatin with 480 ml (2 cup) 1% glycerol solution. Dry this in a THIN sheet and it should give you a clear, firm (not very bendy) sheet. The kind of material you could cut and use in a picture frame.


For something harder and thicker that you could use to make buttons or decorations, combine 3.0 g (1/2 tsp) glycerol and 12.0 g (4 tsp) gelatin with 60 ml (1/4 cup) hot water. At this this high concentration of gelatin, the mixture will begin to foam and froth before it reaches 95 degrees C. Heat it only until it begins to froth. Wait until the froth reaches the top, and then lift it off. You want to use the liquid underneath. Pour the liquid into a mold of whatever shape you want, add food coloring if you want to change the color, and then let it cool and dry.

The second recipe is especially resistant to heat and water.

But as you can see: you use the same basic ingredients, but change the proportions, and you can get a wide variety of plastics.

Good luck with you project!