Electronic Journal of Biology, 2017, Vol.13(3): 274-279 ISSN 1860-3122 - 274 - Abstract The population growth in the present era and the great advances made in life has made the human beings inclined towards various industries and materials as a result of which the production and the accumulation of the waste materials in the environment are inevitable. Plastic industries are among the most important and most frequently applied industries and they are widely used and also the increase in the effects brought about by the non-degradable plastic waste has been turned to a growing concern. Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) and Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), naturally produced by a great number of the microorganisms, can be considered as a substitute for the ordinary plastics and, unlike the plastics derived from petroleum, PHAs are completely biodegraded in one year by the microorganisms and turn to water and carbon dioxide and return to the nature. PHA and PHB are polyesters produced under imbalanced growth conditions in microorganisms. These polyesters are comprised of hydroxy fatty acids and they are considered as a relatively complex class of reservoir polymers synthesized by bacteria and archaea and deposit in cell cytoplasm in the form of nanometer- size components. Keywords: Bioplastic; Biodegradable; PHA; PHB. 1. Introduction Plastics are used in manufacturing industries including automobiles to medicine. Plastics are very useful because, as synthetic polymers, their structure can be manipulated chemically and they can be given a wide spectrum of length and shape. Their molecular weight is in a range of 50000 to 1000000 Dalton (Da) [1]. The US annually discards about 25 million tones of home plastic wastes and these waste materials are usually disposed in garbage dumping landfills where they might remain undegraded for ten years [2]. Since plastics account for 20% of the urban solid wastes volume, there is a high incentive for the society to find alternative dumping methods [3]. The conventional plastics, used at present, are made of petroleum material, undegradable sources [4]. These materials are predominantly made through carbon- carbon binds which resist degradation. Therefore, recycling plastics plays a significant role in conserving the environment. Plastics are readily recyclable. For example, polyethylene can be washed, melted and changed five times in their physical characteristics [5]. Polyvinyl chloride and poly acetone are used in manufacturing plastics to a great extent. Plastics can easily take any favorable form like fibers and thin films. They have a high chemical resistance and their elasticity might be very much or very little. Thus, they have found their ways into some disposable and re- usable products as packing material. The difficulty with which such plastic products can be degraded or recycled is their unfavorable feature. The plastics, featuring a xenobiotic nature, are problematic in microbial degradation [6]. In the recent years, there has been a growing trend of public worries related to the harmful effects of plastics derived from petroleum material on the environment. The mechanisms devised by the nature and the self-regulating abilities cannot fight back the new pollutants because these mechanisms and devices used by nature are unfamiliar with plastic materials and this has made some countries begin developing biodegradable plastics. According to the estimations, more than 100 million plastics are produced annually. The plastics annual use in the US is 80 kg per capita and it is 60 kg per capita in European countries and it is 2 kg per capita in India [7]. Forty percent of the 70 billion pound plastics produced annually are discarded in landfills. Several hundred tons of plastic are annually discarded to the marine environment and finally pile up in the oceanic regions. The solution to getting rid of the undegradable plastics is burning them Bioplastics and the Environment Abolfazl Jafari-Sales 1,2, *, Ahmmad Reza Shahniani 1 , Yashar Bagherizadeh 1,3 , Sajad Alizadeh 1 , Mehdi Jahangiri-Hoseinabadi 1 , Mahboubeh Abdoli-Seuejani 1 , Zahra Bamzadeh 4 , Farnaz Rasi-Bonab 5 1 Department of Microbiology, Kazeroon Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kazeroon, Iran; 2 Young Researchers and Elite Club, Ahar Branch, Islamic Azad University, Ahar, Iran; 3 Young Researchers and Elite Club, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran; 4 Department of Microbiology, Shahre Kord Branch, Islamic Azad University, Shahre Kord, Iran; 5 Young Researchers and Elite Club, Marand Branch, Islamic Azad University, Marand, Iran. *Corresponding author. Tel: +98(0) 9147611841; Fax: +98(0) 4142274746; E-mail: A.jafari_1392@yahoo.com Citation: Jafari-Sales A, Shahniani AR, Bagherizadeh Y, et al. Bioplastics and the Environment. Electronic J Biol, 13:3 Received: May 06, 2017; Accepted: July 18, 2017; Published: July 25, 2017 Review Article