Sorry, I am a stickler for exactness, especially when it comes to plastics.
There are thousands of plastics.
Hemp plastic can only replace a few of these.
However, the one in can replace is polyethylene, and that is a large portion of what we consider as waste/recyclable plastic.
Biodegradable and recyclable do not really go together.
In current recycling manufacturing, you have to add enough new plastic to make the recycled plastic item strong enough. If you use a faster degrading plastic, then you will run into more product failures. Product failure of a container is messy to say the least.
You really do not want a biodegradable plastic as parts that you don't want to degrade. Imagine the seals on your in well pump being made of biodegradable plastic. That's just asking for trouble. Or the bushings on many of your kitchen appliances. Or even the containers you get to hold your pens and paper clips.
So, hemp plastic may replace a large swath of what we consider disposable plastic containers. However, we may find that recycling is not done with them. Currently it doesn't pay to recycle plastic. As in, if you could directly make fuel out of the plastic, it doesn't make enough fuel to truck the used plastic back to the manufacturing plant. The plastic recycling industry has to be subsidized. So, if it is really biodegradable (without sunlight) than throwing the hemp plastic in the dump is cheaper and better for the environment. Also, it will save from plastic bottle rupturings due to using half degraded plastic.
Very true. It would seem we need more than just a few solutions to solve this riddle.