What I mean by plastic-like is biodegradable materials that replace a purposely designed subset of these functions of things plastics are really good at: Water

What I mean by plastic-like is biodegradable materials that replace a purposely designed subset of these functions of things plastics are really good at: Waterproof Variable stiffness - Flexible / Rigid Airtight Lightweight Capable of being colored Injection Mold process capable Variable opacity - Transparent / Opaque I think cellulose/lignin/chitin based materials could replace many of these functions, there's some progress on that front but not nearly enough to chase down plastics.