The present work focuses the degradation rate of compression moulded Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE), High Molecular Weight High Density Polyethylene (HMHDPE), Linear Low Density Polyethylene (LLDPE) and PLA (Poly lactic acid) films in comparison with solvent casted starch (corn and potato) films under different media. The control film (0 week) and degraded films were subjected to various physical and thermal test (density, crystallinity, tensile, melt flow index, Young's modulus, elongation) and biodegradation quantification (mass loss, swelling index, haze, transmittance, gloss). The microstructure revealed that potato starch film containing lower amylose content (21%) and 2ml (32 wt% of starch dry basis) glycerol (plasticizer) produced transparent, uniform, thin (117 mu m) films with higher tensile (3.16 MPa) and good surface gloss at 45 degrees (17.4%) whereas corn starch films (water solubility - 40.26%) has a higher biodegradability rate in all the media (94.23% in vegetable waste and 99.99% in 0.1 N HCl) can act as a better biofiller. The highest degradation was observed in soil in which LDPE showed the maximum weight loss (0.974%) and drop in tensile load at break (30.176 N to 14.93 N) and HMHDPE showed the minimum value of 0.868% and 44.67 N to 40.24 N respectively in one year. (C) 2019 Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.