Article Author:
Associated Press
Mark Gillispie
CLEVELAND (AP) — In a world increasingly plagued by the persistent environmental harm of petrochemical-manufactured plastics, Companies are investing billions of dollars to increase the production of plastics made from natural, renewable materials that can be safely composted or biodegraded under appropriate conditions.
Bioplastics have long been used in medical applications. The seams created after cutting hand-sliced onions may have been made of bioplastic threads that harmlessly dissolved in the body.
envisions materials made from corn, sugar, vegetable oils and other renewable sources to play a much bigger role, hoping to capture a share of nearly $600 billion globally. . plastic market.
Since large-scale production began in the 1950s, fossil-fuel plastics have made food safer to consume and cars safer to drive, for example. However, plastic is considered one of the world's leading environmental threats, with its production contributing millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year.
Studies show that of the 9 billion tonnes of fossil fuel plastics produced since the 1950s, only 9% has been recycled. The rest is buried in landfills, burned, or pollutes land and waterways. The chemical structure of fossil fuel plastics means they can't break down completely, breaking down into smaller particles.
Bioplastics currently represent only 1% of global plastic production. If plastic made from fossil fuels is Minnesota's giant Mall of America, bioplastic is 7-Eleven.
Businesses and investors see opportunities. Investments in bioplastic manufacturing reached $500 million in the first three months of 2022, and in the final quarter of 2021 he surpassed the all-time high of $350 million, according to i3 Connect data. . Funding comes from both companies and venture capitalists.
Zion Market Research predicts that the bioplastics market will surge from $10.5 billion in 2021 to about $29 billion in 2028.
Danimer Scientific is one of the companies making big bets on bioplastics. Located in Winchester, Kentucky, the plant is a Georgia-based company that uses microorganisms that ferment in canola oil to produce a bioplastic called PHA. The result is a plastic he pellets that can be used to mold products in the same way manufacturers use petrochemical plastics, Danimer CEO Stephen Croskrey said in an interview.
This expansion has made Danimer one of the largest producers of his PHA in the world.
Danimar's PHA straws and plastic drink stirrers are used in large venues such as Starbucks and Dunkin's Donuts, and Sophie's Stadium in Inglewood, California. Crosley said.
"We have active development projects for just about anything you can imagine," he said.
Tests have shown that Danimer's products made from his PHA can biodegrade in six months for him in the marine environment and two years for him in soil, Croskrey said. said Mr.
The other major bioplastic on the market today is PLA, polylactic acid, usually produced by fermenting corn and cane sugar. One producer is Minneapolis-based NatureWorks. This is a joint venture between Cargill, one of the world's largest privately held companies, and PTT Global Chemicals, based in Thailand. His PLA company is the largest in the world with a plant in Blair, Nebraska capable of producing 150,000 tons of bioplastic pellets per year.
NatureWorks is building her $600 million factory in Thailand, where production capacity will increase by 50 percent, he said, the company's global marketing communications manager. 's Leah Ford said in an interview.
According to Ford, the company's "largest visibility market" is in compostable food service items such as plastic cutlery, clear cups, wrappers and containers, and food service in restaurants. Along with waste, it transforms into dark organic material to enrich soil in gardens and farms. This is important because food waste clogs recycling machinery and contaminates recyclable petroleum plastics.
Some Starbucks stores use her PLA-lined disposable cups from NatureWorks, Ford said.
NatureWorks has become something of a game changer in the UK. There, his PG Tips, a tea giant, switched from polyester tea bags to bags made from a thin layer of cellulose and his PLA from NatureWorks. According to Ford, it's completely compostable.
A researcher at McGill University in Montreal published his 2019 study, which found that immersing his tea bags in boiling water produced billions of microplastic particles from petroleum-based polyester. said to leach out. About 60 billion cups of tea are consumed in the UK each year.
One of her criticisms of bioplastics made from corn and sugar is that they are taking advantage of the arable land of a starving earth. Ford called her concerns unfounded. NatureWorks uses sugar extracted from corn and uses the remaining kernels in the production of sweeteners, ethanol, edible oils, and livestock feed.
PLA, unlike PHA, is naturally is not readily biodegradable. To biodegrade, it must be mixed with food waste in an industrial composter. Once buried in a landfill, PLA will eventually collapse, which could take decades.
NatureWorks has partnered with PHA manufacturer CJ Bio to produce bioplastics that are more readily biodegradable. Headquartered in South Korea, the company is expanding its factory in Indonesia and plans to build large-scale factories in the Americas, said Raj Kirsch, vice president of research and development at CJ Bio. I'm here.
Blending the two bioplastics "provides a lot of value proposition in the final product," Kirsch said in an interview.
Ramani Narayan, a chemical engineering professor at Michigan State University, has worked with Cargill in the past to help him produce PLA.
Narayan said companies are using biodegradability claims to make their products more attractive to consumers. However, the term is "misused, abused, and abused because everything in the world is biodegradable given the right time and circumstances."
California The state's Narayan pointed out that it has banned the use of the term "biodegradable" in marketing. He said the world needs to replace petroleum plastics with plastic materials that are verified and certified to be fully biodegradable. Acknowledging that they are more biodegradable than petrochemical plastics, which can take centuries, they emit worrisome microplastics along the way.However, PHAs degrade faster in cold oceans and lakes than in warmer climates. The fact that it takes time to do should not be sugar-coated.
"It takes time. I have to say it," Narayan said.