(Cleveland, Ohio) — In a world increasingly plagued by the and lastingenvironmental harm of petrochemical-manufactured plastics , companies are investing. We are spending 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 left after cutting hand-sliced onions may have been made of bioplastic threads that harmlessly dissolve in the body.
But the early bioplastic industry was worth nearly $600 billion. It envisions a much larger role for materials made from corn, sugar, vegetable oil and other renewable materials in hopes of capturing a larger share of the global plastics 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 major 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 that they cannot break down completely, breaking down into smaller particles.
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So far, bioplastics Only 1% of global plastic production. If plastic made from fossil fuels is Minnesota's giant Mall of America, bioplastic is 7-Eleven.
Companies and investors see opportunities. Investments in bioplastics manufacturing will hit $500 million in the first three months of 2022, and in the final quarter of 2021 he will top a record $350 million, according to i3 Connect data. I'm here. 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. Factory in Winchester, Kentucky The Georgia-based company uses microorganisms that ferment in canola oil to make 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 PHA producers in the world.
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Danimar's PHA-made straws and plastic drink stirrers are sold to Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts, and Used in large venues such as 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 in the marine environment and two years in soil, he said. said Mr.
The other major bioplastic on sale today is he 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 a $600 million factory in Thailand that will increase production capacity by 50 percent, Leah Ford, the company's global marketing communications manager, said in an interview. .
The company's "largest visibility market," according to Ford, is 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.
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Some Starbucks stores use his PLA-lined disposable cups from NatureWorks, Ford said .
NatureWorks has become something of a game changer in the UK. There, PG Tips, a big name in tea, 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.
Researchers at McGill University in Montreal published a study in 2019 that found that when petroleum-based polyester tea bags were steeped in boiling water, billions of microplastic particles were leached out. Approximately 60 billion cups of tea are consumed in the UK each year.
One of the criticisms of bioplastics made from corn and sugar is that they use arable land on thehunger-stricken planet, a concern Ford has justified. Called nothing.NatureWorks uses sugar extracted from corn and uses the remaining kernels to produce sweeteners, ethanol, edible oils, and livestock feed.
PLA Unlike PHA, it is not readily biodegradable in nature. 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 maker 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 factories in the Americas, said Raj Kirsch, vice president of research and development at CJ Bio. I'm here.
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Blending bioplastics offers a lot of value proposition in the final product,” Kirsch said in an interview.
Ramani Narayan, a professor of chemical engineering 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." He said it banned the use of the term “biodegradable.” The world needs to replace petroleum plastics with plastic materials that are verified and certified to be fully biodegradable, he said.
Narayan concedes that bioplastics are more biodegradable than petrochemical plastics, which can take centuries to decompose, releasing worrying microplastics along the way. However, the fact that PHAs take longer to decompose in cold seas and lakes than in warmer climates should not be coated with sugar.
"It will take time. You have to say yes," Narayan said.
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