Bioplastic: is it that fantastic?

In the five min­utes it will take you to read this arti­cle, 3,500 tonnes of plas­tic will have been pro­duced around the globe. If that stat isn’t suf­fi­cient­ly alarm­ing, con­sid­er the fact that bare­ly 9% of the world’s annu­al out­put of 368 mil­lion tonnes is recy­cled, either because the process isn’t deemed eco­nom­i­cal­ly viable, or because of a lack of con­sumer aware­ness.

Inven­tors and start-ups have been work­ing hard in recent years to devel­op green­er solu­tions. These have includ­ed every­thing from sea­weed-based straws to tooth­brush­es made using bam­boo. The prob­lem is that many of these inno­va­tions are niche and can’t yet be scaled up com­mer­cial­ly. 

Most bio­plas­tics – poly­mers derived from plant-based sources – that are tout­ed as viable alter­na­tives to petro­le­um-based plas­tics are usu­al­ly pro­duced from the sug­ars extract­ed from cer­tain cash crops. The most pop­u­lar of these poly­mers is poly­lac­tic acid (PLA). It’s being used increas­ing­ly in items such as dis­pos­able cups, cut­lery and sal­ad con­tain­ers. 

Anoth­er is poly­eth­yl­ene fura­noate (PEF). There are high hopes that this can become the stan­dard for bio­plas­tic use in the food and drink indus­try. Com­pa­nies such as Dutch firm Avan­tium are using plant-to-plas­tic tech­nol­o­gy to con­vert fruc­tose syrup from wheat, corn and beet into the com­po­nents of PEF, for instance. 

This has attract­ed the atten­tion of Carls­berg, Coca-Cola and Danone, among oth­ers. The hope is that a num­ber of pop­u­lar bev­er­ages could be com­ing in paper bot­tles lined with PEF in only two years’ time. 

Competing with the food industry 

As bio­plas­tics gain pop­u­lar­i­ty, ques­tions are being raised as to how sus­tain­able these mate­ri­als real­ly are. One issue is whether the sector’s future growth will affect the food indus­try if both have to com­pete for feed­stock. 

This is an unlike­ly sce­nario, accord­ing to Paul Mines, CEO of Bio­me Bio­plas­tics. He observes that total area used for bio­plas­tics pro­duc­tion in 2020 came to less than 0.015% of the world’s agri­cul­tur­al land. This will rise to 0.02% by 2025 if the industry’s pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty increas­es by the expect­ed 25% from its cur­rent lev­el to 2.8 mil­lion tonnes.

Avantium’s CEO, Tom van Aken, agrees. “Cre­at­ing bio­plas­tics from plant-based feed­stock can be man­aged in such a sus­tain­able way that it doesn’t have to be in com­pe­ti­tion with food pro­duc­tion,” he says. “Increased demand for non-food appli­ca­tions could sup­port a health­i­er agri­cul­ture sec­tor through invest­ments in sus­tain­able land use. There is tremen­dous poten­tial to use waste from sus­tain­able forestry man­age­ment, for instance.”

Van Aken pre­dicts that the chem­i­cal and mate­ri­als indus­tries will work close­ly with farm­ers to build new sup­ply chains, ensur­ing that no part of their crop is wast­ed. Bio­plas­tics could be made using feed­stock sug­ar residue from agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion, for instance. To this end, Avan­tium already has a part­ner­ship in the Nether­lands with Cosun Beet Com­pa­ny, which pro­duces sug­ar prod­ucts for the retail and food ser­vice indus­tries. 

Not all bioplastics are created equal

Although the term ‘bio­plas­tics’ has an eco-friend­ly ring to it, not all of these mate­ri­als are actu­al­ly biodegrad­able or com­postable. Much depends on the poly­mers used and, even then, the con­di­tions need to be right for decom­po­si­tion – most bio­plas­tics need to be sub­ject­ed to high tem­per­a­tures. The Euro­pean stan­dard EN 13432 for indus­tri­al com­post­ing requires 90% of a giv­en mate­r­i­al to biode­grade with­in 12 weeks. Com­plete dis­in­te­gra­tion must occur with­in six months. 

In cas­es where indus­tri­al com­post­ing isn’t pos­si­ble, the best option is recy­cling. Even then, the var­i­ous bio­plas­tics would need to be han­dled in sep­a­rate streams, while some coun­tries don’t yet have facil­i­ties that can break down poly­mers such as PLA. If not dealt with prop­er­ly, bio­plas­tics can end up in land­fill any­way, defeat­ing their pur­pose. 

“We have to be aware that any mate­r­i­al pro­duced, even plant-based, can have an impact on the envi­ron­ment if the loop isn’t closed,” says Laeti­tia Van de Walle, CEO of Lamazu­na, a French sup­pli­er of zero-waste nat­ur­al cos­met­ics. Among its prod­ucts is the Ori­culi, an ear swab made using a bio­plas­tic derived from cas­tor oil.

“Con­trol­ling the life­cy­cle of any prod­uct is incred­i­bly impor­tant,” she adds, not­ing that bio­plas­tic recy­cling chan­nels need to improve marked­ly if the mate­ri­als are to become com­mer­cial­ly suc­cess­ful. 

Adjusting our thinking

Despite all best inten­tions to close the loop, bio­plas­tics will find their way into the nat­ur­al envi­ron­ment and become long-term pol­lu­tants, just like their petro­le­um-based coun­ter­parts. 

It is not enough to sim­ply devel­op solu­tions that fit the cir­cu­lar econ­o­my. There needs to be broad­er change, accord­ing to Mines. He hopes to see a tran­si­tion to a bioe­con­o­my, based on chem­i­cals, fuels and prod­ucts, where the process­es of cre­at­ing ener­gy and mate­ri­als go hand in hand.

“The petro­le­um-based plas­tics indus­try has spent a lot of time opti­mis­ing its sup­ply chains,” Mines says. “Replac­ing its prod­ucts with bio­plas­tics will require an adjust­ment in think­ing. Con­tin­ued con­sumer pres­sure, pol­i­cy changes and brands decid­ing to alter prac­tices will dri­ve the tran­si­tion.” 

Until then, the bio­plas­tics sec­tor must con­tin­ue inno­vat­ing to ensure that the loop is closed. It must also cre­ate aware­ness about its prod­ucts’ game-chang­ing poten­tial, while acknowl­edg­ing that they’re not the panacea for the world’s plas­tic prob­lems – not yet, any­way.  

Van de Walle sums it up best. “We believe in the future of bio­plas­tics,” she says. “But we know they’re still far from per­fect.”