Bioplastics- Compostables- Certifications
Bioplastic Definition
Innovative Materials Solve Plastic Pollution
When you ask the average person, “What’s the easiest and quickest way to solve plastic pollution,” odds are, they’ll tell you to stop using single-use plastics. Skip the straw, use paper grocery bags, a reusable water bottle, the whole nine yards. But how are we supposed to send food to the far reaches of the world, drop clean water in war-torn areas, or protect ourselves from deadly pandemics like COVID-19? The truth is, single-use products are a necessity. What isn’t a necessity is plastic. When we began producing these single-use products, plastic was a quick, functional, and most importantly–cheap–option. However, we never considered the long-term consequences that would fall on our planet. Back then, plastic really was the best option for single-use products. But today, we have materials that can function just as well as plastic, and cause little or no harm to our planet. The key to solving plastic pollution isn’t elimination, it’s innovation.
What type of innovative material could replace plastics in the manufacturing of single-use products? Simple: bioplastics. Bioplastics are materials that function similarly to petroleum-based plastics, but are made from a biological base, and are biodegradable at the end of their life. This makes both their beginning-of-life (production) and their end-of-life (disposal) much more environmentally friendly, while still providing the functionality that is needed from a plastic material. Bioplastic materials can be molded, extruded, and blown into a variety of products that could easily replace their traditional plastic counterparts. With a much more sustainable beginning of life, these materials are already better than those that are petroleum-based.
When it comes to the material’s end of life, most bioplastics are compostable, meaning they will break down into usable compost in a relatively short amount of time (under one year). There are two categories of compostable bioplastics: industrial and home. Industrially compostable materials need to be taken to a specialized facility that can control other variables during the composting process, like moisture, temperature, and airflow. Home compostable materials can biodegrade anywhere on Earth–even in the oceans with the proper material thickness. Traditional plastics on the other hand simply break down into smaller and smaller pieces, leaching toxic chemicals into the environment as they do so. The end-of-life for compostables has no negative effect on the planet and actually provides a positive product to be used to support the growth of new feedstocks for the next generation of bioplastic materials.
Single-use products have made it possible for us to keep the world healthy, fed, hydrated, and safe. The solution for solving the planet’s plastic problem shouldn’t require us to give up the convenience and necessity of single-use products. And realistically, it doesn’t have to. Compostable bioplastic materials make it possible to have all the functionality required and expected of single-use plastics, but with none of the environmental impact that comes from utilizing petroleum-based materials. Single-usage isn’t the problem, the material is. And we’ve found the solution. The plastic pollution problem has truly been solved.
What Are Bioplastics and Why Do They Matter?
Bioplastic. It’s a word that’s becoming much more common in our vernacular in recent years. The single-use plastics industry is constantly looking for new ways to be more sustainable, and integrating bioplastics into the industry is one of those ways. We started with recycled-content materials, but those materials will still end up in landfills at some point. We then moved on to bio-based materials, which are made completely or mostly out of renewable or biological materials. While a great step forward, bio-based materials aren’t necessarily biodegradable or compostable, and most likely will still end up sitting in landfills. Finally, we’ve reached bioplastics, which by definition are biodegradable, meaning they will break down to innocuous elements or materials. As bioplastics become more common in the single-use consumer products industry, it’s important for businesses to understand exactly what bioplastics are, and why they’re important.
The written definition of bioplastic is a type of biodegradable plastic derived from biological substances rather than petroleum. The key word here is biodegradable. Other materials that are labeled as bio-based or other phrases are not guaranteed to be biodegradable; they only indicate that a large portion of the materials used to make the product are biologically-based. It states nothing of the product’s end-of-life. Many bioplastics also qualify as compostable, meaning that the elements or compounds they break down into also contribute to and create a great nutrient-rich fertilizer with no ecotoxic effects and supports plant growth. This is a key difference between bioplastic products and bio-based products. This difference makes bioplastics the more planet-healthy option.
There are two bioplastics that currently dominate the industry: polylactic acids (PLAs) and polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs). The main differentiators between these two materials are their feedstocks and their compostabilities. PLAs are made from a corn starch or sugar cane base while PHAs are from a canola oil base. On the back end, PLAs must be composted in industrial or commercial facilities under specialized conditions, while PHAs can compost just about anywhere on Earth (including being able to biodegrade in both the oceans and landfills in many cases). The complexity of the compost conditions for PLAs is one of the largest limiting factors for the material, as it can be difficult to find facilities that will be able to compost them. PLAs also become brittle over long periods of time, giving them a shorter shelf life than products made from other materials. For PHAs, the novelty of the material is it’s greatest barrier. There is still much research to be done to scale up the industrial production of PHAs cost effectively.
Humans like convenience. We like not having to worry about our drink spilling from a sippy lid because we didn’t want a straw. Bioplastics allow us to have the convenience of a straw and lid without any of the environmental guilt associated with petroleum-based plastic products. As usage of single-use products and packaging continues to rise, we need to find ways to lessen the impact of these products on the planet. Making them from bioplastics is a start. Especially PHAs, which will break down nearly anywhere on Earth in a fairly short period of time. The single-use problem has truly been solved. The question is, are we ready and able to make the changes that we need to? Or will we let our planet and the wildlife that calls it home continue to suffer? It’s time for a change. It’s time to do the right thing. It’s time for the bioplastic future.
