Plant Plastic Potential
Image courtesy of Kaufmann Mercantile
This article originally published in the Kaufmann Mercantile Field Notes.
WE ARE OIL ADDICTS
Plastic is ubiquitous. There are few industries that do not make use of this durable, lightweight and inexpensive material. It has many benefits — reducing weight in cars, for example, saves gas emissions, as does preserving delicate foods like lettuce from rotting before it hits the dinner table.
But plastic is also made of oil* — to the tune of a billion barrels a year — and accounts for about 8% of the annual worldwide oil consumption (4% for the plastic itself, 4% for the manufacturing process). It can be a toxic and burdensome necessity. One day, the world will either run out of oil, or what remains will be so difficult to extract that the financial cost will become untenable, not to mention the stress it puts on the water, air and food systems that we rely on to live.
We’re not making more oil
PLA (polylactic acid — a.k.a. plant-based plastics) could be part of the solution. The industry is in its infancy but seems to hold some promise. Given the right conditions, development and support, could this be our way forward?
The debate came up at my office on a day when a PLA product landed on my desk. It seemed promising. The material is non-toxic and made from a renewable resource. It’s also compostable… but only if you bring it to a special recycling facility.
Would the majority of people bother? How accessible were these facilities? Ultimately we decided not to carry the product because we weren’t convinced it was in line with our overall mandate to carry as little plastic as possible, and doubted that it would end up in the correct waste treatment system.
Photo by Karina Tess via UnSplash.com
*Oil itself is also made of plants, decomposed many many years ago. So what makes one plant based material better than another? Why is oil so “bad”? The start of the answer is that it’s not inherently bad - it’s all about how these raw materials are extracted, processed, then how they are handled when we’re done using them. This may seem obvious, but absolutely everything around us comes from nature, oil included. More on this in a later post as we dive into how our interventions into raw materials make a huge difference in their negative and positive impacts, especially at the design stage.
It may be that we always use some form of plastic. But if we could make it out of our kitchen scraps and then compost it right in our backyard, that would start solving a lot of problems. We’re not there yet, but combined with finding ways to radically reduce our waste, plant-based plastics could be a step in the right direction with research and public education put into action.
All design decisions come down to trade-offs. To be able to navigate your way through that process, it is helpful to take a look at the pros and cons before jumping into what might seem at the outset to be a really exciting option. Here is a starter list to jumpstart a bigger discussion about the future of materials such as PLA.
PROS
1) Encourages crop planting, which adds oxygen into the atmosphere and creates a new source of income for farmers.
2) Uses less energy and produces fewer emissions during manufacturing than conventional plastic (always check with LCA - life cycle assessment - professionals to verify this data).
3) Derived from a variety of renewable resources, like sugarcane, wheat, corn, rice and even bacterial fermentation or kitchen scraps, which relieves urban waste issues.
4) No expensive retooling needed, since existing plastic production facilities can be used for creating PLA products.
5) Compostable (meaning, the product is non-toxic, supports plant life and can be broken down at the same rate as paper) in the proper facilities. Some varieties can even be composted at home.
6) Supported by a large coalition of heavy hitters, such as Wal-Mart, Ford, Coca-Cola and Nike, and overseen by the WWF, ensuring continual research and development.
CONS
1) Could be sourced from GMO copyrighted crops or in drought ridden areas, and as labeling is not required this is hard to uncover.
2) Replaces one type of waste with another, instead of reducing waste in general.
3) Uses arable land that could be growing edible (rather than industrial) food.
4) No comprehensive systems set up to separate PLA items from regular plastic — a necessary step in the composting process — and direct them to the proper facility.
5) Many PLAs still cannot be composted or biodegraded in conventional facilities, landfills or your backyard. Unless they reach specialty facilities, they will stick around for a long time or contaminate systems they are not designed to be in.
6) Labeling is inconsistent and still in the early stages of regulation. There are many varieties of PLAs, which require different types of processing for composting/biodegrading/recycling. For now, consumers need to do their own research.
FURTHER READING
* Ford experimented with soy, hemp and cotton based plastics in the 1940s. Although unsuccessful at the time, that research continues today.
* Other new materials continue to be developed, such as edible aloe-based bio-plastics and coatings. Biomimicry and “natural” plastics from agricultural and animal byproducts also offer promise.
* Check with your local composter to find out if they are set-up to handle PLAs. Although not required, some products have a BPI label which independently tests and certifies member products for compostability.
