Billions Pouring Into Bioplastics

Mark Gillispie

In a world increasingly troubled by the persistent harm that plastic — manufactured in petrochemical plants — has had on the environment, companies are investing billions of dollars to ramp up production of plastics made from natural, renewable materials that can be safely composted or can biodegrade under the right conditions.

Bioplastics have long been used in medical applications. The stitches you got after cutting your hand slicing onions were likely made of a bioplastic thread that harmlessly dissolved into your body.

But the nascent bioplastics industry envisions a far bigger role for materials made from corn, sugar, vegetable oils and other renewable materials in the hope of grabbing a larger share of a nearly $600 billion global plastic market.

Since large-scale production began in the 1950s, fossil fuel plastics have made food safer to consume and vehicles safer to drive, for example. Yet plastics are seen as one of the world’s leading environmental threats with its production responsible for emitting million tons of greenhouse gases each year.

Of the 9 billion tons of fossil fuel plastic produced since the 1950s, only nine per cent has been recycled, studies have shown. The rest has been buried in landfills, burned or has polluted land and waterways. The chemical structure of fossil fuel plastic means it can never fully disintegrate and instead breaks down into smaller and smaller particles.

For now, bioplastic represents just one per cent of global plastic production. Companies and investors see opportunities. Data from i3 Connect show investment in bioplastic manufacturing reached $500 million in the first three months of 2022, exceeding the previous high of $350 million in the last quarter of 2021. The money is coming in from both corporations and venture capitalists.

Zion Market Research estimates the bioplastics market will surge from $10.5 billion in 2021 to some $29 billion in 2028.  Danimer Scientific is one company making a big bet on bioplastic with a recent expansion of its plant in Winchester, Kentucky, the Georgia-based firm makes a bioplastic called PHA using microorganisms that ferment with canola oil. The result is plastic pellets that manufacturers can use to mold products in the same way they use petrochemical plastic.

“We have active development projects for just about anything you can imagine,” said Danimer CEO Stephen Croskrey. 

NatureWorks is building a $600 million plant in Thailand that will increase its production capacity by 50 per cent, said Leah Ford, the company’s global marketing communications manager said.

NatureWorks has become something of a game changer in the United Kingdom, where PG Tips, a big name in tea, has switched from polyester tea bags to bags made with cellulose and a thin layer of NatureWorks’ PLA that are fully compostable.

Researchers at McGill University in Montreal released a study in 2019 that said petroleum-based polyester tea bags leach billions of microplastic particles when steeped in hot water. Around 60 billion cups of tea are consumed annually in the UK.

One of the criticisms of bioplastic made with corn and sugar is that it uses arable land on a hungry planet. Ford called that concern unfounded. NatureWorks uses sugar extracted from corn while the rest of the kernels are used to produce sweeteners, ethanol, cooking oils and livestock feed.

Ramani Narayan, a professor of chemical engineering at Michigan State University, has worked with Cargill in the past to help with PLA production.

Narayan said companies are using biodegradability claims to make their products more attractive to consumers. 

- AP