Plastic fantastic

The new age of biodegradable, petroleum-free plastic cups, plates and cutlery.

Carol Greenhouse | March 2008 issue

When architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart published the groundbreaking 2002 book Cradle to Cradle, which called for achieving environmental sustainability through cutting-edge science and design, they couldn’t have predicted that multinationals like Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola would subscribe to the philosophy. Nor could they have known that only half a dozen years after their book appeared, biodegradable, petroleum-free plastic would help their idea come of age.

Frederic Scheer, founder and CEO of new-plastics manufacturer Cereplast, expects “bioplasts” to replace conventional plastic packaging within a decade. Say goodbye to plastic forks, straws, cups and to go boxes? That’s right. Firms like Solo and Alcoa have partnered with Cereplast, based in Hawthorne, California, to manufacture cups, plates and cutlery made of starches extracted from potatoes, corn, wheat and tapioca. When you’re finished with them, take them to an industrial compost facility or just chuck them into a home composter, where they’ll vanish without a trace within a few months.

“People are seeing that it doesn’t make sense to use a disposable cup for 15 minutes produced from oil that takes 70 million years to make and then send the cup to a landfill for 500 years,” says Scheer, a former investment banker who established the Biodegradable Plastics Institute in 1998.

Biodegradable plastics—which have only become competitive as the price of oil has soared—require less fuel and release less carbon dioxide than traditional plastics during manufacture, and could reduce annual landfill waste by thousands of tons. Plus, they’re safer than conventional plastic packaging, which may leech toxins into food.

Cereplast, along with firms such as NatureWorks and DuPont, is working to develop low-petroleum plastics for use in more complex products too. Cereplast’s hybrid resins, for example, contain half the petroleum of traditional plastic and can be used in everything from toys and electronics to medical equipment and sports cars.

Some firms are even growing their own plastics. Metabolix, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has genetically engineered switchgrass, tobacco and sugarcane to contain plastic polymers. The stalks of the plants can be processed to make durable plastic. Plant plastics could be ready for commercial use within a few years, giving a whole new meaning to the term “growth industry.”

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