The circular economy has undeniably become the trendiest business buzzword in the conversation on packaging sustainability. Building on established themes like zero waste, cradle-to-cradle design, and closed loop systems, the philosophical framework is simple: in a circular economy, we don’t extract virgin non-renewable resources and we don’t generate waste. Instead, industrial outputs become new inputs, and thus some of the environmental burdens of resource extraction and solid waste disposal are averted.
In the world of packaging, circular economy thinking owes much of its popularity to the visual and visceral presence of packaging waste. Companies are doubling down on innovations to alter or improve the recyclability of their packaging. Consumers want to able to recycle, reuse, or compost packaging, and the circular economy model fits with consumer expectations of corporate responsibility.
Circular economy thinking focuses most heavily on material sourcing at the beginning of the life cycle and recovery at the end of life, and although this focus is proving to be an effective catalyst for industry action, it’s important not to lose sight of the overarching considerations for the whole life cycle – including the middle. Circular economy thinking should be paired with life cycle thinking and the “sister” philosophical framework of sustainable materials management. Doing so gives more context to the net environmental impacts resulting from the life cycle of a package, placing emphasis on the outcome of the life cycle in addition to its shape. Together, these approaches promote pragmatic, meaningful gains in impact reduction along with the long-term vision of a materials economy devoid of packaging waste.
At SustPack 2017, our panel discussion on Demystifying Packaging Metrics and KPIs explored ways of benchmarking and measuring progress toward both circular economy and sustainable materials management ideals at the beginning and middle of the life cycle. A key takeaway from the session is the necessity of a suite of key performance indicators (KPIs) working in concert to help guide progress.
Jason Pelz, vice president of environment at Tetra Pak, a food processing and packaging solutions company, shared the set of indicators being used by the aseptic and gable top carton producer. To address circular economy thinking on the feedstock side, Tetra Pak tracks the percentage of renewable feedstock materials used to make a package and the level of assurance that those materials were responsibly grown and harvested. On the recovery side, Tetra Pak measures the percentage of consumers that could recycle their product, i.e., those with a municipal program that can process their cartons, as well as the percentage of cartons that are recycled. On the sustainable materials management side, Tetra Pak places emphasis on greenhouse gas emissions incurred by both their operations, toward the beginning of the packaging life cycle, and greenhouse gas emissions incurred across the value chain, appropriately addressing the full packaging life cycle and the carbon footprint of the holistic system of using Tetra Pak’s cartons.
When companies are advised to craft and use a set of KPIs to measure sustainability, a common refrain is “Why so many? Isn’t there such a thing as a single unified metric?” The answer is always no.
We’re all tempted to pursue a mythical singular metric that distills all the numerous sustainability considerations and gives one bottom line measure of success, but a suite of KPIs such as those used by Tetra Pak gives a robust view of progress in the multiple dimensions of sustainability. Furthermore, attention will continue to shift across impact areas, and using a suite of KPIs grants flexibility that can keep industry nimble as the understanding of sustainable packaging evolves. Today, resource management and greenhouse gas emissions are the foremost life cycle indicators. In a few years, it may be water consumption, aquatic toxicity, particulate emissions, solid waste to landfill, or something not at all on our radar today. That shouldn’t be intimidating or prohibitive of establishing metrics. The most important action a company can take to improve packaging sustainability is to create KPIs and use them, like Tetra Pak is doing, to ingrain a system of measurement and management around their processes. Change will come and go, but the idea of a systemic approach to gauge success and progress is here to stay.
Month: May 2017
Categories
Don’t let it go to waste
Americans generate 65 million tons of food waste annually. Could compostable packaging aid in recovering significant amounts of food scraps for composting?
Composting may seem like a new phenomenon, but commercial composting operations have been in business in the United States since the late 1980s. While many people are familiar with backyard composting — collecting kitchen food scraps to be composted in one’s backyard or setting yard trimmings curbside to be composted by municipalities; modern composting operations are more complex. There are nearly 140 active commercial composting facilities in the United States producing rich soil amendments (the end product from the composting process). These facilities process a variety of compostable items, such as yard trimmings, food scraps, and packaging.
Still in its infancy, commercial composting is growing rapidly, due to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) goal to reduce food waste nationally by 50% by 2030 from a 2010 baseline. A study commissioned by ReFed, a non–profit organization, analyzed the best opportunities to reduce food waste in the U.S. Their groundbreaking report determined that centralized composting was the best option, surpassing 26 other solutions to food waste management when comparing waste diversion and emissions reduced.
In areas with centralized composting facilities, challenges still exist. Many composters do not accept compostable packaging, claiming to only want the “good stuff,” also referred to as pre-consumer food scraps (pictured right). Composting facilities will often refrain from collecting post-consumer food scraps and compostable packaging because they believe it will lead to greater levels of contamination. Such contamination can complicate the composting process as non-compostable items will not adequately break down within the commonly used covered aerated static pile system. But refusing to collect compostable packaging might be costing composters a sizable source of food scraps.
There is some anecdotal evidence to support the hypothesis that compostable foodservice packaging significantly increases food scrap diversion. However, few controlled studies have been conducted to specifically measure a relationship between compostable foodservice packaging and food scraps diversion.
The Sustainable Packaging Coalition conducted a study in 2016 to explore how and if compostable packaging can increase food waste diversion rates; bringing more food waste to composters. The study determined the proportion of food to packaging in front-of house areas, as well as how much food was captured in both back-of-house and front-of house areas.
The SPC conducted waste characterizations at five venues, and the results were striking. It was found that compostable packaging could achieve a food scrap capture rate of 35-86% in front-of house areas. Oftentimes, composters do not collect food scraps from front-of house areas due to the possibility of contamination by the public. But at the largest music venue in the study, FarmAid at Jiffy Lube Live Pavilion, all the packaging was compostable, but less than half of the total amount of food scraps were generated in back-of-house areas. Therefore it was determined that packaging served as a vehicle to bring front-of house food to the compostables bin. The study did not account for contamination, the data captured the max capacity for food scrap capture in an ideal environment, in which all waste materials were sorted properly.
Composters are reasonable to fear that collection of front-of-house food scraps can lead to small amounts of contamination, and ultimately lead to costly decontamination processes. Many composters are unwilling to jeopardize the quality of their soil amendment, which often represents the bulk of their revenue. The SPC hopes this study will show composters the potential gains from allowing more packaging into their collection streams. The significant increases in food capture will help offset the cost of decontamination, and ultimately help consumers become more aware and engaged in composting efforts. This is only the start of the conversations with composters, and serves as the beginning for re-evaluating compostable packaging as an asset, not a determent to the compost industry.
Compostable packaging will play a significant role in achieving the EPA’s food waste reduction goal. While 7% of composters already accept compostable packaging, wider adoption is needed to divert additional material. With proper labeling on packaging through the new How2Compost label, contamination can be reduced.
Stay tuned for the release of the SPC’s full Value of Compostable Packaging report later this month.
It’s promising for our future if a sustainability philosophy (circular economy) gets significant attention at a televised global meeting such as the glossy World Economic Forum in Davos. If the “jet-setting C-suite” is now privy to the fact that sustainability could potentially be the best way to mitigate risk in an increasingly complex world (such as partially outlined in Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s The New Plastics Economy: Catalyzing Action report), it means that we can at least have hope that business leaders will rise to fill the void created by the world’s governments facing identity crises and/or those unable or unwilling to make systemic change.
So the fact that over 40 global corporations and organizations have signed on the New Plastics Economy (as well as the similar-in-spirit but different Business Backs Low Carbon) means there is reason for tempered, if not earnest optimism. It is in many ways a relief that a single report is able to capture and explain the momentum around reconceptualizing plastics that has been crystallizing within many organizations and companies for several years now, and point to specifically what that might look like. These important considerations haven’t had quite as broad and deep an audience until the formation of the New Plastics Economy.
On the other hand, it’s no true surprise that an initiative as forward thinking and smart as circular economy, designed and talked about in such a charismatic and compelling way (with pretty PDFs and dynamic web experiences via Ellen MacArthur Foundation and IDEO) would capture the hearts of many.
The flipside to this sense of promise and ambition is the sobering realization that despite dazzling visualizations that demystify potential reuse cycles for plastics or show how to drastically reduce leakage of them into the ocean—the professionals “in the trenches” of packaging sustainability still have to find an actual means to make these enormously large and complicated challenges fathomable, surmountable. In other words, we have to find a literal real life way to make it all work.
Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) is the organization best poised to make many of the New Plastics Economy’s most recent recommendations a reality.
For 13 years, the Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) has empowered industry to blaze its own path towards well-designed solutions that reflect on-the-ground sustainable packaging realities. Over 175 companies are members of SPC because they know that building resilient, circular packaging requires knowing the context of one’s work, specifically how to use sustainability to create value, and what parts of the future you can not only forecast and prepare for, but proactively design. We do that by facilitating conversation, encouraging harmonization, and analyzing and sharing information. Coincidentally, these are the ‘building blocks’ that the Catalyzing Action report precisely calls as necessary.
This means that SPC is an information broker (such as EPAT, SPC’s Centralized Availability of Recycling study), a tool builder (such as Landscape Assurance Model, How2Compost), and a innovation facilitator (for example, evolving the notion of ‘bioplastics’, taking a position against biodegradability additives).
There are a few SPC projects that are particularly well suited to make the New Plastics Economy a reality—especially where the report talks about the need for feedback loops. Specifically, it recommends, “To successfully implement the [packaging] design changes [required for recyclability], communication between packaging designers at the front end and the after use processors at the back end is an important enabler. Such feedback loops would also help to understand further design-improvement potential.”
One of SPC’s projects that exactly meets this description is the on-package recycling label system that is changing consumer behavior and being leveraged to inspire design change: How2Recycle.
How2Recycle is a feedback mechanism that is changing packaging design and consumer behavior in several ways. First, the How2Recycle label equips its members with accurate and credible information about the recyclability of their packaging. The Catalyzing Action report says industry should “implement design changes in plastic packaging to improve recycling quality and economics (eg choices of materials, additives, and formats).” The How2Recycle decisionmaking process already takes this spectrum of issues into consideration when it issues each How2Recycle label, so that each package reflects a custom recyclability assessment.
As long as the penetration of the How2Recycle label continues to proliferate in the marketplace, which is informed by the expertise of the APR Design® Guide for Plastics Recyclability and other industry experts, How2Recycle will continue to drive incentives for specific packaging design improvements. Our members tell us that the How2Recycle label triggers internal conversation about recyclability, gives brands an easy way to talk about recyclability with suppliers, and broadens perspective on material and format choices.
Second, How2Recycle is building an online platform for its members that will enable brands to track the recyclability of their packaging portfolio, meaningfully interpret what that means, and then be provided specific, dynamic feedback for them to improve. This could become a critical tool if companies embrace it in order to measure progress towards and eventually hit their emerging corporate recyclability goals.
Third, How2Recycle is a critical feedback loop because it facilitates peer-to-peer competition. With over 60 companies that represent over 500 brands in the marketplace, How2Recycle members are able to see how the recyclability of their packaging stacks up against others’. In some cases, these comparisons create easy opportunities to make design tweaks to get a “better” How2Recycle label. Voluntary programs like How2Recycle that are based on transparency push the entire industry forward.
Fourth, How2Recycle’s influence doesn’t only flow towards brands, but also in the other direction—towards the general public. If 67% of consumers assume that packaging isn’t recyclable if they don’t see a recycling claim on the package (Carton Council, 2016), and if 50% of consumers tell us in our survey that they are changing their behavior as a result of How2Recycle, this means How2Recycle’s actual and potential future impact is significant. Our data suggests that consumers are not only recycling more because of How2Recycle, but recycling more accurately. For example, How2Recycle’s “Empty & Replace Cap” message on plastic bottles adds an important level of detail so that the caps are far more likely to be recovered and don’t end up as litter—especially in the ocean. Additionally, the Not Yet recycled label helps consumers know what they should not recycle, which reduces contamination at recycling facilities.
How2Recycle is not the only SPC project that supports the idea of a new plastics economy.
Importantly, SPC events such as SustPack and SPC Advance (each fall) transcend traditional silos along the value chain; these conferences bring hundreds of companies into the same room in order to hash out the detailed opportunities and challenges in packaging sustainability. For example, Amazon’s presentation at SustPack in April explored how to design packaging for e-commerce that reduces waste and minimizes damage. In turn, SPC events allow our members to benchmark themselves against the innovation curve. This information means that the professionals within SPC companies can make the internal argument to acquire better resources to accomplish more work—once they understand what industry leadership is looking like and what they need to do in order to stay innovative.
SPC also offers The Essentials of Sustainable Packaging customized training courses that provide companies a comprehensive introduction to sustainability considerations across the packaging life cycle: sourcing, design, recovery, and beyond. By traveling to brandowners’ headquarters, SPC staff talks to design and sustainability teams about how to balance tradeoffs in packaging design considerations and analyze attributes such as forest certification or recycled content. Through this course, SPC is setting companies free with critical information to make their circular economy ambitions come to life.
ASTRX, Applying Systems Thinking to Recycling, is a joint project between SPC and The Recycling Partnership. This new initiative will build a roadmap for a stronger American recycling industry by diving deep into how materials flow through each of the five elements of recycling: end markets, reprocessing, sortation, collection, and consumer engagement. To increase recovery, ASTRX will examine each element of the recycling system, identify barriers to recovering more high quality materials, and develop solutions that support each element and thus help the recycling system as a whole.
The Catalyzing Action report also calls for “scaling up compostable plastics in order to capture nutrient-contaminated packaging.” SPC’s parent nonprofit, GreenBlue, has developed the Composting Collaborative—a group that unites composters, consumer-facing businesses, and policymakers to accelerate composting access and infrastructure in North America. Additionally, SPC will release findings this spring from the Value of Compostable Packaging measurement project, that demonstrates to what extent compostable packaging can play a role in capturing food waste that would otherwise go to landfill.
SPC has both the vision and the means to make the future of new plastic real.
But in order to truly make it all work, as a collective, we have to wade through the Everglades. We have to lay down transatlantic fiber optic cables with our bare hands. This sort of work requires self-awareness, humility, and discipline.
Kelly Cramer wrote a companion piece to this article that can be found on GreenBiz.
Categories
Building up trust in recycling
It has taken decades to build up a culture and an infrastructure to support recycling in the United States. Every Tuesday like clockwork, my neighbors line up their blue carts of recycling next to their green carts of trash. For many people, recycling is as easy as filling up your cart and wheeling it to the curb. Unfortunately this isn’t the case for everyone. Some people have community drop-off sites for recycling and some have no access to recycling at all. Even in those communities where recycling is available, we don’t all have the ability to recycle the same types of products, creating confusion. So how do we know if the work done by all of our recycling leaders to create a recycling system in the United States has been successful and if it’s sustainable?
The panel on Building Trust in Recycling at SustPack 2017, which included panelists Derric Brown of Evergreen Packaging, Keefe Harrison of The Recycling Partnership, and Susan Robinson of Waste Management, tackled this and other questions about the current status and the future of recycling. As the panelists discussed, recycling isn’t easy. While brands and retailers have well-organized distribution systems to supply consumers with products, recycling is essentially returning those materials back to the marketplace through reverse logistics using a complex chain of 20,000 different local governments, over 200 material recovery facilities, and untold numbers of reprocessors and end markets. Creating a system in which all of these different entities can work together takes a lot of effort.
So how do we know if the recycling system is working? Traditionally, local governments have measured their recycling programs using weight, specifically, the tons of material diverted from the landfill. This measurement is easy to collect and makes sense to residents. As mentioned by the panel, another option is to use life cycle assessments (LCAs) as a way to measure the success of recycling. An LCA is a model that assesses the environmental impacts of a product or package from raw material extraction through disposal or recycling.
LCAs are complicated. A number of different pieces of data go into them, and the user can set up the parameters of each LCA differently. The outcomes of an LCA, like the eutrophication potential of a product, can be esoteric to the average consumer. As one panelist said, it would be hard to explain an LCA for recycling to residents. The outcome of an LCA depends on the data and parameters used to complete the model, making the results of one LCA difficult to compare to the results of someone else’s LCA.
While LCAs may be a valuable tool to help understand the carbon impacts of products, they should not be the sole measurement tool for solid waste management. LCAs can be used in addition to the measures already available to us, such as weight-based measures of landfill diversion, as well as waste characterization studies and measures of how much of our recyclable materials make it to the recycling cart instead of the trash cart.
So while we’re not yet able to measure the success of recycling with a single metric, what the recycling system does have going for it is that consumers really want it to work – they want to recycle and they expect to be able to recycle easily, both at home and away from home. As one panelist mentioned, when a material is removed from their recycling mix, they feel a sense of betrayal. When word spread in my community that glass might be ending up at the landfill after going to the MRF, my neighbors took to our neighborhood listserv to express their frustration that they were taking the time to recycle glass but it was not actually being recycled. But others wanted to find ways to keep recycling glass, like taking it to drop-off sites. Because people know that recycling benefits the environment, and they want to contribute.
We should continue to discuss how to measure the success of recycling, including how best to use landfill diversion, capture rates, and LCAs to understand our impacts. But we should also keep in mind the less measurable impacts of recycling, such as empowering consumers to take action that benefits the environment.
Ah, spring. Time to enjoy the warm weather … and take on some of the cleaning tasks you’ve been putting off all winter. But did you know that the cleaning products you choose can affect the air quality inside your home?
Americans, on average, spend approximately 90 percent of their time indoors, where the concentration of pollutants is often several times higher than outdoor concentrations. This can be a particular concern for vulnerable populations, such as the very young, the elderly, or people with existing health conditions, who are both more vulnerable to the effects of pollution and may spend even more time indoors.
Indoor air pollution can come from a wide range of sources, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the products you use, as well as off-gassing from building materials (like pressed wood products that can emit formaldehyde), combustion of wood or fossil fuels in fireplaces or appliances, intrusion of radon or VOCs from subsurface contamination into the building, and even mold. The problem can be exacerbated by modern building techniques, which seal the building from air leaks to promote energy efficiency, but can reduce indoor air quality if there isn’t appropriate ventilation.
Short-term and long-term health effects associated with poor indoor air quality depend on the specific contaminants present. For example, VOCs can contribute to asthma; eye, nose, and throat irritation; headaches, loss of coordination, and nausea; damage to the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system; and even cancer. Indoor air quality can also affect your cognitive function and ability to concentrate, so maintaining high indoor air quality is critical for schools and workplaces as well as homes.
So, what can you do to improve the air quality in your home? One of the easiest steps you can take is to choose safer formulated products, such as cleaning products, thereby reducing sources of indoor air contaminants. Since many conventional cleaning products are high in VOCs and other potential air contaminants, it is important to choose safer low-VOC products to use in your home. Even cleaners made from natural materials can contribute to indoor air quality problems. For example, cleaning products that contain terpenes (e.g., pine or citrus oils) can react with ozone (either from outdoor pollution entering the building or from ozone generators sold as air cleaners) in the air within your home to produce formaldehyde, fine particulate matter, and other pollutants.
When shopping for household cleaners, look for products with the EPA Safer Choice label. These products are required to have lower levels of VOCs to reduce impacts on indoor air quality, plus all ingredients have been screened by EPA and are safer for your family’s health and the environment. The Safer Choice program follows the VOC standards for consumer products established by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the Ozone Transport Commission. These agencies set VOC content limits for personal care products, cleaning products, adhesives, aerosol paints, and more based on the type of product.
Other steps you can take to improve indoor air quality include using paints and other household chemicals with low VOC content, avoiding dry cleaners that use hazardous solvents such as perchloroethylene, and avoiding new building materials such as particle board, plywood, and medium-density fiberboard (often used in subflooring, cabinets, or furniture). If you must use these materials in your home, ensure that adequate ventilation is present. In addition, some studies suggest that houseplants can improve indoor air quality; however, their effectiveness in real-world situations is uncertain.
Indoor air quality is a serious concern. One of the simplest things you can do to improve indoor air quality is to choose safer products that are lower in VOCs – so when you do your spring cleaning this year, look for the Safer Choice logo and enjoy the fresh air indoors and out!
Packaging development is slow, expensive, and hard. The four panelists speaking to Alternative Tech and Packaging at SustPack 2017 underscored this reality and called on the industry to get smart and do it fast.
Frankly, there’s a lot at stake. Dr. Andrew Hurley, Assistant Professor of Packaging Science at Clemson University, set the stage by explaining that an astounding 93% of new products fail within six months of entering the market. And, while packaging is only one factor that contributes to the success or failure of products, it’s a big factor. There is an enormous amount of time, effort, and resources going into a process and product that’s never fully realized.
Today, Hurley explained, most packaging design choices are made by gut-feel. It’s amazing to think that in this day and age, with incredibly powerful tools at our disposal to track eye movement and gather biometric data, we’re still making decisions like Don Draper on Mad Men. All that’s missing are the old fashions.
After conducting more than 1,300 studies with the Sonoco Institute for Packaging Design and Graphics at Clemson, though, Hurley is a clear voice that data-driven decisions aren’t out of reach. Really, they’re quite attainable. House Autry Mills’ Vice President of Marketing, Michael Ganey, is a testament to this fact. After leading a packaging overhaul of House Autry’s milled products that was guided by data Hurley’s team generated, sales increased by 5.5%. Not only was the biometric data able to guide precision decision-making on adjusting graphics, colors, and design, but Ganey reflected that it was an invaluable tool to communicate their design choices with executives. Without irrefutable data, Ganey shared, executives may be more likely to make snap decisions based on personal preferences that may not resonate with consumers.
Coming from a tech background, it is particularly apparent to Adam Harris, Director of Business Development and Innovation at Packlane, that the packaging space as a whole has yet to embrace big data. This has real implications for packaging manufacturers or brands that use packaging to be resilient in a crowded marketplace. Harris expressed that Packlane initially anticipated being most relevant to smaller operations that don’t have the expertise, time, or capital to design and source their own packaging. But, Packlane’s optimized supply chain has proved equally coveted by household names like Ghirardelli, Red Bull, UPS, and Walmart, among others.
This epiphany illustrates Harris’ claim that there are still huge efficiency gains that haven’t been realized in packaging production and distribution by publicly traded companies and start-ups alike. Interestingly, Harris compared the state of packaging supply chains today to that of taxis before Uber and Lyft came onto the scene. Taxis would respond to calls over the radio, blind to their location relative to the rider. In contrast, Packlane outsources production to manufacturers nearest the client, much like Uber and Lyft linking riders to nearby drivers.
Similarly to how Packlane enables smaller outfits to design high-quality packaging in small quantities, Tyler Matusevich, Senior Sustainability Specialist for the Americas at UPM, shared the news of a recent partnership with Finnish craft brewery Saimaan Juomatehdas. The two companies innovated together to meet the needs of small-run packages. With direct printing on Saimaan Juomatehdas’ aluminum cans a cost and capital-prohibitive endeavor, UPM transported the equipment necessary to use UPM Raflatac’s VANISH™ label on small batch craft beer. Both UPM and Packlane’s efforts to provide high quality, cost-effective, and flexible packaging solutions, have in effect democratized packaging. Without right-sized services, smaller outfits would be put at a significant disadvantage in providing striking and affordable packaging to its customers.
In much the same way, Hurley highlights that accessible prototyping and testing is a huge benefit to companies that’s largely unrealized by the packaging industry. Hurley quips that since “Statistically, you’re going to fail. So why not get it over with?” Working through ineffective designs before mass-production by leveraging precise data and actionable feedback from testing can save large sums compared to conventional retroactive approaches to fine tune packaging designs.
The strategies illustrated by Hurley, Ganey, Matusevich, and Harris pose big questions to much of the packaging community. Will biometric data testing become quotidien in R&D? Will right-sized approaches to production and distribution activate untapped market segments? Irrespective of a company’s size, it appears that alternative tech will only become more critical to remain competitive in a crowded marketplace and CPG landscape.
Bioplastics have gained attention in recent years due to their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and, for certain types of bioplastics, the ability to create compostable products, but functionality and cost effectiveness are critical to ensuring they can be used more widely to create sustainable solutions. At SustPack, Marc Verbruggen, president and CEO of NatureWorks, gave a fascinating update on some of the latest developments in the PLA industry.
Bioplastics such as PLA can be made from a wide variety of feedstocks, ranging from crops such as corn and sugarcane, to cellulosic materials such as wood chips or bagasse. Sustainability of a bioplastic — as well as the cost —depends both on the feedstock used and the efficiency of the conversion of the sugar in the feedstock to the polymer. PLA performs well relative to other bioplastics in conversion efficiency, but there is a great deal of regional variability. While use of cellulosic feedstocks to create second-generation bioplastics represents a newer technology, the sustainability of each feedstock must be evaluated on its own merit. For example, in Nebraska, where NatureWorks has a PLA factory, corn is readily available and may be a more sustainable feedstock, whereas in Finland, a locally-sourced cellulosic material such as woodchips may be a better choice – at least given current commercially viable technology.
While plants such as corn, sugarcane, or trees are effective at converting carbon dioxide to carbohydrates, Verbruggen suggested that they may not actually be the most efficient option. The newest technology under development involves the use of methanotropic bacteria and cyanobacteria to create lactic acid directly from methane or carbon dioxide. The resulting lactic acid can then be used to produce PLA. Although this technology is still a few years from commercialization, the prospect of a more efficient third-generation bioplastic feedstock with the potential for lower environmental impact is exciting news.
Innovative feedstocks are great, but ultimately, to gain market share the resulting plastic will need to provide functionality in creative new applications. During his session, Verbruggen shared some new potential applications for PLA. PLA can be used in a sealant web to create a product that is bio-based and compostable, and can also be lighter than a comparable polyethylene product, making it more cost competitive. In addition, PLA-based cups for dairy products such as yogurt can perform better than high impact polystyrene: they can be less hazy and have lower oxygen permeability, in addition to being compostable. Coffee pods are a third potential use for PLA. While standard PLA has not had the necessary heat resistance for this application, Verbruggen argued that crystalline PLA can stand up to the high temperatures of coffee brewing and can also provide good barrier qualities. If PLA can be used to create compostable coffee pods, it could be a great opportunity to help get coffee grounds to the composters who find them valuable in compost piles.
It is exciting to hear about the potential for new innovations in this space, ranging from the ability to create feedstocks directly from carbon dioxide and methane using bacteria to new applications where PLA has the potential to provide improved functionality during the use phase relative to traditional plastics, in addition to being sustainably sourced and compostable.
For more insight into the bioplastics industry, join us at SPC Bioplastics Converge on May 31-June 1, 2017 in Washington, D.C.
SustPack attendees toured Arizona State University’s downtown campus, led by University Sustainability Practices Program Coordinator Lesley Forst, to learn about the how the university’s waste, energy, water, and green building program initiatives contribute to cutting-edge sustainable design. Diverse sustainability efforts were illustrated by Forst and several student employees at ASU’s Office of Sustainability who expertly answered attendee questions and provided a peek at the inner workings of sustainability decision making and implementation.
