Bioplastics

be back with us very soon. So, Lauren, I wanted to tell you a story that I find curious to kick off our podcast today, and it's a story about how millions and millions of years ago, there were all these little ancient life forms living in the ocean and over the millions of years, what a life forms do? They die and they sank to the bottom of the ocean, and they, over millions of years and pressure and geologic action got turned into oil cool, the stuff we love

today to its precious car blood. That is right, right sure, But it's not just precious car blood. It's also the stuff we used to make plastics, which sounds so crazy. Well it's crazy, and it's sort of an irony because The word plastic is something we often use as sort of a synonym for artificial or not alive, you know, kind of fake synthetic, like the plastics from from the epic Mean Girls. Oh of course, there you go, But if you go back, it comes from life. Isn't that

kind of a beautiful story and a strange irony? It is. It is both of those things. Although I guess I mean the plastics that we make from that oil are very man made and and artificial. There are all so naturally occurring plastic esque substances. Okay, yeah, like maybe sort of like tree rubber, sure, sure, stuff like that. Yeah, um, but but we have to process that oil type stuff a whole lot in order to get what we know is plastic out of it. Yeah, what what are plastics?

What does that word actually mean? I know, it doesn't actually mean fake. It just means something that can be shaped or molded basically. Um, oh that makes sense. So, like when we talk about the neuroplasticity of the brain means the brain can be reshaped, it's changeable, and plastics can take on many different characteristics. You know, we can we can make something that's very flexible or something that's

very rigid. We can make something that folds under pressure or that's really good at maintaining its shape, all out of basically the same polymers and um, it's really easy to mass produce compared to a lot of other traditional materials like stone or wood. Easy to mass produce, an easy to uh cut and join in shape and reshape.

I'd imagine that might have something to do with the fact that we already have an industrial pipeline that's supplying us with lots and lots of oil, the raw material you used to make plastics, right, right, Because during what's called the cracking process of refining oil, you get some useful chemical byproducts. UM. For for example, here raw hydrocarbons. These things can be processed further to create hydrocarbon and and other carbon monomers, which can be further process to

create polymers. And Okay, that that the molecules in plastic are called polymers, which is a chain of smaller molecular units called monomers. Um. They're they're like the individual links in a polymer chain. Yeah, they're like really long sequences

of repeating the same unit over and over right, right exactly. However, all of this processing requires a little bit of experimentation with different types of monomers, and by binding them in different amounts and arrangements, you can create all of these different types of plastics that we've been talking about, right, because I'd imagine the plastics that make your polyester suit are different from the plastics that make your grocery bag and the plastics that make the hard things that fit

on parts of your car. I would I would imagine so as well. Although some of them are really weird and tricky and and and kind of flow together in ways that you wouldn't expect them too, but most of them are chemically inert, which is a really important factor here because it means that you can put plastic up next to other stuff and not have it interact with that stuff. Oh right, So like you wouldn't want to make, say a beverage containing container out of stuff that might

react with the beverage you put in it. That would be generally speaking bad. Yeah, um and okay, So so you don't have to worry too much about it. There's there's a little bit of controversy and study and worry that many consumer plastic, especially soft plastics, which make up

a large amount of the consumer plastic continuum. Um do in fact leach chemicals into surrounding materials, and sometimes toxic chemicals, but that that is probably a whole other different podcast um and and hey, okay, so even if plastics do not interact with the stuff around them, that lack of reaction isn't all good all the time, because the same stability that makes plastics so useful for holding stuff and carrying stuff and not wrinkling even after you've put it

through the washing machine will also make it resistant to decay, which means that plastic tends to stick around for a really long time in landfills. Joe, you looked into how long this is? Yeah, okay, so there's a statistic you see floating around. Not a statistic, it's just a number. And I wondered where it came from. You've probably heard this. The plastic grocery bags you get at the store, it takes them five hundred years to decompose in a land. Uh.

I don't know if that's true. From what I write, Uh, it looks like so the polyethylene you find in the grocery bags will take a really really long time to decay. We we know that, Uh, the five hundred years thing from what I've read, that's more just kind of an estimate that stands in to say, a really really long time. We don't know how long. And the reason it takes so long is that we're really not getting any help from the biosphere in decomposing this product. Plastics like that

are not biodegradable. So when you put say a chunk of wood or paper or food waste into the garbage dump, all the bacteria is say, hey, just free lunch food, and they go in and they eat it up, and they decompose it and turn it down into lots of different little chemical constituents, and it gets recycled into the atmosphere and the soil and stuff like that, the whole circle of life. Right. Biodegradable is basically a really fancy

word for bacteria like to eat it out. But plastics like pet are not food for these bacteria other microbes. They're not interested, not delicious. They see that, they say, not delectable. I turned my nose up at it, and I will go munch on this, you know, pile of feces over here. So so how do you how do you plastics, I mean, do plastics breakdown at all. Yeah,

so they undergo not biodegradation, but something called photodegradation. So when you shine sunlight on plastics, the UV radiation breaks the plastics down into smaller and smaller pieces over time, and this is how plastic floating in the ocean breaks down over time. Unfortunately, depending on the chemical composition of

the plastic, the smaller pieces might also be toxic. Also, if you're burying plastic in a landfill, which is what we mentioned earlier, you're burying it away from the sunlight. You're probably not helping the photodegradation process along. However, if you're looking for biodegra a dation, not all plastics are the same. For example, by adding biodegradable additives to normal plastics,

you can make them more appetizing to the microbe. So, for example, you might substitute just one percent of the volume of a plastic resin load with pellets of biodegradable additive, and if they work as advertised, they can make that so that the bacteria look at that and say yumm,

and get in there and eat it up. So there are questions there about well, okay, so if you put this additive in there is the plastic going to perform just as well and in its industrial use or in its consumer use, and generally I think we're pretty good at that now, Like we can get it pretty much working the same with these additives that make it yummy. But as we introduce this, part of the appeal of plastics is that they're not yummy tomcro, and that they're

not easily reactive. Right. Sure, so you're so you're changing part of what we liked about the thing in the first place. Um, but but hey, another issue you involved with the waste products that are made of plastic. Some landfills don't just bury their waste, they burn them, and incinerators too. So so how how do plastics fair when you apply fire to them? Well, I have burned lots of plastic army men as a child and stood over them breathing the delicious fumes. And that's not good for you,

is it? No? That is that is bad? Well, especially if if you're doing it at low enough temperatures, and by low enough temperatures, I mean like below eight fifty degrees celsius a k a sixteen hundred degrees fahrenheit ut rocket I think under that I could be I could be incorrect. Um, but but yet nasty chemicals can be released during that process. Um. There's these carcinogenic toxins called

dioxins that will break down under high enough temperatures. Um. But yeah, but but it can be released into the air or leached from ash into the vironment if you go down below that threshold that I mentioned a minute ago. And even if you're doing it properly, which landfills do. Uh, some some toxins can still be released as the emission gases cooled down. Even if you are Okay, let's say that you're doing it totally correctly, you're not worried about

dioxins anymore. You do still have to worry about carbon dioxide. Burning plastic creates more carbon dioxide then would be produced if you just let it decompose in a very sunny landfill, all of all of those sun landfills, right yeah. Um, And uh, you know that there are some like high efficiency energy recovery systems that recapture some carbon dioxide and can use it as fuel, um, reducing your carbon footprint from burning plastics. But that's a really specific case. Not

not all landfill systems have this sort of thing. Yeah, so i'd imagine if you're talking about traditional petro plastics, probably one of the best things you can do with them is recycled, the recyclable ones, right, Oh, absolutely, and lots of them can be recycled. I mean it very rarely. It's considered more expensive than is really worthwhile. But plastics are one of the things that that most recyclers really enjoy working with because you get a pretty good return

on on investment. Um. However, lots of plastic just doesn't get recycled. According to Harvard's Wiss Institute, which will come up again in just a moment, only three percent of the three million tons of plastic that we produce every year worldwide is recycled. That's that's terrifying. So what happens to the rest? They just throw it and garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean. Yeah, either either in the ocean and landfills, it gets burned, etcetera, etcetera. I think I

read that garbage patches like mostly plastic, isn't it. I have not read anything about it, but I am extra terrified. Now. Yeah, No, I mean, I mean it makes perfect sense that you know that that people are I mean because especially since any many other kinds of waste are going to either decompose or have been taken out forehand. Like, no one's gonna put steel in the middle of the ocean because steel is valuable. You're going to take that out first,

and it's not going to float. Yes, I'm glad that we have a really good group on science here on this show. Now that'd be at the bottom would be the Great Pacific Garbage Pile. Yes, okay, But but so aside from the Great Pacific Garbage Pile, there are some other answers to to what to do with all of this plastic, or or how to perhaps lessen the amount of plastic that is going out there. Lauren, are you telling me that there is a sweeter, more environmentally friendly

way to make plastics? Yes, you can make bioplastics. It's made of smiles. Oh wow, Well I should have probably said, uh, debatably friendlier and sweeter version, right, Yes, I mean, because okay, bioplastics do come from biological sources um which supply polymers used to create essentially very similar plastic products. Yeah, I believe I've I've drank out of bottles before that said they were made with corn. Oh yeah, yeah, that's one

of the most common ones. It's called p l A or polyactide, which is which is usually made from corn. It's starch based and is commonly used in product packaging and clothing. It was invented back in the year two thousand as a collaboration between a couple of chemical companies. The very earliest one, however, was celluloid, which was developed all the way back in the eighteen sixties, made from cotton that have been dipped in acid along with camphor

from the camphor laurel tree. Oh wow, Okay, so I can see in the root of that word that might come from cellulose, like, isn't cotton is basically just cellulose? Right? Plant plants stuff, the cell walls of plant cells are cellulose. That's it exactly. Um. Cell of fane, you know, clear plastic sheets that we use mostly for food packaging, is another bioplastic that was invented in the early nineteen hundreds. Um yeah, and that cell tho stuff. All of these

having the same root. It's it's an organic compound. That's uh. Polysaccharide, which is which is the stuff in cell walls of green plants. Yeah, that's cool. So what else can we make bioplastics from soybeans? Back in the nineteen thirties, Henry Ford actually started making auto parts out of soybeans, and in one unveiled an entire soybean car, which was a

bioplastic body on a on a steel frame. And but but you can use basically any any plant, I mean, lots of starchy stuff, cane, sugar, wood, bark, switch grass, and possibly even food waste can go into bioplastics. UM Like I said that most common one is made from corn um. But uh, like I said, sugarcane p ET a version of polyethylene tetrafthalate. I think I said that correctly, um can be made from sugarcane instead of the usual

petrochemical process. Common, isn't it? Oh yeah yeah? Um? And uh toyota and a T and T use a bioplastic version of p ET in interior trim, and also cell phone case components, you know, respectively. Right right, My, My very favorite kind of bioplastic is pH B and that's polyhydroxy bey rate, which is made from bacteria. And okay, so if you get the right kind of bacteria into

a fermentation tank. It'll churn out biopolymers like lactic acid and polyesters, which can then be processed into monomers, into polymers, into plastic. So these are made in these big bioreactor things, like bioreactors, Right, Yeah, I just love to get inside one of those. I don't think you would. I think it would be warm and stanky. I don't think I don't think that's a place for Joe. Okay. Uh So I mentioned earlier that it's debatable, but that bioplastics might

be net benefit for the environment over petroplastics. What what's the deal? Why might they be better? Well, some are biodegradable, so they will eventually break down under the right conditions, and those conditions depend upon the type of bioplastic. Okay, But the important thing to say there is that they're actually biodegradable, not just not just they break down into smaller pieces under the sunlight, but that bacteria will actually

eat them, little animals eat them up, and tournamento chemicals. Yes, yes, and and those those conditions range from regular old landfill conditions um, although that is certainly not ideal um, because you you really need oxygen in the process of biodegradation and landfills are not where oxygen is hanging out most of the time. Um to. Some can be biodegraded in home com posting, which of course would depend on you knowing which things of yours you can are bioplastic. And yeah,

and also you actually composting. Um. I am certainly too lazy to compost, which I feel pretty bad about. Actually sometimes I do some accidental composting. Um. But but there's there's also industrial composting, which is definitely a really great way to get bioplastics to biodegrade. However, not everyone has access. Most most home consumers do not have access to industrial composting. Yeah,

I was thinking, how do you get it there? Yeah, you don't basically, um, like like large enough contracts through For example, if a if a hotel uses entirely bioplastic containers for its i don't know, shampoos and water bottles and whatever else it sells, or a stadium. You know, any time that you've got a captive audience and you can pretty reliably get a whole bunch of bioplastics together, you can sell those or send them to a to

an industrial composting thing. Okay, so let's say we're in one of those places where you just uh, you know, burn everything, burn it all. I get in that mood sometimes, I understand. Do they provide any real advantage over regular petrochemical plastics when it comes to incineration. I mean, it's it's definitely worth saying that they can be incinerated. I've read part few things saying they can be incinerated. It's sort of considered a form of recycling. You're not recycling

the material, but you're reclaiming energy. Sure, I mean, plastics are very energy dense, and so as a as a kind of post process fuel source, they can be pretty awesome. However, Uh, we couldn't find any sources that stated really definitively um, exactly what chemically happens when you burn bioplastics um. And this is partially because a lot of the sources out

there are makers of bioplastics. While some pro bioplastic literature says that you can reduce the carbon emissions, like the bioplastics don't add to the net carbon emissions like the right, but we're not We're not entirely sure. Some some definite downsides to bioplastics. Most of these actually come in with kind of consumer misunderstanding of the product's life cycles, like you were saying earlier, knowing whether or not this thing

that you have should be put in your compost um. Uh. Number one is is bioplastics can create a lot of recycling havoc. Even a relatively small amount of bioplastic mixed in with regular plastics can contaminate an entire recycling batch, which is bad times for everyone involved. UM. Like we like we said, most bioplastics do indeed need to be composted. They will not fare very well in landfills. Bioplastics do produce methane, which is a greenhouse gas when they decompose,

and is actually worse than CEO two. Yeah, yeah, it's well, everything's bad, but it's not. It's certainly not good. Um. Similarly to the CEO to collection process, landfills and other dumps can can collect methane and use it as a fuel source. But still that's only if they have put that in place. UM. And also, you know, if you're growing crops in order to make plastic, you're using fields that could be creating food for people or for livestock.

In fact, the corn that goes into p l A S is generally a livestock feed, which is referred to if you're really interested in corn number two yellow Dent's number two yellow dent d n T dent. Yeah, I don't, I don't. I don't know. I've never honestly been that interested in corn. Maybe I should be. Maybe, maybe it's a whole world that I've never explored. You know, when a plant has a number in its name, it sounds like a pencil like like plant, more like a like

a robot prototype. I'm sure that there is a long and interesting entomological reason for for that thing. Okay, but so um so, once once get away from from all of the types of bioplastics that we've been making for the past decade or two, which I mean are are pretty cool, Like like like we're being a little bit skeptical here, but we want to make it clear that this is not necessarily a giant pansia for for the future of plastics, right. No,

but I encourage this research, oh absolutely so. So there so there's more research being done. Just in the spring

of we are recording this. You may in fact be listening to this um Harford's White Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering announced that they had created a bioplastic made from shrimp shells um, specifically from the polymer kitson, which is a form of kitan, which is the second most abundant organic material on the planet, being that it makes up crustacean shells, insect exo skeletons, some insect wings, other stuff

like that. You know what, It would be great if you had a factory making this that was right next to a seafood restaurant, because what do you do with all those shells? It's always a shame when you eat shrimp and then on the edge of your plates, what do you do with them? Well, on an industrial level, what is done with that kind of stuff? Apparently it's made into all kinds of weird stuff, including makeup things I never knew about shrimp shells. Yeah, your face, it

smells like the ocean. Okay, back back to back to this bioplastic. These these researchers from Harvard specifically combined this kiti sin with with wood flower, which is a byproduct of wood processing um, to help it maintain its shape, which was a cost improvement over the traditional beef upper for kiton, which is a protein from silk which is

pretty expensive. Yeah, and and so the researchers say that it can be maths manufactured for using all kinds of objects like toys or cell phones or trash bags, packaging diapers, and that it breaks down in just a few weeks, even degrading into like plant friendly nutrients, Like if you put plants in stuff where this is buried, the plants

will be happier and healthier. Okay, So for using this to make stuff like toys and cell phones and stuff like that, why doesn't it break down while you're using it? Or is it just for burner phones? Probably that's it. No, Actually, a none of the reports that I read, and I don't think that the as of the recording of this podcast on MA I couldn't find the actual article in print that this research. This was all press releases ahead of print, so so this is kind of the pre

release version. And I could not find any information on what exactly what kind of degradation process they were talking about here. Okay, So it might need to be in the presence of some other materials, or it might need to be in a composting situation, it might need to right some kind of chemical thing. I'm not sure yet. Well there, well maybe maybe whenever that publishes, we can throw up a blog post yeah, yeah, define discussing shrimp plastic. Yeah.

And and they're not the only people obviously working on this kind of thing. That My other favorite story from the headlines is that a team of students from Imperial College London won an award in the International Genetically Engineered

Machine Competition for a specific bioplastic manufacturing process. Um and and this this process of theirs was that they retooled the genetic code of ecoli, the bacteria, the bacteria, so that these critters can break down normal old landfill waste into bioplastic monomers, which you can process into polymers, which you can process into plastic. So we may in the future be turning trash into happy meal toys. Yeah, we might be turning old happy meal toys into new happy

meal toys. Circle of Life. Yeah, it's kind of beautiful, right, So so I'm really hoping that that becomes a thing because because in the in the meanwhile, you know, but bioplastics, being that they come from a renewable resource, are a step up in the carbon footprint area from petroleum based plastics.

For sure. Um, you know. But but but like we said, they are not absolutely perfect, and and getting rid of them is difficult, and plastics are so useful that it's it's also not viable to just get rid of plastics entirely, right, So, so what's the future of plastics? Well, I think this is one of those things where we're sort of coming in in the middle of a conversation about the supposed benefits of bioplastics compared to petroplastics, and we're just going

to see how that turns out, I guess. But especially if there's ongoing research about new ways to make it, uh, that might have a big impact on what those pros and cons are in the future. Oh, certainly. And also research like this might help reduce the cost of bioplastics, which has been one of the barriers to introducing them more widely because they're more expensive, I mean, and and

a range of more expensive. I think at the low end they might be more expensive than traditional plastics, and at the high end a lot more than that, depending on on what type of thing you're comparing to what other type of things. Okay, but yeah, so so you can you can find all of our stuff at FW thinking dot com. If you would like to further get

in touch with us, you can email us. That is FW thinking at Discovery dot com and we are on many forms of social media including Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus. Our handle again is FW thinking and we hope that we will hear from you either way. Who will hear from us again really soon? For more on this topic in the future of technology, visit forward thinking dot Com brought to you by Toyota. Let's Go Places,