BIOPLASTIC
The
New Beginning
Bioplastic Innovators
Helping the environment, one discovery at a time
The Biome Bioplastic company has been conducting research on bioplastics for the last 20 years in the UK.This amazing company has been creating new forms of bioplastic to replace the oil based plastic used in everyday lives. They have produced their very own biopolymer. Elaborating on this idea, they created a bioplastic that had new temperature standards. Shortly after they had experimented with film and lignin.
Recently the company has created coffee cups and lids produced from natural, renewable resources. CEO Paul Mines states“Our solution is making biopolymers that can be made into fully biodegradable coffee cup and lid combinations. The result being a bio-based takeaway cup disposable either in a paper recycling stream or food waste stream."
Biome Bioplastics
Elif Bilgin, 16, lives in Istanbul,Turkey. She had been working on creating a new form of bioplastic for 2 years from banana peels. She wanted to created a plastic that was not petroleum based. She had hoped to create a non-decaying plastic that could be used in cosmetic prosthetics or in electrical insulation of cables.
Elif states,"During this project, I was seeking the answer to this question. The problem that I was trying to solve was that the plastic we use in today’s world contains petroleum derivatives and these are causing environmental pollution. If plastic can be manufactured by the use of banana peels , then this plastic would become a rival to the petroleum-based plastic we use nowadays. The rival banana-plastic would provide the consumers of plastic with an alternate option and this would actually decrease the rate of pollution of the environment caused by the use of petroleum-based plastic thus, providing the generations to come with a planet worth living in."
​Elif Bilgin
At Harvard Wyss Institute, Doctor Javier Fernandez developed a biodegradable plastic from shrimp. The shrimp contains chitosan which is formed to make a silk fibroin protein. The new product that had been made is called "Shrilk". The purpose of this was to create a new bioplastic that could be biodegradable and be able to allow living organisms to grow ounce decomposed into the soil.
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He states that, "Today, humans produce 300 million tons of plastic per year and recycle only 3%, leaving the other 97% to break down in oceans and landfills where they harm the food chain and our environment.". The purpose of bioplastic is to help the environment and to make life a more sustainable for a longer period of time. The drive to make the world a better place. The people and animals can all benefit from this innovation as well.
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Harvard University
Scientist at Centre sustainable Chemical Technologies have created a plastic that is made only of carbon dioxide and sugar. This is done my adding carbon dioxide to thymidine, a naturally occurring sugar, at a low pressure and room temperature. This process creates a polycarbonate, a tough plastic that is usually derived from oils. by changing the oil for sugar, this creates a biodegradable plastic. This sugar plastic is very easy to break down, only needing the enzymes found in soil bacteria.
This plastic is also non toxic as harsh chemicals are omitted from the production process. Many polycarbonates contain bisphenol-A (BPA), which leaks into the human body as it travels from the plastic to the consumers goods. “Our process uses carbon dioxide instead of the highly toxic chemical phosgene, and produces a plastic that is free from BPA,” said Dr Antoine Buchard, a researcher at the University of Bath department of chemistry. Furthermore, thymidine is also present in human DNA, making this bioplastic bio-compatible for tissue engineering as this sugar is present in the human body. “So not only is the plastic safer, but the manufacture process is cleaner too.” Dr Antoine Buchard.
Centre of Sustainable Chemical Technologies
Biofase A Michoacán based company have been the first to make straws from avocado seeds. It had begun with Scott Mungía, chemical engineering student, who was looking for a raw material that coulkd be used to make a new form of bioplastic. After many tests, he had then found and effective method to extract a molecular compound from the avocado seed and have a new biopolymer. This avocado-based bioplastic biodegrades after 240 days when buried or exposed to the elements in the ground.
By 2013, Mungía patented his bioplastic process and found Biofase to manufacture his product. It wasn't until 2016 that he had started to manufacture his bioplastic products such as cutlery and straws. As of now, there is a monthly yield of 130 tonnes of bioplastic and 40% are straws. The company exports 80% of its products to the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, Colombia and Perú.
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Biofase