Reference no: EM132252646
Metabolix
Metabolix is an entrepreneurial firm that has invented the first 100% biodegradable plastic. This innovation has reduced the time of plastic decomposition from hundreds of years to several months. Metabolix now faces the challenge of making this environmentally beneficial product in a cost efficient manner.
Non-biodegradable plastic is a pollutant of the environment. There is much discussion on the adverse effects of non-biodegradable plastic and our over-reliance on plastic-based products. While most of the debate has focused on recycling non-biodegradable plastic, Metabolix saw the opportunity to invent a biodegradable plastic that would compete head to head with petroleum-based plastic.
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Despite an increasing emphasis on recycling, only 7 percent of the plastic used by Americans is currently recycled. The remainder goes into landfills or ends up in lakes and oceans, where the plastic poisons fish that consume it. One vivid place to find the consequences of plastic use is in the middle of the ocean over a thousand miles off the California coast. It is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a collection of mostly plastic trash that has been estimated to be up to twice the size of France, formed as ocean currents pull plastic trash from coastal areas.
How do we reduce our reliance on non-biodegradable plastics that clog our landfills and oceans? Metabolix, a small firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is stepping up with an innovative solution-environmentally friendly biodegradable plastics. Plastic is typically made from petroleum, and the products made from petroleum-based plastic can take hundreds of years to decompose in landfills. Metabolix has developed a process to make plastics out of plant materials-the first 100 percent bioplastic product that is both biodegradable and durable enough to stand up to heat and use. The firm uses a genetically engineered microbe that consumes the sugar in corn, producing a plastic molecule called PHA. Plastic products made from PHA will decompose in water or soil in a few months. The products are so pure that consumers can toss them into their backyard compost piles and use the resulting mulch in their vegetable gardens or around their fruit trees.
To manufacture and sell the product, Metabolix has created a joint venture, Telles, with agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). They sell the biodegradable plastic for around $2.50 a pound, about twice the cost of typical, petroleum-based plastic. Since they can't compete head to head on price with other plastics and want to maximize the ecological benefits of their product, Metabolix and ADM have initially focused on getting their plastic used in products that would not normally be recycled. Instead of trying to get their plastic, Mirel, used in plastic bottles, they have aimed their sales toward plastic gift cards, bags, forks and knives, container lids, and disposable pens. For example, one of the first products to use Mirel is a biodegradable Paper Mate pen. One of the benefits is that the pen uses so little plastic that the use of the higher cost bioplastic has a minimal effect on the overall cost of the pen.
Metabolix is aiming to improve the cost efficiency of its product to be able to compete with other plastics by developing genetically engineered non-food crops, such as switchgrass and oilseeds, that will produce the PHA polymer within the plant and require less processing to extract into usable plastics. Their goal is to grow 160 million tons of plastic-producing plants to produce 15 million tons of bioplastic per year. This will reduce the need for petroleum and landfill space and, hopefully, begin to reduce the size of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Sources: Dumaine, B. 2010. Feel-good plastic. Fortune, May 3: 36; Ziegler, J. 2009. Metabolix defies skeptics with plastic from plants. Bloomberg, May 7: np; Anonymous. 2009. Drowning in plastic: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is twice the size of France. telegraph.co.uk, April 24: np; Bomgardner, M. 2012. Metabolix: The post-ADM update. Cenblog.org, July 10: np; Verespej, M. 2012. Metabolix finds new partner to make biopolymer Mirel. Plasticnews.com, July 27: np.
What is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?