ADM and Metabolix will make bio-plastic. What about Novamont's Mater-bi?

A press release today (4.23.07) says Archer Daniels Midland and their partners, Metabolix, will be producing "a family of high-performance natural plastics that are biobased, sustainable, and completely biodegradable," to be called Mirel Natural Plastics. The production plant is slated to spin up in 2008, with the aim to produce 110 million pounds of Mirel per year.

The PR headline says Mirel will be "the first biobased and fully biodegradable plastic." That probably depends on one's definitions. There's already an excellent material on the market called Mater-bi, made by the Italian company Novamont. This starch-based stuff is used to make all sorts of carriers and containers, like the gelato container and apple tray shown here, courtesy of Novamont. It's also the basis of ASTM-certified BioBags, which can take the place of polyethylene bags in most circumstances. The 13-gallon BioBag, which we use for office trash and shredded paper, is advertised through an Amazon link in the left-hand column of this blog.

Here's a good "Ten-Second Plastic Bag Lesson," found on the BioBags box:

"Regular polyethylene-based plastic bags can take over 100 years to degrade and are not compostable. Less that 2 percent of all plastic bags ever get recycled. Plastic bags litter our streets, backwoods, and waterways. Studies indicate that 100,000 marine animals and 2 million birds die every year from ingesting or being caught up in plastic debris.

Some manufacturers are blending additives to polyethylene to produce "degradable" bags. Unfortunately, this process fragments the bags into pieces that do not meet the ASTM D6400 standard for biodegradable and compostable plastic.

BioBag products are based on starch, vegetable oil and other renewable resources. No polyethylene is used in the production process. We are fully certified by the Biodegradable Products Institute to be 100 percent biodegradable and 100 percent compostable. Please be sure the biodegradable products you buy are properly certified...

BioBags are shelf-stable, just like paper towels, yet biodegrade quickly when exposed to nature's elements and micro-organisms, leaving no harmful residues behind."

It's a great time to be a farmer, isn't it?   

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