Since PLA made its commercial-scale debut in 2002, resin suppliers have raced to develop a range of biopolymers that decouple plastics from fossil fuels, reduce GHGs, and offer viable end-of-life solutions.
By Anne Marie Mohan, Senior Editor, Packaging World
The Midwestern Pet Foods-branded PlantBag is constructed of at least 30% bio-based PE extruded with fossil fuel-based PE.Seventh Generation’s 100-oz laundry detergent bottle made is from recycled HDPE and bio-based PE from sugarcane.NaturALL infographicThe first brand owner to trial the Tetra Rex Bio-based aseptic carton was Finnish dairy Valio.
The Midwestern Pet Foods-branded PlantBag is constructed of at least 30% bio-based PE extruded with fossil fuel-based PE.
Seventh Generation’s 100-oz laundry detergent bottle made is from recycled HDPE and bio-based PE from sugarcane.
NaturALL infographic
The first brand owner to trial the Tetra Rex Bio-based aseptic carton was Finnish dairy Valio.
On April 2, 2002, Cargill Dow, LLC, now NatureWorks, LLC, celebrated the grand opening of its Blair, NE, plant for the manufacture of polylactic acid (PLA) corn-based biopolymer. It was the first global-scale manufacturing plant capable of making commercial-grade plastic from annually renewable resources and was heralded as “a second industrial revolution” by then President and CEO of Cargill Dow Randy Howard.
What followed was a frenzy of interest by the packaging community, which saw the development as the silver bullet that would solve the issue of the depletion of natural resources used for packaging by decoupling plastic from fossil fuel as well as address plastic packaging pollution (PLA is biodegradable and compostable).
At the celebration, Dr. Patrick Gruber, then Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Cargill Dow, said, “The idea of creating a more sustainable business model is to establish a new industrial system where society can go on forever without depleting the earth’s natural resources, without compromising people, and helping to create a better quality of life.”
While the material, now branded as Ingeo, found applications in foodservice packaging and film wraps, among others, it was not a silver bullet after all. Concerns soon arose about its use of food crops, the energy required to grow and harvest the crops and produce the materials, PLA’s contamination of recycling streams, the lack of composting infrastructure in many countries (making its compostable properties moot), and PLA’s low resistance to high heat and humidity, low heat distortion temperature, low flexibility, and long mold cycle time.
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