A more responsible alternative to plastic - Nature Works PLA

Packaging pollutes. At BioPak we would like to be transparent about the fact that the process of manufacturing packaging and the packaging itself impacts the environment. However rather than
accepting this fact, we use it to inspire us to innovate, to find new solutions, to test, refine, research and bring to market innovative packaging solutions that are sustainable.

In our quest to reduce dependence on fossil – non renewable resources, we supply a wide range of
packaging and food service disposables made from polylactic acid (PLA).

PLA is a plastic made from plants. PLA is ultimately a fermentation product. To create PLA, you need pure Lactic Acid (LA). The best way to get it is to ferment sugars. LA must be fermented from a
carbohydrate source, converted to lactide, and polymerized. You need a cheap source of carbohydrates.
The most economically viable raw materials today are corn & cassava, but theoretically, PLA can be
made from any other high sugar plants.

Pursuing PLA as a product option fits perfectly into our core purpose: to use business to inspire and
implement solutions to the environmental crisis.
 

NatureWorks & Genetically Modified Corn

One of the most economical feedstocks used to produce PLA is corn starch, so a big corn wet mill
is required to produce it. The historical economics of PLA required that a producer be vertically
integrated from starch to fermentation to monomer production to polymerization. Energy and corn prices have a large impact on the economics. NatureWorks is a subsidiary of Cargill Dow and the
factory is located in Blair Nebraska right in the middle of the US corn belt and a Cargill wet mill. This is the fundamental reason that PLA from NatureWorks is cost competitive today and currently the largest
producer of PLA in the world.

While NatureWorks PLA meets many of our environmental, quality and performance criteria, it does
have one negative trait. It’s made from genetically engineered materials. NatureWorks PLA is made
from US corn, and while the percentage changes with current market fluctuations, today roughly 30% of corn grown in the U.S. is genetically engineered.
NatureWorks PLA although made from GM corn, does not contain any trace of GM material in the finished products. The PLA resin is certied by Genescan to be free on any GM content.

Does PLA Impact the food supply chain?

There is a debate about bio industries contributing to a crisis in food prices. What about Bioplastics?
What are the real facts?
In context, NatureWorks uses less than 1/20th of 1% (0.05%) of the annual global corn crop today,
and as such contributes little to no impact on international or local food chains.
Emerging PLA producers Using corn specically GM corn is not an ideal feedstock but this is only the beginning of a revolution of the plastics industry, one step in the right direction of moving away from our dependence on fossil fuels and NatureWorks is the first company to provide the material at a price point that makes commercial sense. It’s not yet perfect but there are other manufacturers of PLA emerging. These manufacturers will offer alternatives to the Cargill GM corn derived PLA, their feedstocks are non GMO corn and Cassava and some companies are refining ways of producing PLA from bacteria and non agricultural crops.
 

Galactic is developing a second generation of polylactic acid product. This project includes the building of a PLA pilot plant of 1500 tonnes/year in Belgium.
 

The Korean research center KAIST has announced that they have found a way to produce PLA using
bio engineered Escherichia coli.
 

Purac has developed a unique business model for the production of PLA by starting production of
Lactides (the monomers for PLA production) in their Spanish production plant with a capacity of
several thousands of tons, with an additional 75.000 tons lactide plant at their production site in
Thailand (Rayong Province). “Purac collaborates with various PLA production partners to develop
production scale PLA plants to reduce the process and product development time enabling faster and more reliable market entry for PLA producers”.
As soon as these new PLA plants are able to produce PLA in large volumes at competitive prices, we will specify these materials to be used to manufacture our products.

BioPak PLA cutlery is already being produced from a Chinese PLA material that is not made from GMO crops.However, until that time, we believe that PLA is a much better option than fossil fuel based polymers. We feel that the benefits of PLA far outweigh the fact that a small percentage of GM crops are used in the production. We believe it is important to support the current PLA industry in order to increase awareness and subsequently increase the adoption of the material as a sustainable replacement to petrochemical plastics.
 

Fact
Peer reviewed research1 confirms that NatureWorks 2nd generation production technology, which has been on stream since late 2008, provides Ingeo™ with the strongest credentials of any commercially available plastic. Compared to amorphous PET for example, Ingeo™ now generates 59% less GHG emissions, and uses 47% less non renewable energy.

What are the end of life scenarios for PLA?