There are three key market factors when it comes to new innovation: perception, influence, and force.  Force is ultimately legislation (laws); legislation gets passed in most cases due to perception and influence.  Consumers make their choices based on what ideology or technology to support based on both perception and influence.  Force is a way to bypass both perception and influence; the irony is that consumers don’t usually realize this.

An extreme example of this would be back when it was generally accepted that the earth was flat.  The theory that the earth was flat, ultimately lead to a belief for most of the world.  The science community was instrumental in providing both the perception and influence which was then imposed by force.  This then became a belief so that when new information came along that may suggest that the earth may indeed be round, that information was strongly influenced to the point of force to be kept from the public.  The perception of what most people knew at that time was also a heavy influence in preventing the new information from becoming publicly accepted.  As we have learned from the history books it took hundreds of years to work through the belief and ideology that the earth was indeed not flat.

With any new innovation, there are changes that need to take place both from a knowledgeable and an educational perspective (perception and influence).  It is crucial that we humans make room so that our old processes and ways of thinking don’t prevent us from expanding our understanding of things.  This is especially important when it comes to those solutions which are better for the environment (specifically how we look at, treat and handle plastics).

For example, I grew up with a strong understanding of composting – it was natural, creates wonderful rich soil, feels good to do and grounds us to the natural aspect of who we are.  However, it also lead to a few misunderstandings about the process of biodegradation; the main one being that biodegradation must always be a quick process (reasonably short period of time).  When it comes to composting food waste its understandable the beliefs I picked up.  But what about other items such as a decaying tree trunk or slower biodegradation found in anaerobic (without oxygen) environments?

There are things we were never taught or more appropriately didn’t know because we hadn’t yet created the massive plastic pollution issue we are faced with today.  It’s a fact that humans generate A LOT of trash.  All creatures generate trash or waste materials but we humans have figured out how to create trash at a level that isn’t sustainable.  There are efforts, and have been efforts for many years now; to reduce, reuse and recycle.  These are very important words to live by; however the reality is that they haven’t been that effective in solving the issue of plastic waste.

Our company ENSO Plastics was created in 2008 by like minded individuals to solve our plastic pollution issue.  ENSO Plastics has developed a blend of biodegradable resins which can be used in most of the major plastic manufactured today.  Our biodegradable resins are designed specifically to be co-mingled in with the existing recycling process without contaminating the current recycling infrastructure.  The amazing aspect of our technology is that it does not negatively impact the recycling infrastructure.  For the 95% of plastics that do not make it into the recycle stream and end up discarded into landfill environments our biodegradable resins are designed to interact with the microbes found in nature to naturally biodegrade the entire plastic material back into natural compounds and gases.

The microscopic world that we live in is amazing and yet barely understood.  Microbes have been found in almost every place and condition on our planet and are well at work in nature; as well as landfill environments.  There are many who are still relaying on inaccurate past understandings about our microscopic world.  It is time that we open ourselves to new understanding and knowledge.

Biodegradable plastic additive technologies have been around for years.  The growth of this industry is a fairly new endeavor and ENSO Plastics is extremely excited to be part of this maturing industry.  Sure we have A LOT of education that needs to be done so that the public better understands what is happening in the microscopic world around us.   We must push through the cloud of past understanding and knowledge and ideologies that promote limited vision.  ENSO Plastics is a significant part of the solution for plastic pollution.  I believe that perception (knowledge and understanding) and influence (getting involved) are the keys to making improved changes for us individually and for the planet.

Einstein once said, “We must be open to thinking about problems with a different mindset than we had when we created the problem.”

Sincerely,

Danny Clark

President

ENSO Plastics