Tag Archives: Plastic news

Secrets of the Amazon – A solution for the Pacific Garbage Patch?

For decades we have known that the Amazon is home to more species than almost anywhere else on Earth. Amazon Rainforest constitutes the world’s largest “pharmacy” yielding thousands of previously unknown substances found no where else.  Compounds from tropical flora relieve headaches, help treat glaucoma and provide muscle relaxants used during surgery.  The Amazon Rainforest has also yielded guanine for the treatment of malaria and periwinkle for the treatment of leukemia.  Given the rainforest’s teeming biological diversity, its value to humanity as a laboratory of natural phenomena and as a medical storehouse is priceless.

Recently, the “pharmeceutical” benefits of the Amazon have been expanded to the potential of healing the Earth from the plague of plastic waste. A group of Yale students discovered, quite by accident,  a fungus that  appears to be quite happy eating plastic in airless landfills. This fungus shows a voracious appetite for a very common group of plastics: polyurethane.

Human beings have only begun to catalog and name the creatures that live here.  Home to thousands of varieties of flowering plants, the rainforest supports endless varieties of hummingbirds, butterflies and insects such a the rhinoceros beetle and the army ant.  It is also home to the spider monkey, pink and gray dolphins, Amazon river otter, piranha, anaconda, jaguar, blue and yellow macaw, toucan, harpy eagle, fishing bat, tapir sloth, tarantula, Cayman crocodile, manatee, etc.

The Amazon Rainforest, the largest rainforest and richest ecosystem on earth, has stood inviolate for thousands if not millions of years since its creation.  The profusion and variety of life forms present in the rainforest and its critical role in supplying the world with air has resulted in its being called the “Heart and Lungs” of the Planet. Indeed, the majority of the world’s oxygen is supplied by its dense foliage and teeming plant life which upon first inspection, seems boundless and indestructible.

A recent study by the Smithsonian Institution indicates that about 90% of all of the plant and animal species extant in the world today reside in the Amazon Rainforest and depend upon its complex ecology.  As the greatest repository of nature’s treasures and most significant source of air, the Amazon Rainforest is crucial to the survival of all life on the planet and to human beings’ understanding of their place in the web of life.  In the words of Guatama Buddha, “The forest is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously, the products of its life and activity.  It affords protection to all living beings.”

Before the arrival of Europeans and up to the third decade of this century, the Amazon Rainforest covered nearly 45 million acres in what is today Brazil, parts of Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Ecuador.  Brazil has the greatest amount of tropical forest in the world.  It is also experiencing the worse losses:  between twelve million and twenty two million acres a year, according to the World Resources Institute.

Brazil’s rainforest is being decimated by a vast army of homesteaders, farmers, ranchers and corporate interests that include large scale mining and intensive farming. Drilling and mining leave scars, and farmers find that raising crops quickly exhausts the thin soil of cleared forest land.  Many farmers merely abandon their plots and clear new ones.  The cultivation of crop production leaves rivers polluted with chemicals.  The extraction of gold and other metals fouls waterways with mercury and other toxins used in processing.

Today, scarcely twenty years since the intensification of the development of the rainforest, it has shrunk to 88% of its original size.  It is estimated that each second, an area the size of a football field is destroyed, adding to the daily toll of approximately fifty thousand acres.  In one year, an area the size of Italy is decimated and made uninhabitable to nearly all forms of life.  Already thousands of plant and animal species about whom little was known have been irrevocably lost to the bulldozer, the chain saw and to the slash and burn methods employed by regional farmers, ranchers and miners.

Although its arboreal canopy reaches hundreds of feet into the air, the rainforest and its groves of giant trees are in fact rooted in very shallow soil and exist in a fragile balance.  The rainforest experiences an abbreviated life cycle in which the creation of top soil is bypassed through the efficient decomposing activities of tropical bacteria and fungi.  Rather than collecting in the soil, the nutrients are absorbed by the trees.  A layer of nutrient-poor soil in the rainforest is generally less than four inches deep.  Unlike other forests around the world, the rainforest once disturbed, cannot renew itself, remaining instead a barren sandy wasteland subject to erosion.

At the current rate of destruction, parts of the Amazon promise to turn into great stretches of desert within our lifetime.  The repercussions of this activity are global.  As the rainforest gets smaller, it is less able to supply the world with much needed oxygen or to absorb as much carbon dioxide contributing to global warming and the greenhouse effect.  The burning forest adds even more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere jeopardizing the stability of ecosystems worldwide.

Given the immense size of the Amazon Rainforest and it’s unimaginable bio-diversity, we have just begun to scratch the surface of the solutions residing within. If we can find cures for cancer, malaria, polyurethane waste and more; perhaps it holds the ability to cure the incomprehensible problem we face today of plastic fragments choking our oceans? What other mysteries lie hidden within the green foliage and moist soil?

Doing What’s Right When Nobody’s Looking

In a time when environmentally conscious branding is paramount in marketing circles, the overall adoption of “Green” initiatives should be, first and foremost, a fundamental decision. Where choices are made based on what’s right instead of what’s convenient. Often, technologies advance so rapidly that legislation is caught playing “catch-up”. It is during these times that brands face the decision of doing what is the scientifically proven best choice for the environment or shelving this choice because of marketing obstacles.

Often the final decision comes down to the corporate integrity of the brand and personal devotions of those brands leaders. The “why do we do what we do?” question. Do you implement environmental measures because it is the right thing to do, or do you implement them because it may improve your bottom line?

For example: Novartis is an international company who has made a corporate commitment to pay a ‘living wage’ to all employees worldwide. This means that they are often paying above legally required minimum wage because they understand that minimum wage does not provide for basic human needs. They implemented this corporate directive, not because it improved their immediate bottom line; but because their corporate moral standing includes a belief that an appropriate standard of living should always be respected in the course of business.

This is a specific example about human rights issues, and environmental rights follow the same path. Many companies are in business simply to make money for the shareholders, while others hold themselves to a higher standard or social cause, whether that is human rights, environmental issues, legislative involvement or truth in advertising. When your brand faces these tough decisions, it is much like a refiner’s fire where the true moral standing of your brand shines through. When all is said and done, those companies that tout their environmental accountability through the integrity of that decision and not the convenience that it offers will be clearly recognized by the consumers as brands with integrity and moral.

ENSO Plastics is both proud and honored to be partnered with many brands and manufactures who stand behind their commitments, with the foundation of scientific research, to become leaders in the adoption of improved methods for a healthier planet.

The Maturing of Biodegradable Plastics

Striving for growth and improvement is a fundamental part of the human experience. We, as a whole, are never satisfied with status quo.  This is true both personally and as a society. If one were to travel back in time to the beginning of any industry; we would discover a couple of things; industries began with the initial ideals of improving lives, they utilize best of current knowledge and understanding to bring those ideals to the masses and they improve over time.  We can clearly see that as time marches on from the beginning days of each industry, the  knowledge and understanding  changes;  resulting in improvements, wide acceptance and change.

History is riddled with examples of industries beginning as young ideas then growing and maturing over time to become well-established. In doing so, they’ve added essential improvements to the quality of life for mankind and often overcome significant opposition in the process.

It’s easy to take look at where we are today in industries such as aviation, space exploration, manufacturing, construction, education, legislation, science, and many others and forget the massive changes that have taken place since the beginning of each of these industries began.

  • Human flight was only dreamed of until the first powered flight by the Wright brothers in 1903 (which lasted only 12 seconds!). Through improved technology we now fly not only across the world daily but into space as well!
  • Copernicus suggested that the earth revolves around the sun in the early 1500’s. Books written supporting this theory were banned and supporters were persecuted and executed for heresy.  In fact Galileo was ordered by law to not hold, teach or defend this concept. Today, we accept this theory as common knowledge.
  • People laughed at Henry Ford’s “horseless buggy”. Today it is not only an essential mode of transportation, but we are finding better ways to prevent pollution and conserve energy resources consumed by these “horseless buggies”.

Industries begin just as the examples above, with the best knowledge available and often a bit of controversy. However they are regularly improving as a result of lessons learned, developments of new processes and protocols, scientific breakthroughs, and having a better understanding of what questions to ask; as well as knowing what issues to focus on and allocate resources to.

The story of ENSO is no exception to this process.  ENSO was created with the mission to change the world in the way we handle plastics – we want to solve the world’s plastic pollution issue.  Following more than a year of research to understand the plastic pollution issues; we developed ENSO additives. This additive is designed to enhance the biodegradation of standard plastics and allows the plastic material to recycle along with standard polymers.

ENSO utilizes the best of science’s understanding, processes and protocols to test and validate our technology.  As our industry matures we recognize that it is no different than the many industries that have come before us.   This industry is young and has much maturing to work through.  The culture of ENSO to improve the life of mankind with solving the plastic pollution issue does not make us shy away from the growing pains that happen with young industry and we are in the forefront, pushing the envelope by improving the science, process and protocols associated within this industry.   This does not come without hurdles, but as we see from the examples throughout history of matured industries, the key to success is continually improving the science, knowledge and education of our products. ENSO is dedicated to this continued maturation and the value that this provides to the industry and our environment.

What can you claim with ENSO plastics?

At the retail store I am bombarded with “green” claims; earth friendly, recycled, energy efficient, recyclable, compostable, biodegradable, reuseable and renewable just to name a few. It can become overwhelming even for a person who is intimately involved with the environmental industry to sort through these claims and determine what each means. It seems that a majority of the brand owners don’t even understand themselves what the claims mean, so how can consumers be expected to understand?

To combat this confusion, ENSO is creating uniform and standard recommended claims for brands using products enhanced with ENSO technology. Creating a consistent message will alleviate much of the confusion and give consumers solid science to base their understanding upon.

Here is an example of an appropriate claim and qualifier:

ENSO accelerates the natural biodegradation of plastics

Qualifier

ENSO accelerates the natural biodegradation of plastics in biologically active landfills and anaerobic digesters as validated by independent certified laboratories using ASTM International test methods (ASTM D5526 & ASTM D5511).

Independent 3rd party testing has shown up to 24.7% biodegradation within 160 days in optimized conditions. Actual rate of biodegradation will vary dependent upon environmental conditions and the biological activity of microorganisms surrounding the plastic.

The qualifier identifies how you can support the claim and ensure that consumers understand exactly what you mean by the claim. It is an important aspect of your overall message.

The above claim and qualifier are an accurate representation of the performance you can expect when using ENSO enhanced plastics and are completely backed by third party independent test data to ensure the protection of your brand as you continue upon the path toward total sustainability!

** In the state of California it is unlawful to label any food or beverage container or plastic bag as biodegradable regardless of actual performance.

 

Part #2 – A New Look At Zero Waste

If you recall, last month we discussed ZERO Waste. The key points were that every living entity creates bi-products, which can become waste if the byproduct has no value – think of your kitchen trash.

This trash is comprised of food waste, paper, plastic and anything else you did not find value for in your home. Luckily this trash goes to your curb and is neatly taken away where you no longer have to see it. Perfect right? A few years ago I would have said “NO WAY! This trash is going to the landfill where it will sit for decades or centuries. How is that perfect?” Fortunately, today we are learning how to turn that landfilled trash into a huge value – for you and the environment!

Methane. One of the cleanest and most inexpensive sources of energy available today, straight from your neighborhood landfill! That’s right, you send out trash and get back electricity! OK it is a bit more complicated than that but fundamentally that is exactly what is happening at over 550 landfills across the US.

Here are the facts:

As material biodegrades in landfills it produces methane. Methane has over 22 times the greenhouse gas effect of CO2, however when landfill methane is used for energy production, there becomes a carbon positive effect. The NRDC states that the use of landfill gas for energy has the potential to offset up to 12006lbs of CO2 per MWh, as it offsets traditional energy production such as coal and gas.

The greenhouse gas reduction benefits of a typical 4 megawatt LFG project equate to:
• Planting over 60,000 acres of forest per year or removing the annual carbon dioxide emissions from over 45,000 cars.
• This would also offset the use of 1,000 railcars of coal or prevent the use of almost 500,000 barrels of oil.

Producing energy from landfill gas avoids the need to use non-renewable resources such as coal, oil, or natural gas to produce the same amount of energy. LFG electricity’s offsetting of fossil fuel derived energy can avoid gas end-user and power plant emissions of CO2 and pollutants.

Did you know that 14 percent of renewable electricity generation (not including hydroelectric dams) comes from operations that recapture energy from discarded waste.

Companies today have a unique opportunity to utilize packaging that retains the beneficial properties of traditional plastic, such as strength, shelf life, visual aspect and process-ability, while creating a zero waste program and potentially reducing your carbon footprint. ENSO plastics are designed for disposal in today’s biologically active landfills where they will biodegrade and convert to methane for clean and inexpensive energy production. In 2009 there was 30 million tons of plastic packaging discarded into US landfills, converting this plastic to ENSO would result in about 10 million tons of plastic being converted to clean energy and offsetting the dirty energy production of coal and gas. It would also potentially free up over 70 million cubic yards in our landfills.

Did you know?

When converted to methane, 34 ENSO bottles (19.2 gram) can light a 100W light bulb for 1 hour.

Using ENSO materials provide companies a unique opportunity to step into a future of zero waste, where all product packaging is converted to clean energy, and returned to the earth in a beneficial form. In a life cycle analysis this could prove to be a carbon negative option to traditional plastic packaging.

Waste is a byproduct that has no value. Plastic that is recycled or biodegrades in a landfill has a value (economically and environmentally) and is not waste.

ENSO PLASTICS DEVELOPS NEAR-PERFECT PLASTIC BOTTLE

As featured on Newhope 360; Full Article link http://newhope360.com/packaging/enso-plastics-develops-near-perfect-plastic-bottle


ENSO Plastics develops near-perfect plastic bottle

Wed, 2011-11-09 13:09

While many can’t imagine life without bottled water, it wasn’t that long ago—the 1960s, in fact—that plastic bottle production didn’t exist. Today, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the plastic of choice in the beverage industry. According to ENSO Plastics, more than 75 percent of the ubiquitous bottles (and 94 percent of all plastics) end up in landfills. “We really want to solve the world’s plastic pollution issue,” said President Danny Clark of the Mesa, Ariz.–based company. ENSO is taking advantage of this statistic with its current solution: fully biodegradable and recyclable PET plastic.

“When we started, some of the cofounders had experience with bottled water companies. I was one of them,” said Clark. “We were exposed on a regular basis to the environmental impacts that bottled water has in the environment.” Customers asked the co-founders regularly for alternatives. Continue reading

Henkel builds Bioplastic Additive Plant

Oh bioplastics, how you confuse consumers.  I am all for finding renewable sources for plastics but I also believe that product claims should speak very clearly about the capabilities of the product. Consumers often misinterpret “bioplastics” as being biodegradable, mainly because the lack of education in labeling. Check out the article below and leave me a comment letting me know what you think!

 

shanghai china

Bioplastics, additives top this week’s Material Insights video

By Frank Eposito | PLASTICS NEWS STAFF
Posted September 6, 2011

Plastics News senior reporter Frank Esposito

AKRON, OHIO (2:10 p.m. ET) — New capacity for recycled resins at a plant in Indiana is featured in this week’s Material Insights video.

Petoskey Plastics is spending $3 million on the project, which will add 12 million pounds of capacity to its plant in Hartford City, Ind. Some of the resin will be used at Petoskey film and bag plants in Petoskey, Mich., where the firm is based, and in Morristown, Tenn. Petoskey also is spending about $6 million to add new fim and bag lines at those two plants.

Henkel AG’s plans to build the world’s largest plastic additives plant in Shanghai also is featured in this week’s video. The 150,000-square-foot plant will have annual capacity of more than 900 million pounds for a variety of plastic additives. It represents an investment of more than $70 million for Henkel, which is based in Düsseldorf, Germany.

This week’s video wraps up with a pair of bioplastics items. Renewable chemicals maker BioAmber Inc. of Minneapolis is building a 35 million-pound-capacity plant in Sarnia, Ontario, to make succinic acid, which can be converted into bioplastics for auto parts and plastic cutlery. In Barcelona, Spain, Iris Research & Development has devised a way to produce a bioplastic based on whey protein, which is a byproduct of cheese production. The new bioplastic is expected to be used in food and cosmetics packaging.

 

Landfill gas will fuel America

With all the recent online stir about biodegradable plastics releasing methane too quickly the below article caught my attention. The problem is not the biodegradability of plastics, but more so the lack of attention to collecting it in a timely manner and using it for its amazing, natural benefits! In the past 100 years we as humans have worked so hard in making things convenient, disposable, and unnatural. The truth is,we live in nature, and nature has its own processes for cleaning things up…and it revolves around biodegradation. This article reminded me of the movie Dirt, which is a must see! It also reminds me of this article/video I recently found on treehugger….http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/08/putting-a-price-on-poop-and-pee.php

Landfill gas is ‘awesome example of American ingenuity’
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Jim Johnson | WRN senior reporter

Aug. 8 — If using natural gas to garbage trucks is considered a home run, then using natural gas created by decomposition of trash and other organic waste could be viewed as a grand slam.

For Joanna D. Underwood, the potential for this kind of renewable gas use is huge around the country.

It was not that long ago that folks realized using natural gas could be a terrific step forward, said Underwood, president of Energy Vision, a nonprofit group in New York City concerned with transportation fuels and renewable energy. But the exact path was fuzzy, she remembered.

“The picture that has become much clearer in the last four years is the picture that involves renewable natural gas. And that is really this country’s first sustainable fuel. It’s renewable. It’s the lowest carbon-based fuel in the world,” she said.

Harvesting methane from sites such as landfills, waste water treatment plants and farms can help create a supply of domestic transportation fuel, she said. Creating an infrastructure to handle renewable natural gas allows communities and companies alike to better picture its future use.

“That’s pretty exciting. Every community, right now, can begin looking at renewable natural gas and the organic waste that they have in their jurisdiction,” she said.

“There is no other major option for significantly reducing our dependence on foreign oil right now other than natural gas: conventional natural gas and renewable natural gas,” Underwood said.

McNeilus Companies Inc. makes both traditional diesel-powered refuse trucks and CNG-powered vehicles.

Jeffry Swertfeger, the company’s director of marketing and communications, sees more and more interest from solid waste management companies wanting to close the loop between disposal sites and collection operations by using methane created by decaying waste as a transportation fuel.

“We call it the ultimate green machine, when you have a truck that’s picking up refuse that’s being powered by the methane from the refuse,” he said.

“I think that’s an awesome example of American ingenuity,” he said. “These are the guys who make this country great.”

One location he pointed to is Waste Management Inc.’s Altamont landfill in California, where methane gas is converted into liquefied natural gas to run company trucks in nearby markets.

That $15.5 million project uses about 3,000 cubic feet of landfill gas per minute to create about 13,000 gallons of LNG per day.

“It’s easier for cities and communities to envision making the fuel if they already have a way to distribute it,” Underwood said. “It can take the place of conventional natural gas. It also can be blended with it. They are chemically just about the same.”

Pepsi follows Green washed Consumers

This is a great article. Companies should be going with the best environmental packaging out there, not just what consumers believe is the best environmental packaging because they have suffered from greenwashing or a lack of access to the facts.  How amazing would it be to have a bottle made from renewable resources & with the ENSO additive. A renewable, biodegradable & recyclable bottle, that would be amazing.

Consumer preferences driving PepsiCo sustainability efforts

By Mike Verespej | PLASTICS NEWS STAFF 

Posted August 11, 2011

PURCHASE, N.Y. (Aug. 11, 12:40 p.m. ET) — For a brand owner like PepsiCo, sustainable packaging doesn’t just mean making decisions on a complex set of resource, energy and environmental issues. It also means that you have to understand and determine whether consumers will view what you do as sustainable.

“Everything needs to be in sync with the brand identity, and you have to ask yourself what is the right message so the consumer understands that what you are doing is sustainable,” said Denise Lefebvre, vice president of global packaging for food and beverage giant PepsiCo. “There already is confusion among the public about sustainability, so all our messages have to be clear, consistent and in sync.”

Lefebvre, who was director of advanced research for beverage packaging for the Purchase, N.Y., soft-drink giant until a recent promotion, also said that when it comes to sustainable packaging, much of what brand owners focus on is driven by “consumer desires and consumer thinking.”

“Consumers are looking for technologies and innovations where it is readily evident to them what to do with that product and how it benefits them and the environment,” Lefebvre said in a recent interview. “The benefit has to be clear to them and right in their sweet spot. Our messages give us an opportunity to simplify things for consumers.”

With that in mind, the company has focused on producing increasingly lightweight PET bottles, developing technology to make PET bottles from plant-based resources and agricultural and food waste, and putting Dream Machine recycling bins and kiosks into place in cities to increase the number of bottles and cans that are recycled, she said.

“When consumers see a bottle that is fully recyclable and ultra-lightweight, it helps them in terms of making their purchase,” Lefebvre said. “The consumer understands source reduction and the use of less material. It is tangible and they can understand that. So if we can create technologies to push that faster, that would be ideal.”

Similarly, consumer perceptions are one of the driving reasons why PepsiCo is working, in partnership with others, to make a PET bottle completely from plant-based materials, including switch grass, pine bark and corn husks.

“If I tell [consumers], it’s 100 percent renewable PET, they understand it and they get it because they want things straightforward,” Lefebvre said.

Since the firm announced in March that it had developed a 100 percent renewable bottle, it has received positive consumer feedback, she said — although that bottle won’t eat go into pilot production until sometime in 2012, and even then, in limited quantities of 100,000-500,000 bottles.

“Consumers like it because you have eliminated fossil-based products [and] they believe that pulling oil out of the ground” is not the route to use anymore, Lefebvre said.

PepsiCo is also working to make its planned renewable PET bottle from organic waste from its food businesses, including orange and potato peels, oat hulls and other agricultural byproducts.

“Consumers have made it clear that they want us to use non-food resources, or food or agricultural waste [for bioresins] because it doesn’t detriment the environment and it doesn’t take away from food supplies,” she said.

Although many of PepsiCo’s sustainability package initiatives are driven by consumer perceptions, the firm realizes it can’t do things that are not sustainable just because consumers perceive them to be, she said. “Consumers would love an oxo-biodegradable bottle,” Lefebvre said “But right now, the technologies out there would do more harm than good.

“So to deliver something that would be more detrimental to the environment … It would be wrong and it would be greenwashing.”

Similarly, PepsiCo is not using polylactic bioresin for bottles because she said the material does not have the necessary barrier properties and is problematic in the PET recycling stream.

During a presentation at the Bioplastek conference in New York in late June, Lefebvre said PepsiCo’s objective is to create “performance with a purpose” in its packaging.

“Our objective is to make a 100 percent renewable, sustainable, non-fossil-fuel-based PET bottle in a closed-loop system using agriculture waste,” she said. “We want performance identical to what we have now: a product that is fully recyclable and a product that significantly reduces the carbon footprint.”

A number of companies now make non-petroleum-based ethylene glycol — which is 30 percent of the formulation of PET. And roughly a half-dozen firm say that they have demonstrated in a lab that they can make paraxylene, the building block for terephthalic acid, which constitutes the rest of PET, or plant-based terephthalic acid.

PepsiCo’s main competitor, Coca-Cola Co., has been making its PlantBottle from conventional terephthalic acid and renewable ethylene glycol since December 2009. H.J. Heinz Co. also began using the Coca-Cola PlantBottle for its 20-ounce ketchup containers in July.

Heinz expects to sell 120 million PlantBottle ketchup bottles in 2011; Coca-Cola expects this year to package 5 billion beverages globally in 15 countries in the PlantBottle compared to 2.5 billion last year.

PepsiCo has not discussed technology details for making the renewable terephthalic acid needed for a PET bottle manufactured 100 percent from renewable resources.

“We can buy and source the renewable ethylene glycol from any number of sources,” Lefebvre said. “That has been around for awhile. The key is the T piece [terephthalic acid]. That is critical in driving a renewable PET bottle to a mass scale.”

PepsiCo plans to model several different types of chemistry in its pilot -cale project to determine their efficiency to make renewable terephthalic acid. “There are a lot of emerging technologies that we will be evaluating, and they all have their pros and cons,” she said. “We’re very open to looking at them all and would be comfortable using several of them,” she said.

“We don’t make PET. We’re not going to. So we need the quality to be right.”

Lefebvre said she expects PepsiCo to announce soon on its sourcing strategies for renewable PET bottles. None of those strategies, she said, mean the firm will reduce its efforts to boost recycling of its plastic bottles or aluminum cans.

Since it embarked on its Dream Machine recycling initiative in April 2010, PepsiCo has placed 2,600 Dream Machines bins and reverse-vending kiosks in more than 30 states — at supermarkets, on city streets and other public venues.

The recycling bins are similar to trash cans, but they’re painted Pepsi blue with a recycling message on them. The computerized kiosks give reward points for each bottle or can recycled, which consumers can redeem online at greenopolis.com. — a partner in the program along with Waste Management subsidiary WM GreenOps LLC.

PepsiCo has also developed a recycling initiative for schools, called Dream Machine Recycle Rally, which rewards schools with points for each non-alcoholic plastic bottle or aluminum can students bring to school for recycling.

“It is a self-supportive strategy,” Lefebvre said of the initiatives. “As the program proliferates, it reaffirms to the consumer that recycling is important, and that recycling is just as good as renewables.” The Dream Machines also help the firm bring up recycling rates and get the material it needs to incorporate recycled content in its products, she said.

Just last week, PepsiCo announced that in August it will market the first plastic soft drink bottle to be made from 100 recycled PET in North America. The bottle, 7UP EcoGreen, will be used for diet and regular 7UP sold in Canada. It is expected to reduce the amount of virgin PET used for that product by 6 million pounds a year.

“We want to use more recycled PET” in all plastic bottles, Lefebvre said. “It is a matter of obtaining the right quality and getting the material — which is in short supply. “

To augment PepsiCo’s supply of recycled PET, the firm last year agreed to buy the majority of its bottle-grade PET pellet and flake from the new CarbonLITE plant in Riverside, Calif., which is scheduled to launch by Sept. 30 with nameplate annual capacity of 100 million pounds.

Consumers confused by ‘bio-based’ & ‘renewable’

Very recently there was an article posted on www.PlasticsNews.com titled  Expert: Consumers confused by terms like ‘bio-based’ and ‘renewable’ . On behalf of ENSO our president Danny Clark would like to give a response to the article.

 

Compostable or Biodegradable?


Mr. Mojo addresses some very crucial points for companies labeling their product or packaging as compostable or biodegradable .Technology companies which provide compostable or biodegradable solutions, brand owners, manufactures, and industry organizations should make every effort to better clarify claims being made.  One major point that Mr. Mojo did not address is that these businesses and industry organizations should be providing to the public any test data supporting such claims.

The topic of greenwashing is currently a significant issue for all industries and companies trying to “go green” or provide some kind of improvement to their products and packaging.  Unfortunately we do not have clear cut protocols or processes for this.  Most of us are working towards new standards, processes and protocols that will better clarify what certain claims mean.

It is important to note for the readers that Mr. Mojo, is the Executive Director of BPI (Biodegradable Products Institute), a non-profit industry organization for compostable plastics, which certifies many products labeled compostable and as passing the ASTM D6400.  The ASTM D6400 is a pass/fail testing protocol specifically designed to validate that such materials will appropriately compost in an industrial composting environment.  The ASTM D 6400 is designed to ensure that the compostable plastics entering into industrial composting facility will not negatively impact the business aspect of that facility; breaks down within 180 days, no toxic residue, etc.


The Great Debate


There is currently a great debate about claims of compostable and biodegradable plastics, many were addressed by Mr. Mojo in the article.  One that didn’t get touched on is the customary disposal methods (or end-of-life options) of products.  Mr. Mojo may argue that compostable plastics are “more greener” or “better” for the environment but if that product is labeled as compostable but the consumer has no way to dispose of it in an industrial composting facility, or worst yet, the composting facilities won’t accept it due to contamination or wanting to keep its organic certification, what then happens to the benefit of that “compostable” material?  The issue of customary disposal methods is currently a big area of greenwashing in the market today.

Another example is found in the Aug, 2010 issue of Biocycle Magazine where a published study initiated by the Environmental Services Department and performed at the Miramar Greenery Composting Facility evaluated 105 different compostable products.  The majority of the products selected met ASTM standards (either ASTM D6400 or D6868) and many had Mr. Mojo’s industry’s organization (BPI) certification.  All of the products tested were purchased in the market.  To read the full article click:  http://ensoplastics.com/download/CompostableReport.pdf

More than half of the 105 products did not biodegrade greater then 25 percent.  Quote: “None of the compostable cutlery showed any real sign of degradation”.  The test concluded that there was no conslusive evidence from this study to suggest that all certified products will fully degrade.  In fact, 15 items that were both ASTM and BPI certified (Mr. Mojo’s industry organization) showed almost no effects of biodegradation at all”.  The result of this study led to a decision to hold off accepting any type of compostable products.

My question would be how could products that were certified as compostable by Mr. Mojo and BPI, not actually biodegrade or compost when tested in a real world environment?


Shouldn’t test results be public?


This leads me to my original point of companies providing test data to the public.  Currently, both the FTC and CA Legislation requires companies making claims such as compostable or biodegradable to provide data within 90 days.  I personally have been asking for such data for over two years now without seeing a single test report from Mr. Mojo (BPI) or the companies claiming compostability.  What I do experience, is the companies selling these BPI certified products directly to Mr. Mojo and BPI for their test data, however BPI continually informing me that the data is confidential.

To date, I have not seen an ASTM D6400 test result from BPI on any product they have certified as compostable, and given the results of the ESD study it brings up a number of questions.  The top question being, how much is Mr. Mojo contributing to the greenwashing issue we have in the market?  ENSO Bottles, provides our test data right on our website for the whole world to see – we do not hide our data and we welcome anyone to test our products, as BPI has done and validated that bottles with the ENSO biodegradable blend do actually biodegrade (as per your NSF report) .

Our industries need to provide more accurate information and education to the public.  We don’t have to agree on approach or technologies but we must provide accurate information and education.  Consumers, businesses and legislators need to be properly educated and then given correct information.  This also includes the work many of us in this group participate in regarding ASTM standards.

 

Danny Clark

President

ENSO Plastics