The market
The global biodegradable plastic market will experience a two -figure expansion by 2015, reaching around $ 6 billion. If the current trends are maintained, this figure will double again to reach an amount estimated at $ 12 billion by 2025. While at present, 65 % of all bioplastics are produced for packaging Foods and drinks, we expect that in 2025 already a quarter of the market focuses on the higher margin application in the automotive and electronic segment. The bioplastic industry has even targeted medicine as one of the basic market slots with beneficiary margins which should be up to ten times higher than the margin ordered today for plastic cups and utensils. The European Commercial Group of Bioplastics expects its production capacity to triple between 2007 and 2011 to reach 1.5 million tonnes. It is expected that, by 2025, around 15 to 20 % of the oil used for plastic is diverted to sources of vegetable origin, based on algae and bacteria.
An analysis of the global production of bioplastics indicates that there are around 500 production and processing companies. As the company is characterized by strong growth and multiple innovations, it constitutes a major center of attraction for entrepreneurs and investors. It is the logic that underlies the fact that the number of companies based on bioplastics should increase tenfold to reach 5,000 in the next decade. Helmut Kaiser Consultancy stresses that less than 3 % of all plastic waste is recycled worldwide, against 30 % for paper and 35 % for metals. Many attempts aimed at transforming plastic waste into bags and clothing caught the attention of the media, but have failed to make a breach in the mountain of plastics or to reduce the accumulation of plastics in artificial island of garbage that profane the oceans.
Biodegradable plastics gain popularity with an increasing number of consumers wishing to orient their purchasing power towards ecological solutions. In the meantime, bioplastics are increasingly competing with agricultural land which, otherwise, would be used for food cultivation. Corn, the main product from which bioplastics are manufactured, is in competition with tortillas in Mexico and corn flakes in Japan. The increase in demand and the subsequent price of prices make this staple food more expensive. The complexity of the situation forced the UN to warn the decision -makers and the leaders of the industry that evolution towards green plastics could affect food security. In a world where more than a billion people go to the stomach empty every night, the choice between saving oil and providing one meal a day requires rethinking our economic models. In addition, a bioplastic cup does not behave differently from a fossil fuel cup. Once trapped in a landfill site where it is deprived of air and heat, it will simply not degrade.
Innovation
The supply of raw materials for plastics has forced scientists and business developers to rethink their strategy. NatureWorks, the American-Japanese joint venture between Cargill and Teijin continues to work with corn as the main source of starch, the raw material of bioplastics. This has generated the debate on the use of genetically modified corn, which now dominates the American market, and which quickly penetrates the European market as demonstrated by the recent announcement that NatureWorks doubles its production on the old continent at 140,000 tonnes per year. The debate goes beyond genetics. It is also centered on fertilizer and herbicide needs which are more necessary for corn than soy.
Professor Yoshihito Shirai of the Institute of Life Sciences of the Kyushu Institute of Technology (KIT) in Japan opted for a simple but rather innovative solution. He observed how restaurants in Japan throw large amounts of food. As stress on the local landfit site increased and the desire to reduce carbon emissions became more pronounced, Professor Shirai combined all the available know-how and with the help of his colleagues and Students designed a polylactic acid production unit (PLA), the basis of which is a raw material in the form of starch from food waste. Although its starch content is lower than that of corn, its financial model is convincing and the advantages for the environment surpass those of any other bioplastic, in particular the PLA produces from corn.
The first cash flow
The city of Kita-Kyushu embarked on a composting program to reduce stress on the landfill site. Japan, an island with little living space, invoices one of the highest spillover fees in the world. The diversion of food waste from restaurants of the landfill site generates a first cash flow: restaurants continue to pay for waste collection, but money is now collected by the plastic producer who is paid to take the waste. Thus, instead of having to obtain OGM corn, strongly irrigated and exhausting the aquifers, Professor Shirai created the first factory in cooperation with the Ebara environmental company, which is committed to achieving the objective of zero waste and zero emission. It is also the largest manufacturer of pumps in Japan.
The production volume is low compared to the 100,000 tonnes of production units in the bioplastics industry. This implies that Mr. Shirai could not economically use standard process technologies. Instead, he opted for a simple fermentation process that generates the PLA overnight, by a discontinuous process. Although the conversion rates are much lower than those of corn, the energy cost of transport and transformation represents only a fraction of the standard on the market, and its size can be adapted to the local discharge.
The opportunity
Shirai and Kit did not have the ambition to build a new industry, their main purpose was to demonstrate the technical and commercial viability of small -scale processing of plastic waste in PLA. Even at the rate of one tonne per day, the process is commercially viable simply because the sale price of the plastic bags used for garbage collection is ten times higher than the cost of their raw material, oil. This type of profit margin is always likely to attract new players to the market. In this case, bags based on fossil fuels are replaced by polymers made from food waste, which never compete with humans, while eliminating methane emissions from the decomposition of foods, which prolongs the economic life of the discharge. It is certainly a business model that can be implemented by entrepreneurs from around the world.
