Forgot Password?
Home arrow GreeniacsArticles arrow Waste arrow Biodegradable Plastic
Written by Joanna Hoang   
Share |
Tuesday, 18 January 2011

Biodegradable Plastic

The environmental and sustainability movement has spurred many companies to invest in a vast number of new and different ways to transform our waste into something useful. A new technology on the scene is the transformation of excrement, i.e. poop, into biodegradable plastic!

Flushin Water


In today’s world and economy, plastic is one of the most important materials we use in our products—from our toothbrushes to our cars. Plastic is everywhere, and for a good reason. It is so versatile, strong, flexible, light, and cheap. So why is plastic bad? For one thing, it is derived from petroleum, a resource that is not infinite and whose processing is a deadly hit against our environment. Another major drawback is the waste it creates, contaminating our ecosystems hurting many species of animals and plants within our ecosystems. For more on the devastating effects of conventional plastic on our environment, check out: "Great Pacific Garbage Patch".

A couple of entrepreneurs have tried to tackle the plastic and waste issue with a start-up called Micromidas. The company has developed a technology to turn sewage waste into non-toxic biodegradable plastic! This plastic is designed to be completely composted in a yard in about a year and a half. Its structure is similar to that of polyethylene, polystyrene, polypropylene, and PET, which are popular forms of plastics in products.

Biodegradable Plastic


There have been previous attempts to deal with the plastic issue, mainly they have involved creating bioplastic from corn and/or sugars. However, as with the ethanol fuel dilemma, those bioplastics suffer from the same drawback, which is that they are derived from a food source, so it becomes a food versus fuel war and has been blamed for the rising food prices worldwide. This is why the sewage waste base of the new bioplastic is a superior and much less controversial solution! No one wants their poop and many sewage companies would pay for people to take it away. Additionally, for both petroleum and corn based plastics, half of the production cost is based on the starting material—making waste-based plastic lower in input costs.

Under the Micromidas process, the sewage is fed to specific bacteria, and the bacteria then store the sewage as plastic particles inside their bodies. Micromidas then uses a special technique to extract the plastic from the bacteria, which is in the form of a resin. The bacteria chosen for the processes are highly specific. Many scientists such as those at Micromidas are in the process of researching and looking for microbes with the perfect traits for each step in the plastic making process. This microbe search is essentially the most difficult part of the process. Once the right bacteria are found for the waste input, the bacteria will do most of laborious work to create the plastic.

This plastic resin is NOT without its flaws. Its major flaw being that its base product is sewage, which is not the most desirable or flattering background for any product. Many consumers may not want to purchase products made from poop! Think about it. Micromidas will have to cleverly market their plastic product to get away from poop’s negative stigma. They have already stated that they do not intend to market the new plastic for any food product, including plastic cutlery. They plan to market it more towards packaging material or other container-like products. With Micromidas and other scientista moving forward, sewage-based plastic will surely come into the market within the next few years and it will definitely be a step towards a more sustainable future!

Project—How to make Your Own Bioplastic (no poop involved)!

Materials:
  • Milk
  • Vinegar
  • Measuring cup and measuring spoons
  • Small pot
  • Spoon
  • Large bowl
  • Towels
  • Aluminum foil
Instructions:
  1. Pour a cup of milk into the pot and place it on the stove on medium heat. Stir it while it is heating up. If you want your plastic to be colored add some optional food coloring drops to it.
  2. When you see a light foam form on top of the milk, turn off the stove.
  3. Pour one tablespoon of vinegar into the milk. The mixture will begin to clump. Stir the mixture for about 1-2 minutes.
  4. Pour the solution over a strainer into a large bowl. Shake the strainer. The remaining clumps combine to become your plastic!
  5. Pour it out onto your piece of foil and use the paper towels to dab off some of the remaining liquid.
  6. Create anything you want from the plastic!☺
Browse all Greeniacs Articles Browse all Greeniacs Guides        Browse all Greeniacs Articles
_______________________________________________________________________________

1http://news.discovery.com/tech/poop-plastic-puts-waste-to-work.html
2http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20006130-54.html; http://www.micromidas.com/
3http://news.discovery.com/tech/poop-plastic-puts-waste-to-work.html
4 http://imgs.sfgate.com/blogs/images/sfgate/green/2010/10/27/
full_1288127515micromidasbioplasticlab225x300.jpg
5http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20006130-54.html
6http://www.poopreport.com/Intellectual/micromidas_important_shitty_little_germs.html
7http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Plastic/




Add your comment
RSS comments

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.

Click here to Register.  Click here to login.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 27 September 2011 )

SEARCH GREENIACS.COM

Green Facts

  • You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.

  • Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months

  • Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.

  • Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.

  • Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.

  • In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.

  • You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.

  • Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.

  • Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.

  • A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.

  • Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.

  • Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.

  • 82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.

  • Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.

  • Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.

  • States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.

  • If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.

  • Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

  • Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.

  • A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.

  • The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.

  • Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.

  • Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.

  • Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.

  • American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.

  • Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.

  • Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.

  • In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.

  • 77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.

  • Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.

  • A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.

  • Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.

  • One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.

  • You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.

  • It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.

  • Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.

  • A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.

  • An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!

  • For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.