Biochemist Oliver Peoples explains how his polymer-producing microbes could transform the plastics industry and why both oceans and landfills will benefit.

It’s difficult to exaggerate the ubiquity of plastics in our lives: from toothbrush bristles (polyamides) to computer keyboards (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) to water bottles (polyethylene), there is scarcely a thing we use that isn’t made—in whole or in part—of the petroleum-based product. Since 1909, when Leo Hendrik Baekeland first combined phenol and formaldehyde to create “Bakelite,” the world’s first synthetic polymer, plastics production has soared: the North American and European industries alone produce more than $730 billion-worth of plastic goods per year.

But the very characteristics that have made plastic a wild success—extreme durability and resistance to degradation—also make it a huge environmental liability. It’s estimated that half a billion kilograms of plastic waste have been discarded since the 1950s, creating a burden that may persist for thousands of years. Incinerating the waste is not a viable solution either, as burning plastics can release carcinogenic fumes. And now of particular concern are the enormous quantities that get dumped at sea, where they coalesce in vast ocean gyres and accrue in the stomachs of unfortunate sea life.

Oliver Peoples, founder and chief scientific officer of the bioscience company Metabolix, is convinced that there is a natural solution to these myriad problems. Inside the company’s labs in Cambridge, Massachusetts, his engineers have spent the past 15 years refining a catalytic process in which engineered microbes spin a variety of sugars into fatty-acid globules. This bioplastic, trademarked as “Mirel,” is functionally identical to the petrochemical variety—except that it dissolves harmlessly in both water and soil.

Recently, Metabolix has partnered with agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland to build a $200 million production facility in Clinton, Iowa, the heart of the Corn Belt. In advance of the plant’s opening later this year, Seed editor Maywa Montenegro spoke with Peoples about turning microbes into plastic factories, Mirel’s environmental profile, and competition in the cutthroat plastics industry.

Read more . . .

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Tags: archer daniels midland, environmental liability, natural solution, ocean gyres, phenol, plastic solution, synthetic polymer, transform plastics industry

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 11th, 2009 at 10:29 am and is filed under Cutting-edge Research, Innovation, Innovation Needed, Seed Magazine, Shape of Things to Come?, environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.