Rust Belt Riders Are Building Their Green Future One Bucket At A Time

Green Chemicals and Circular Plastics June Edition

I often come across two different visions of the future when it comes to sustainability and circular economies. The first view is very aspirational and wants to do huge projects like the picture I have shown above that was sketched out by architect Honglin Li. The drawing is the vision of a skyscraper that pumps ocean water to the top of the tower with the plastic trash and other man-made debris and then uses gravity to help filter out the pollution. The tower does more than filter out pollution, but the important thing is that it presents a big grand vision that gets our heads out of the minutiae that might occupy those working in the sustainability space.

For those working in the space a big accomplishment that recently occured was that acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and polycarbonate (PC) have been successfully recycled through a mechanical process and ABS has been chemically recycled by Elix Polymers. When plastic recycling is talked about we all think about the big six polymers that we as consumers interact with on a daily basis, but engineering polymers like ABS and PC are often not discussed nor are they in the public view. For those seeking big changes this news might seem trivial or very “insider focused,” but if successfully commercialized it represents another step towards a circular polymer economy.

Other circular or cradle to grave type sustainability shifts involves a lot of boring things that are not “sexy” such as paving roads. Early this month Avantium announced the world’s first test road with lignin produced in the Netherlands with construction firm Roelofs. Typically roads are paved with asphalt (aka bitumen), the leftovers at the bottom of an oil distillation pot. Avantium’s bio-asphalt utilizes lignin, the third most abundant biopolymer on the planet that is a byproduct of paper pulping, and this represents a large volume application for lignin, which is typically burned in paper mills to help produce steam.

One issue with utilizing lignin in place of asphalt or bitumen is that the price of dry lignin is about $0.80-1.00 per pound while asphalt from oil is about 3-4x cheaper. So while a lignin road might be more carbon neutral the price of paving it right now is significantly higher. Lignin offers some advantages though in that it is renewable and it can eventually biodegrade by enzymes found in fungi. A better question we might ask would be do we want our roads to be biodegradable?

Since the non-biodegradable roads seem to need repairing every few years (at least here in New England) it seems fine to me. Consumers will have an ability to say if they are willing to pay more for a biobased road now or if they are willing to keep utilizing asphalt from oil. One thing that consumers might be willing to pay more for are things such as clothing if there is some sustainability attached.

Genomatica released a consumer survey detailing what consumers wanted in a fashion brand and how sustainability of the clothing factored into their decisions. Most notably 31% of consumers said they would support a fast fashion tax and that 72% of consumers surveyed are aware of the environmental impacts of fashion on the environment. Genomatica is working to produce key chemical intermediates such as 1,4 butanediol and caprolactam in order to make biobased synthetic textiles. Biobased synthetic textile fibers often cost more than their oil based counterparts so being aware of a consumer base willing to pay more for sustainable products is critical to Genomatica being a viable company.

Speaking of viable companies, biotech darling Ginkgo Bioworks went public via SPAC in the last few weeks. Ginkgo is trying to make synthetic biology programmable with applications spanning from simple and quick Covid-19 tests, therapeutic compounds, and building blocks for materials and industrial chemicals. To me Ginkgo appears to be well positioned to capitalize on a variety of different end markets and seems like a more sustainable business model than Zymergen, which also went public recently.

Only time will tell if Ginkgo Bioworks becomes a viable company, but if I was going to bet on either Ginkgo or Zymergen I’d put my money on Ginkgo. I’m not fully convinced that synthetic biology is the answer for the specialty chemicals or plastics industry right now. I think synthetic biology’s real value is in producing complex multistep synthetic fine chemicals via biology instead of synthetic chemistry. I’ll be watching to see how these companies fare in the public markets.

The big amazing future that was envisioned by the young architect in the beginning could be a reality, but it’s going to take a lot of slow unsexy work to get there. It’s going to take small community lead initiatives such as local entrepreneurs starting a curbside composting business in Cleveland heights. Rust Belt Riders has been operating their business since 2014 in Cuyahoga County, Ohio and they offer both pickup and drop off services to both residential and commercial entities. 

Compostable food waste represents 24% of all landfilled trash according to the EPA and composting this waste is a big step towards the sort of green future that many people want to see in the world. The plastic bags that Rust Belt Riders are using to line their 5 gallon buckets and larger collection cans is also compostable and represents a big potential application for a biodegradable polymer that has been around for years, but has never seen widespread adoption to replace polyethylene. The tools are all around us right now, but it takes entrepreneurs to put those tools to work.

Tony

Sources

https://archibat.com/blog/en/a-floating-skyscraper-to-recycle-waste-from-the-ocean/

https://www.ptonline.com/products/mechanically-recycled-abspc-and-chemically-recycled-abs-produced-and-validated

https://www.avantium.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/21210602-Avantium-and-Roelofs-construct-the-worlds-first-test-road-with-lignin-produced-in-the-Netherlands.pdf

https://greenchemicalsblog.com/2021/05/31/ginkgo-bioworks-going-public-for-15bn-spac-deal/

https://greenchemicalsblog.com/2021/05/27/genomatica-survey-consumers-want-sustainable-clothing/

https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/cleveland/news/2021/05/24/cle-company-recycles-food-waste