cassava-based plastic packaging substitute for Leticia

[asakiyume]

When we went to the Amazon in July, we took shelter from a downpour at the Instituto Amazónico de Investigaciones Científicas SINCHI--the Sinchi Amazonic Institute of Scientific Research, "a nonprofit research institute of the Government of Colombia charged with carrying out scientific investigations on matters relating to the Amazon Rainforest, the Amazon River and the Amazon Region of Colombia for its better understanding and protection." There we met Dr. Clara Patricia Peña-Venegas, who gave me a copy of her extremely informative dissertation on cassava.

When I went back in March, I met with Dr. Peña and asked her what new things she was working on.

WELL. She's working on developing biodegradable, sustainable packaging alternatives to plastic for Leticia and the surrounding communities. Plastic trash is a huge problem for Leticia because (as noted in the post on the world's smallest Coca-Cola bottling plant) everything has to be shipped in and out of Leticia, but that's very expensive, so plastic trash just... piles up.

So she and other researchers at Sinchi have been working on various substitutes, using, among other things, cassava starch--and they have prototypes! These samples look a little battered, but that's because they've undergone various stress tests.

tray made from a palm leaf:



tray made from plant fibers:



Stiff-plastic substitute made from cassava starch. This could be used for things like cups:



5-second video of a flexible-plastic substitute, also from cassava starch:

Watch on YouTube

She said they've tested various different types of cassava, and the starch from all of them works equally well--which is good, because it means that local farmers could keep on growing whatever they're growing now, but some of their produce could go to make these products--assuming there's a way to produce these materials affordably for local hotels and businesses. They have a test plant in the nearby town of Puerto Nariño to try to make this happen.

What's cool about this initiative is that they're not trying to find THE ONE TRUE PLASTIC SUBSTITUTE or dominate the world packaging industry: on the contrary, they're trying only to develop something that will work in this immediate region. This is important because it means it would be self-limiting: you wouldn't get people clear-cutting vast swaths of the rain forest to grow cassava for plastic substitutes, which would be a terrible unintended consequence. But if it's solely for local businesses to use, then it would provide farmers with additional income without too much damage to the forest, it would provide job for people in manufacturing, and it would provide hotels and businesses with an environmentally friendly alternative to plastic, one that would biodegrade and wouldn't clog and pollute waterways.

... On our (motorized) boat ride back from the flooded forest, we were moving through large patches of water hyacinth, and floating in the water hyacinth was... lots of trash. At one point the engine stalled out. Why? Because a plastic bag had wrapped itself around the propeller. That experience highlighted just how bad a problem plastic trash is.

I would love to see other hyper-local plastic substitutes developed. Cassava starch doesn't make much sense for my locale, but maybe potato starch? Things that can be locally produced, so there's not the pollution and expense of shipping. And things that biodegrade. (And of course they need to be produceable without huge amounts of petrochemical inputs, or that, too, defeats the purpose....)

This tweet contains a longer video from SINCHI, where Dr. Peña talks about the program (in Spanish).

Comments

[sovay]

a flexible-plastic substitute, also from cassava starch

That's so cool. I like the self-limiting approach, too.

[asakiyume]

Yes, that's super important... you don't want to get a situation like growing corn for ethanol instead of, y'know, food.

[amaebi]

That's amazing and beautiful, and I particularly value your thoughts about the importance of development for local use, and about the unintended consequences of monster marketing.

Wow, if scientists and innovators in other regions would work on developing packaging that's area-appropriate for them....

[asakiyume]

I love the idea of a myriad different solutions, each fitting like a puzzle piece into a particular location. That way, too, if things end up having problems or unintended consequences down the road, it doesn't cause all of everything to fall apart: it's a difficulty just in one location. And if you have a thousand or hundred thousand or million different local solutions, then that's that many different experiences you can draw on for help in solving your problem. It's true, they're not using your exact solution, but as you look over at them, you can get ideas. So I'm imagining, anyway.

[ranunculus]

There are potato starch replacements for plastic table ware, however they don't break down with home composting methods, it takes relatively high heat to recycle them.

[asakiyume]

Very interesting to know! ... And disappointing about the inability to break down.

I do wonder about how they're made (and same with these samples--I didn't have that long talking with Dr. Peña). Clearly, if the intention is to create a plastic substitute, then one doesn't want to duplicate the problems of plastic, so (it seems to me) one would try to avoid those. But I guess it's not easy to create something that has all the advantages of plastic (light, strong, cheap to make) and yet is not made with petrochemicals (or other environmentally destructive items or methods) and is possible to recycle.

One thing that's interesting to me in a grim way is that plastic **appears** so readily decomposable--it seems to break down--but then the tiny bits of it DON'T break down (and enter the food chain, with bad consequences). I'm thinking that something made of plant starch--assuming lack of poisonous additives--would at least not have that long-term bad effect. In other words, even if a plant-starch-based plastic-substitute cup lay around on the ground looking every bit as unsightly as a traditional plastic cup, at least as it fell apart into constituent bits, it wouldn't have the same bad effect in the food chain. But (a) it's a big assumption about there being no poisonous additives and (b) it's still a rubbish problem!

[squirrelitude]

It seems to me that the most valuable things about plastic are that it is flexible, tough, and impervious. But that last one is a huge barrier to composting no matter what it's made of, and "flexible and tough" is accomplished via the use of polymers, which are also hard to break down in general. There's probably a way to do it, but we're starting from a point of disadvantage just based on what we want plastic to be.

[asakiyume]

I remember being confused about the longevity of plastic when I would see it get brittle in the sun and then break and crumble. Wait, I thought this stuff lasted forever? --But what I wasn't realizing was that even if it was breaking down into physically smaller bits, it was still **plastic**--and that as such, when it was filling up the guts of creatures (and moving up the food chain), this was a big not-good.

So I'm thinking that even if bio-based substitutes have the same tough imperviousness of plastic--which they need to have to be good substitutes--then as they break down in the sun the way plastic does, into smaller bits, then at least in theory they would be digestible? That is, if microbes or small fish fill their bellies with cassava (or potato, or whatever), then that's not going to be as killing/poisonous for them as a belly full of polyethylene. ... But I suppose that's not going to be 100 percent the case. And a lot depends on the materials used to process the cassava (or potato) etc. to give it the desired properties...

[squirrelitude]

Yes, it seems as if it should at least be *possible*, doesn't it? Some plastic degrades rather quickly in sun, although I'm not sure how quickly in shade. And the little bits should be susceptible to microbes if they're made right. I think that there could still be trouble even then, as birds and turtles eat the plastic that hasn't degraded yet, and it fills their stomachs. I don't think we can solve that problem at the chemical level. (There might be some fast selection going on, though...)

[asakiyume]

There's certainly a lot of room for us to improve (and some simple improvements we can make right away--like not using disposable plastic bags)

[squirrelitude]

Yes, absolutely!

[cmcmck]

One of the stallholders in our market food hall is now using bamboo food trays as we now have a local initiative which bans one use plastics. She's also using wooden cutlery and paper take put cups (and gives a discount if you bring your own reusable).

[asakiyume]

That is excellent, especially the discount if you bring your own reusable. Imagine if a local company were able to produce food trays from something abundant and local to your area instead of the bamboo: then that would also cut down on shipping costs (but the bamboo is still better than plastic!)

[oracne]

This is SO COOL.

[asakiyume]

Agreed! And I just heard a story this morning about breaking down garbage from the Pacific garbage patch to make medicines? I was only listening with half an ear; I'll have to go back and listen again, but yes: heartening developments!

[oracne]

And great for solarpunk/hopepunk story ideas.

[asakiyume]

Yes!

[purlewe]

the only thing that stinks about potato starch used as a plastic is... there are folks allergic to potatoes (and other niteshades) and the items that are made with it now are not labeled well enough for them to avoid them. Yes you want to be environmentally friendly but not at the cost of hurting your friends. I wish even things like packaging and flatware/compostable plates labeled the products they were originally for that reason.

The Cassava stuff is fascinating tho. Very cool.

[asakiyume]

For sure! Absolutely things should be labeled so that people with allergies don't end up made ill (or worse). And allergies are just another reason why having *many* substitutes is better than looking for just one.

Honestly, when I said potatoes, I didn't even realize its starch was currently being used in plastic alternatives--I just figured that if one starch was good, probably another would be. (You guys are more in the know about potato starch plastic substitutes than I am.) But for that very same reason, it ought to be possible to find other starches that would also work.

[sartorias]

That is so heartening. I would LOVE to see plastic replaced.

[asakiyume]

There are so many forms of plastic, used in so many different products, that it's going to be an ongoing struggle, but any advancement at all is very heartening!

[genarti]

Oh wow, this is so incredibly cool! And I love, love, love the self-limiting approach focused on local needs.

[asakiyume]

Me tooooo--I want for us to be doing that work here! If I could live a thousand lives simultaneously, one would be a materials researcher.