Plastic is filling the ocean, killing sea life, showing up in Arctic ice and bottled water, newborns’ placentas and adults’ internal organs. There are companies around the world trying to come up with plastic substitutes–products that are bio-based and environmentally sustainable. But so far they’re not on supermarket shelves.
Now, in advance of a new round of global treaty talks to mitigate the plastic problem The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development has prepared a report, Leaving the shore: Marine-based substitutes and alternatives to plastics to explain the options and address opportunities and challenges to transitioning to these plastic substitutes. The study presents original research demonstrating the potential for trade in marine-based non-plastic substitutes and alternatives (MBSAs) to address plastic pollution, while promoting sustainable economic development in coastal communities, including in SIDS.
Researchers looked at ocean-based supply chains and unconventional uses of their products and byproducts. That revealed promising MBSA that have a role or potential in replacing fossil fuel-based plastics, either directly–as building blocks or additives for alternative bioplastics–or indirectly–as inputs to produce non-plastic substitutes (e.g., ceramics, glass).
For example, clam and oyster shells and fish bones may be considered waste by fish processors, but they are rich in useful substances. Elements of the shells are used for ceramics; the fish bones have elements used for medical applications and packaging. Mussel byssus, a by-product of mussel farming, is a potential source of collagen with properties that make it suited for encapsulating bioactive molecules which means it could work for food packaging films and cosmetics.
One of the most promising substances in the report is algae, which when farmed, can provide environmental benefits in the form of carbon sequestration. Growing algae does not consume freshwater supplies or use land that would be put to other uses. The waste from MBSAs created with algae could potentially become feedstock for biofuels, animal feed or biotechnology products.
However, the industry has some steep hills to climb in terms of making viable products that can compete with fossil-fuel based plastics. MBSAs, especially in developing nations, may struggle with inadequate funding, need for research and development expertise and facilities, need for approvals and licenses to be used for food storage, lack of manufacturing expertise for a novel product, lack of markets and supply chains among other problems. Fossil-fuel based plastics, the report notes, benefit from significant cost efficiencies, including large volumes, workforce specialization, mature and cheaper technologies and established industry networks, not to mention significant subsidies to fossil fuels.
Then the environmental benefit of a transition to MBSAs has to include calculations such as cost and environmental impact of collecting the raw material; energy intensity required to transport the material to the place where it is converted into a plastic-like substance; use of renewable vs. non-renewable energy in the manufacture process; and environmental impacts from end-of-life-cycle for the finished product.
What MBSAs have going for them, however, is increasing regulation that limits use of plastics, the potential for being in the carbon markets, and support from financial institutions that focus on sustainability and development.
End-of-life management is also an important benefit for MBSAs. Instead of breaking down into microplastics that get into the bloodstream of living creatures, they can break down without harm to the enviroment and potentially be composted or used as a biofuel.
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