Dave Denton, President
Phone: (360) 474-7899
Skype: Earthnurture
17604-11th. Ave. N.E.
Arlington, WA, 98223
USA
Phone: 503-803-5884
Skype: biogreenusa1
320 SW 14th St.
Gresham, OR, 97080
USA
in accordance with
ASTM standards****
Welcome to Biogreen Products Co. Business-to-Business Website
At BioGreen Products Co., we are dedicated to seeing that more and more of the plastic disposable items we use every day rejoin the cycle of life. BioGreen Products Co. sells biodegradable plastic disposable products, that is to say, plastic that in a landfill decays into soil.
The Evolution of Biodegradable Plastic
Biodegradable plastic is plastic that is degraded into humus and / or water and biogas when disposed of, due to the action of the naturally occurring soil micro-organisms that turn dead plant life into humus, the organic part of soil. The result is a looser and lighter soil which can hold more air and moisture, making a better environment for plant life.
There have been three generations of biodegradable plastic. The first was starch based plastic, PLA, almost always made out of corn. The second generation was oxo-biodegradable conventional plastic, and the third, the current generation, is microbiodegradable conventional plastic.
PLA, or corn-based plastic
PLA, or corn-based plastic, was said to be the first generation of biodegradable plastic, even though its primary manufacturer, Naturworks, states that it will not biodegrade in any natural environment, nor in landfills. PLA, Poly Lactic Acid, biodegrades only when frequently turned and heated to a temperature of 150 degrees for six months. It is made and promoted by corporate giants that have huge financial and political power, such as Cargill, Inc., (Click here to learn what Cargill's critics say about Cargill, Inc.,) but it has many drawbacks.
It is billed as ***'sustainable,' as it is based on food sources, primarily corn. However, if all of the disposable plastic products in the world were made out of corn, 150,000,000 tons of corn would be used to make plastic. Prices for corn would rise dramatically, and third world hunger would increase even more dramatically. There are currently 1,000,000,000 hungry people in the third world. If we imagine that condition worsening greatly, the result could only be a humanitarian catastrophe of appalling proportions. That is the real ramification of 'sustainability' in today's world.
Furthermore, PLA isn't a very good plastic. It imparts an off taste to water when used for water bottles, it melts when used as soup spoons, it's weak, and therefore items made of it are heavy, and it has a short shelf life, sometimes becoming a sticky mess while still in the warehouse. What's more, no recyclers accept it for recycling except the company that manufactures it, which ships it across the US to its one recycling center. In fact, recyclers that don't manufacture PLA, dislike PLA and are trying to ban it, because it gets confused with more conventional plastics, and ruins their recycled plastic batches.
Even commercial composters have a limited appetite for PLA, because it adversely affects the compost batch as too much PLA makes the compost too acidic. One bottle manufacturer did a survey of commercial composters and found that 90% of those surveyed would not accept PLA bottles. Furthermore, PLA cannot be composted by home composters - PLA requires elevated heat beyond what the natural compost process generates to compost. The most peculiar thing about calling PLA compostable, is that it leaves no residue in compost, and so it gives no contribution to humus - unlike microbiodegradable plastic, discussed below. The ASTM standard for compostable plastic, ASTM D6400, actually requires that compostable plastic makes no contribution to humus. (For information about the effect of the corn boom on the environment, click here.)
Oxo-Biodegradable Plastic, the Second Generation of Biodegradable Plastic
The second generation plastic oxo-biodegradable plastic was very different than the the previous generation of biodegradable plastic called PLA, starch-based plastic, or 'spudware. Oxo-biodegradable plastic had many advantages over PLA-It was invulnerable to water, one might adjust it to the desired biodegradation rate, some products could contain recycled content, it could be recycled, it didn't diminish the grain supply, it was stronger, less expensive, and was made from an otherwise useless industrial byproduct, light naphtha. (Light naphtha is a highly volatile faction of crude oil that cannot be made into gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, or jet fuel.**)
This second-generation biodegradable plastic is little known in the US, but is is well established and widely used in Europe. Tesco and Carrefours, the largest grocery chains in the world, and in France, respectively, package their customers' groceries in oxo-biodegradable 't-shirt' bags. In fact, the largest bakers in Mexico and South Africa package bread in oxo-biodegradable bags, and oxo-biodegradable plastic is becoming common in India and China. The US is so far behind the curve on this, that it is a little embarrassing.
Oxo-biodegradable plastic doesn't biodegrade when deeply buried in landfills*, because it requires an initial phase of degeneration which required certain environmental factors-oxygen and one of the following three circumstances-heat, UV light, or mechanical stress-and because the subsequent biodegredation part of the degredation only works in oxygenated environments. These circumstances don't exist when deeply buried in landfills, so oxo-biodegradable plastics don't have any benefit for products deeply buried in landfills. Oxo-biodegradable products do, however, offer a benefit if litter is the primary concern, as they degrade in the presence of UV light.
There is a potential problem with UV initiated degradation, however - if it becomes common and products made with oxo-biodegradable additives enter the recycling stream in large numbers, the resulting plastic could have a short lifespan if placed in sunlight. This would be a big problem for items made with recycled plastic such as plastic tarps.
The Third Generation of Biodegradable Conventional Plastics,
which are used in our products: Microbiodegradable Plastic
There is now a third generation biodegradable product which is the standard plastic we use daily, light naphtha based plastic, with an additive (ENA or Earth Nurture Additive,) that will cause it to biodegrade without the need of heat, UV light, mechanical stress, or oxygen. This third-generation plastic is called microbiodegradable plastic, and it biodegrades when placed into the ground due to the action of micro-organisms naturally occurring in soil. Examples of these microorganisms are Pseudomonas, Sphingomonas, Xanthomonas, Sphingobacterium, Xylaria, and Trichoderma.
We are now using the third generation ENA additive in all of our products. It has all of the benefits of oxo-biodegradable plastics-it is recyclable, is invulnerable to water, some products can have recycled content, it doesn't diminish the grain supply, and it is stronger, less expensive, and made of an otherwise useless industrial byproduct. It also has the advantage of having the same shelf life as regular plastic, unlike PLA and oxo-biodegradable plastic, as it does not biodegrade until it is in the presence of soil micro-organisms.
Additionally, this new ENA microbiodegradable plastic will definitely biodegrade when buried in the ground in either aerobic or anaerobic environments, ie. in a land fill. Like PLA, this new plastic will produce small amounts of methane in a land fill if deeply buried, but not so quickly as PLA, and like PLA, it will produce small amounts of carbon dioxide as a result of the metabolism of micro-organisms if it decomposes in the presence of oxygen.
With this new generation of ENA microbiodegradable plastic, biodegradation is delayed long enough that there is time to cap the landfills, (Click to see a video about using methane from landfills,) so the methane is burned off or even used to generate electricity, as is being done in almost 500 US land fills currently. Like all of our products, this new plastic is recyclable and completely non-toxic to people, plants, and animals, and is made of ingredients approved by the FDA for food contact.
In our view, by using naphtha-based ENA microbiodegradable plastic, we are following in the footsteps of the native Americans of the Great Plains, who used every part of the buffalo, the chief resource in their environment. We take an industrial byproduct that used to be wasted and turn it into useful packaging materials and other disposable items. Then the disposable items are turned into humus, to the benefit of the soil and the plants it nurtures. Waste gasses from the conversion process are then used to make electricity. We thus have progressed from wasting an asset to generating three benefits from it for people and our planet.
Our Products
We offer ENA microbiodegradable plastic disposable items of the third generation type in the following products: Cutlery, PET bottle preforms and deli containers and lids, t-shirt bags, garbage bags, produce bags, straws, garbage bags, and hot cup lids.
We are rapidly expanding our product line, so please check back for more products.
Under development: We will introduce products for retail resale in retail outlets such as grocery stores, office supply stores, and pharmacies, under the brand name, "Earth Nurture," (trademark applied for.)
Custom Work
We have done a number of custom manufacturing projects, such as biodegradable packaging for medical test kits. Please call or e-mail us to discuss any proposal for custom manufacturing.
Documentation
Please e-mail Tim Dunn for any inquiries, including documentation of any claim made on this website. We have extensive documentation of third party testing of the biodegradability, acceptability for food contact, and environmental harmlessness of our products.
Europe
BioGreen Products Co. does business in Europe as Biogreen Products, Europe. To view our Scandanavian website, click here.
Microbiodegradability Links
A Canadian high school student has proven that a bacteria, Sphingomonas, eats plastic very quickly, if given a little encouragement.
Click here to read the story.
A Japanese study found that styrene and polystyrene were biodegraded by strains of bacteria. See: "Pseudomonas sp. and Bacillus sp. for styrene decomposition, and Xanthomonas sp. and Sphingobacterium sp. for polystyrene decomposition. Especially, Bacillus sp. STR-Y-O strain decomposed both styrene and polystyrene. Styrene and polystyrene were reduced 40% (9g) and 56% (34g) of initial concentrations (quantity), respectively, in 8 days by strain STR-Y-O."
Every day more studies are done which find that bacteria and fungi exist which will eat plastic. Here is a report about Xylaria and Trichoderma fungi biodegrading plastic.
Miscellaneous Links
A very large and highly technical study about the environmental benefits of conventional plastic garbage bags versus bioplastic garbage bags (PLA, aka corn-plastic,) bags has just been released. Conventional plastic was found to be more environmentally friendly in all categories, including non-renewable energy use, global warming impact, and pollution. Click here to read the report.
Bagasse (sugar cane) residue is a compostable product made out of an agricultural byproduct. So far, so good. Is it suitable for making plates, lunch trays, bowls, and other food service ware out of? This chef puts it to the test.
We supply biodegradable bottle preforms for making PET bottles for products such as bottled water. What's a bottle preform? Youtube will show you. Please click here. -And to see what happens inside of a bottle mold, click here.
Footnotes
**It is often implied, quite mistakenly, that a barrel of oil could easily be turned into whatever product is desired. Nothing could be further from the truth. A barrel of crude oil has many complex chemicals in it, of various different weights / densities. These various densities are suitable for producing only a limited number of items. 'Light' naphtha, the kind used to make plastics, is lighter than gasoline, and more dense than natural gas. It has very few uses besides making plastics. It is also used for making products in relatively limited demand, such as 'white gasoline' aka 'Coleman fuel,' lighter fluid, and solvent. Click here to see this illustrated.
***How 'sustainable' is corn? Every phase of cultivation: Planting, fertilization, weed killing, pest killing, harvesting, and transporting of harvested corn, uses diesel to run the machinery which does this work, and the fertilizer used in growing corn is also made out of petroleum. Furthermore, the process uses vast amounts of water, and pollutes the remaining ground water with pesticides and herbicides, rendering it toxic. Click here to read a Time Magazine article which expresses extreme skepticism about the greenness of biofuel. What is the effect of the combination of open markets in world trade and alternative uses for grain, such as gasohol, biodiesel, and 'sustainable plastic? Read this to learn more: Click here to learn more.
Earth Nurture Biodegradability Summary
Frequently Asked Questions
Catalog
Welcome to Biogreen Products Co. Business-to-Business Website
At BioGreen Products Co., we are dedicated to seeing that more and more of the plastic disposable items we use every day rejoin the cycle of life. BioGreen Products Co. sells biodegradable plastic disposable products, that is to say, plastic that in a landfill decays into soil.
The Evolution of Biodegradable Plastic
Biodegradable plastic is plastic that is degraded into humus and / or water and biogas when disposed of, due to the action of the naturally occurring soil micro-organisms that turn dead plant life into humus, the organic part of soil. The result is a looser and lighter soil which can hold more air and moisture, making a better environment for plant life.
There have been three generations of biodegradable plastic. The first was starch based plastic, PLA, almost always made out of corn. The second generation was oxo-biodegradable conventional plastic, and the third, the current generation, is microbiodegradable conventional plastic.
PLA, or corn-based plastic
PLA, or corn-based plastic, was said to be the first generation of biodegradable plastic, even though its primary manufacturer, Naturworks, states that it will not biodegrade in any natural environment, nor in landfills. PLA, Poly Lactic Acid, biodegrades only when frequently turned and heated to a temperature of 150 degrees for six months. It is made and promoted by corporate giants that have huge financial and political power, such as Cargill, Inc., (Click here to learn what Cargill's critics say about Cargill, Inc.,) but it has many drawbacks.
It is billed as ***'sustainable,' as it is based on food sources, primarily corn. However, if all of the disposable plastic products in the world were made out of corn, 150,000,000 tons of corn would be used to make plastic. Prices for corn would rise dramatically, and third world hunger would increase even more dramatically. There are currently 1,000,000,000 hungry people in the third world. If we imagine that condition worsening greatly, the result could only be a humanitarian catastrophe of appalling proportions. That is the real ramification of 'sustainability' in today's world.
Furthermore, PLA isn't a very good plastic. It imparts an off taste to water when used for water bottles, it melts when used as soup spoons, it's weak, and therefore items made of it are heavy, and it has a short shelf life, sometimes becoming a sticky mess while still in the warehouse. What's more, no recyclers accept it for recycling except the company that manufactures it, which ships it across the US to its one recycling center. In fact, recyclers that don't manufacture PLA, dislike PLA and are trying to ban it, because it gets confused with more conventional plastics, and ruins their recycled plastic batches.
Even commercial composters have a limited appetite for PLA, because it adversely affects the compost batch as too much PLA makes the compost too acidic. One bottle manufacturer did a survey of commercial composters and found that 90% of those surveyed would not accept PLA bottles. Furthermore, PLA cannot be composted by home composters - PLA requires elevated heat beyond what the natural compost process generates to compost. The most peculiar thing about calling PLA compostable, is that it leaves no residue in compost, and so it gives no contribution to humus - unlike microbiodegradable plastic, discussed below. The ASTM standard for compostable plastic, ASTM D6400, actually requires that compostable plastic makes no contribution to humus. (For information about the effect of the corn boom on the environment, click here.)
Oxo-Biodegradable Plastic, the Second Generation of Biodegradable Plastic
The second generation plastic oxo-biodegradable plastic was very different than the the previous generation of biodegradable plastic called PLA, starch-based plastic, or 'spudware. Oxo-biodegradable plastic had many advantages over PLA-It was invulnerable to water, one might adjust it to the desired biodegradation rate, some products could contain recycled content, it could be recycled, it didn't diminish the grain supply, it was stronger, less expensive, and was made from an otherwise useless industrial byproduct, light naphtha. (Light naphtha is a highly volatile faction of crude oil that cannot be made into gasoline, diesel, fuel oil, or jet fuel.**)
This second-generation biodegradable plastic is little known in the US, but is is well established and widely used in Europe. Tesco and Carrefours, the largest grocery chains in the world, and in France, respectively, package their customers' groceries in oxo-biodegradable 't-shirt' bags. In fact, the largest bakers in Mexico and South Africa package bread in oxo-biodegradable bags, and oxo-biodegradable plastic is becoming common in India and China. The US is so far behind the curve on this, that it is a little embarrassing.
Oxo-biodegradable plastic doesn't biodegrade when deeply buried in landfills*, because it requires an initial phase of degeneration which required certain environmental factors-oxygen and one of the following three circumstances-heat, UV light, or mechanical stress-and because the subsequent biodegredation part of the degredation only works in oxygenated environments. These circumstances don't exist when deeply buried in landfills, so oxo-biodegradable plastics don't have any benefit for products deeply buried in landfills. Oxo-biodegradable products do, however, offer a benefit if litter is the primary concern, as they degrade in the presence of UV light.
There is a potential problem with UV initiated degradation, however - if it becomes common and products made with oxo-biodegradable additives enter the recycling stream in large numbers, the resulting plastic could have a short lifespan if placed in sunlight. This would be a big problem for items made with recycled plastic such as plastic tarps.
The Third Generation of Biodegradable Conventional Plastics,
which are used in our products: Microbiodegradable Plastic
There is now a third generation biodegradable product which is the standard plastic we use daily, light naphtha based plastic, with an additive (ENA or Earth Nurture Additive,) that will cause it to biodegrade without the need of heat, UV light, mechanical stress, or oxygen. This third-generation plastic is called microbiodegradable plastic, and it biodegrades when placed into the ground due to the action of micro-organisms naturally occurring in soil. Examples of these microorganisms are Pseudomonas, Sphingomonas, Xanthomonas, Sphingobacterium, Xylaria, and Trichoderma.
We are now using the third generation ENA additive in all of our products. It has all of the benefits of oxo-biodegradable plastics-it is recyclable, is invulnerable to water, some products can have recycled content, it doesn't diminish the grain supply, and it is stronger, less expensive, and made of an otherwise useless industrial byproduct. It also has the advantage of having the same shelf life as regular plastic, unlike PLA and oxo-biodegradable plastic, as it does not biodegrade until it is in the presence of soil micro-organisms.
Additionally, this new ENA microbiodegradable plastic will definitely biodegrade when buried in the ground in either aerobic or anaerobic environments, ie. in a land fill. Like PLA, this new plastic will produce small amounts of methane in a land fill if deeply buried, but not so quickly as PLA, and like PLA, it will produce small amounts of carbon dioxide as a result of the metabolism of micro-organisms if it decomposes in the presence of oxygen.
With this new generation of ENA microbiodegradable plastic, biodegradation is delayed long enough that there is time to cap the landfills, (Click to see a video about using methane from landfills,) so the methane is burned off or even used to generate electricity, as is being done in almost 500 US land fills currently. Like all of our products, this new plastic is recyclable and completely non-toxic to people, plants, and animals, and is made of ingredients approved by the FDA for food contact.
In our view, by using naphtha-based ENA microbiodegradable plastic, we are following in the footsteps of the native Americans of the Great Plains, who used every part of the buffalo, the chief resource in their environment. We take an industrial byproduct that used to be wasted and turn it into useful packaging materials and other disposable items. Then the disposable items are turned into humus, to the benefit of the soil and the plants it nurtures. Waste gasses from the conversion process are then used to make electricity. We thus have progressed from wasting an asset to generating three benefits from it for people and our planet.
Our Products
We offer ENA microbiodegradable plastic disposable items of the third generation type in the following products: Cutlery, PET bottle preforms and deli containers and lids, t-shirt bags, garbage bags, produce bags, straws, garbage bags, and hot cup lids.
We are rapidly expanding our product line, so please check back for more products.
Under development: We will introduce products for retail resale in retail outlets such as grocery stores, office supply stores, and pharmacies, under the brand name, "Earth Nurture," (trademark applied for.)
Custom Work
We have done a number of custom manufacturing projects, such as biodegradable packaging for medical test kits. Please call or e-mail us to discuss any proposal for custom manufacturing.
Documentation
BioGreen Products Co. does business in Europe as Biogreen Products, Europe. To view our Scandanavian website, click here.
A Canadian high school student has proven that a bacteria, Sphingomonas, eats plastic very quickly, if given a little encouragement. Click here to read the story.
A Japanese study found that styrene and polystyrene were biodegraded by strains of bacteria. See: "Pseudomonas sp. and Bacillus sp. for styrene decomposition, and Xanthomonas sp. and Sphingobacterium sp. for polystyrene decomposition. Especially, Bacillus sp. STR-Y-O strain decomposed both styrene and polystyrene. Styrene and polystyrene were reduced 40% (9g) and 56% (34g) of initial concentrations (quantity), respectively, in 8 days by strain STR-Y-O."
Every day more studies are done which find that bacteria and fungi exist which will eat plastic. Here is a report about Xylaria and Trichoderma fungi biodegrading plastic.
A very large and highly technical study about the environmental benefits of conventional plastic garbage bags versus bioplastic garbage bags (PLA, aka corn-plastic,) bags has just been released. Conventional plastic was found to be more environmentally friendly in all categories, including non-renewable energy use, global warming impact, and pollution. Click here to read the report.
Bagasse (sugar cane) residue is a compostable product made out of an agricultural byproduct. So far, so good. Is it suitable for making plates, lunch trays, bowls, and other food service ware out of? This chef puts it to the test.
We supply biodegradable bottle preforms for making PET bottles for products such as bottled water. What's a bottle preform? Youtube will show you. Please click here. -And to see what happens inside of a bottle mold, click here.
Footnotes
**It is often implied, quite mistakenly, that a barrel of oil could easily be turned into whatever product is desired. Nothing could be further from the truth. A barrel of crude oil has many complex chemicals in it, of various different weights / densities. These various densities are suitable for producing only a limited number of items. 'Light' naphtha, the kind used to make plastics, is lighter than gasoline, and more dense than natural gas. It has very few uses besides making plastics. It is also used for making products in relatively limited demand, such as 'white gasoline' aka 'Coleman fuel,' lighter fluid, and solvent. Click here to see this illustrated.
***How 'sustainable' is corn? Every phase of cultivation: Planting, fertilization, weed killing, pest killing, harvesting, and transporting of harvested corn, uses diesel to run the machinery which does this work, and the fertilizer used in growing corn is also made out of petroleum. Furthermore, the process uses vast amounts of water, and pollutes the remaining ground water with pesticides and herbicides, rendering it toxic. Click here to read a Time Magazine article which expresses extreme skepticism about the greenness of biofuel. What is the effect of the combination of open markets in world trade and alternative uses for grain, such as gasohol, biodiesel, and 'sustainable plastic? Read this to learn more: Click here to learn more.