By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) and Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO) will host a workshop on “Transitioning to a Sustainable, Circular Economy for Plastics.” The June 8-9, 2023, workshop will convene stakeholders for a discussion of the current challenges and opportunities in transitioning to a sustainable domestic economy for plastics. According to DOE, it will include experts in recycling technologies and processes; polymer sciences; biobased plastics innovation and manufacturing; and plastics policy, economy, and sustainability. It will feature facilitated panel presentations and discussions on:

• The current landscape of plastics sustainability and circularity;
• Industry metrics in plastics sustainability and circularity;
• Supply chain and technology gaps;
• Decarbonization opportunities and pathways to achieve them; and
• Collaboration across the plastics value chain to accelerate transition to a more sustainable, circular economy.

DOE states that desired workshop outcomes include:

• Direct connections between stakeholders across the value chain to facilitate collaborations to accelerate innovation toward our collective decarbonization and circular economy goals;
• A publicly available, DOE-issued workshop report recording the discussed problems, research ideas, and industry feedback; and
• Input to ensure the DOE Strategy for Plastics Innovation evolves with the rapidly changing landscape to reflect current needs and challenges related to plastics sustainability and circularity.

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
Colorado State University (CSU) announced on April 11, 2023, that its chemists, led by Eugene Chen, University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry, have created a synthetic polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) platform. CSU states that PHAs are a class of polymers naturally created by living microorganisms or synthetically produced from biorenewable feedstocks. While they are biodegradable in the ambient environment, they are brittle and cannot easily be melt-processed and recycled. According to CSU, the synthetic PHA platform addresses each of these problems, “paving the way for a future in which PHAs can take off in the marketplace as truly sustainable plastics.”
 
The researchers searched for a strategy to address the intrinsic thermal instability of conventional PHAs. According to CSU, its chemists “made fundamental changes to the structures of these plastics, substituting reactive hydrogen atoms responsible for thermal degradation with more robust methyl groups. This structural modification drastically enhances the PHAs’ thermal stability, resulting in plastics that can be melt-processed without decomposition.” CSU notes that the newly designed PHAs are also mechanically tough, “even outperforming the two most common commodity plastics: high-density polyethylene -- used in products like milk and shampoo bottles -- and isotactic propylene, which is used to make automotive parts and synthetic fibers.” CSU notes that the new PHA can be chemically recycled back to its building-block molecule with a simple catalyst and heat, and the recovered clean monomer can be reused to reproduce the same PHA again.
 
The work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bio-Optimized Technologies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment (BOTTLE™), a DOE multi-organization consortium “focused on developing new chemical upcycling strategies for today’s plastics and redesigning tomorrow’s plastics to be recyclable-by-design.” More information is available in a Science article entitled “Chemically circular, mechanically tough, and melt-processable polyhydroxyalkanoates.”

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
To celebrate its 125th anniversary, ASTM International invited case study submissions from committee members to highlight standards that have made a significant impact in society. One of the winning entries is on a set of standards for biodegradable plastic from Committee D20 on Plastics. According to ASTM International’s article, standard test methods for determining the biobased content of solid, liquid, and gaseous samples using radiocarbon analysis (D6866) allows industry, regulators, and government to determine experimentally the percent biobased carbon present in a product or fuel. The article notes that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) BioPreferred^® program, mandated by Congress in the 2018 Farm Bill, authorizes the procurement of biobased products by the federal government. The article states that this standard is required to be used to report the percent biobased content of product for federal procurement, as well as for labeling a product with the BioPreferred logo showing biobased content.
 
The article states that there are two companion specification standards for compostable plastics and paper coatings, “redesigning plastic polymers for biodegradability in industrial composting for an environmentally responsible, managed end-of-life”:

• Standard specification for labeling of plastics designed to be aerobically composted in municipal or industrial facilities (D6400); and
• Standard specification for labeling of end items that incorporate plastics and polymers as coatings or additives with paper and other substrates designed to be aerobically composted in municipal or industrial facilities (D6868).

The standard specifications, which are “grounded in strong science and driven by consensus, provided much-needed clarity and credibility for acceptance in the marketplace and by regulatory bodies in states like California, Washington, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.” The article states that the BioPreferred program mandates D6866 as the only accepted standard for determining and reporting biobased content of products, and that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires the standard for reporting on biobased content in fuels. According to the article, industry uses D6400 and D6868 exclusively for making claims of biodegradability under industrial composting conditions. These standards are also the basis of certifications issued by U.S. and European organizations. The article notes that many stakeholders require that compostable products meet D6400 for plastics and D6868 for coatings on paper, and that industrial composters also require certification that the compostable products are certified to these standards.

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
According to a January 24, 2023, item published by the U.S. International Trade Administration (ITA), the demand for new bioplastic materials and innovative processing technologies is high, contributing to the European and Italian plastics circular economy policy. According to ITA, European demand for bioplastics (compostable, bio-attributed, and bio-based) grew more than 23 percent annually from 2019 to 2021, increasing from 210,000 to 320,000 tons. ITA states that significant investments for biorefineries and to achieve stakeholders’ other development objectives should lead to production of another 100 kilotons of totally and/or partially renewable polymers by 2030 in Europe. In Italy, in 2021, the biodegradable and compostable plastics industry was made up of 275 companies (five chemical producers, 20 granule producers and distributors, and 250 processors) with 2,895 employees and €1 billion in revenue. ITA states that the volume of bioplastics produced in 2020 increased 13.2 percent, compared to the previous year.
 
According to ITA, large investments and U.S. export opportunities for companies are expected in Europe, “as the trend in consumption indicates a demand that is far greater than the production capacity installed in Europe.” The demand for new materials and innovative processing technologies is high, contributing to the European and Italian plastics circular economy policy. ITA states that U.S. companies interested in connecting with Italian distributors, seeking representation and information on how the U.S. Commercial Service can assist U.S. companies, should reach out to Commercial Specialist .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently published its new Strategy for Plastics Innovation (SPI), which will guide DOE’s collaborative research and development (R&D) on plastic waste reduction. Four strategic goals focus the scope of the SPI:

• Deconstruction: Create new chemical, thermal, and biological/hybrid pathways to deconstruct plastics efficiently into useful chemical intermediates;
   
• Upcycling: Advance the scientific and technological foundations that will underpin new technologies for upcycling chemical intermediates from plastic waste into high-value products;
   
• Recyclable by Design: Design new and renewable plastics and bioplastics that have the properties of today’s plastics, are easily upcycled, and can be manufactured at scale domestically; and
   
• Scale and Deploy: Support an energy- and material-efficient domestic plastics supply chain by helping companies scale and deploy new technologies in domestic and global markets, while improving existing recycling technologies such as collection, sorting, and mechanical recycling.

According to the SPI, a lack of robust chemical and biological mechanisms limits the deconstruction of existing plastics. This is further complicated by the need for more robust processes that can convert diverse and contaminated plastic waste streams into useful chemical intermediates that can be upcycled into high-value products. The SPI states that “even when robust processes are developed to deconstruct existing plastics, the demand for plastics remains, leading to a critical need for new plastic materials that have the same advantages as current plastics but can be economically recycled or biodegraded safely in the environment.” The SPI notes that underscoring these goals “is the need to approach this problem in a manner informed by life cycle and techno-economic assessment, ensuring solutions are cost-competitive and environmentally benign.” The SPI identifies key research needs and opportunities for DOE-sponsored R&D and catalogs challenges and opportunities facing SPI efforts. DOE intends the SPI to transform its approach to plastic waste and develop new classes of plastic that are recyclable and upgradable by design.

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) announced on January 23, 2023, that researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) examined the benefits and trade-offs of current and emerging technologies for recycling certain types of plastics to determine the optimal options. According to BETO, the researchers provided a comparison of various closed-loop recycling technologies, which allow for the reuse of plastic through mechanical and chemical reprocessing, eliminating the need for fossil-fuel-derived virgin materials. They considered technical metrics, such as the quality and retention of recycled plastics, as well as environmental metrics, including energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. BETO and the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office provided funding for the research as part of the BOTTLE™ Consortium (Bio-Optimized Technologies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment). The Consortium is a collaborative effort among industry, academia, national labs, and the government to change the way we recycle. More information is available in the January 2023 article “Technical, Economic, and Environmental Comparison of Closed-Loop Recycling Technologies for Common Plastics,” published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Carla N. Hutton
 
On November 21, 2022, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a Science & Tech Spotlight on biorecycling of plastics. Biological recycling, or biorecycling, is an emerging technology that uses microbes, such as bacteria or fungi, to break down plastic into its basic components for reuse. GAO states that research suggests that biorecycling of plastics could help promote a circular economy in which plastic waste is continuously reincorporated into new products. According to GAO, entities seeking to engage in biorecycling could face a “complicated legal landscape” that may pose a challenge for the emerging technology. At the federal level, depending on the specifics of the process, aspects of biorecycling or the wastes that may result from that process might be governed by statutes such as the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and the Microbial Products of Biotechnology Rule. In addition, states, tribal organizations, municipalities, and other stakeholders, including nonprofit organizations, businesses, and other entities, can also play important roles in regulating or supporting recycling in the United States.
 
Opportunities from biorecycling of plastics include:

• Economic, environmental, and health gains. Biorecycling of plastics could help promote a circular economy by turning waste into more useful products while reducing dependence on fossil fuels for new plastics. Emerging recycling methods could help mitigate the negative health effects of incinerating plastic waste; and
• Processing efficiency. Biorecycling does not require the same level of sorting for plastic waste compared with mechanical recycling, thereby saving time and money. It also consumes less energy than mechanical and some chemical recycling methods.

GAO identified the following challenges:

• Implementation costs. Recycling plastics is generally more expensive than creating new plastics. Further, companies may face high start-up costs to develop a biorecycling facility;
• Limited applicability. The enzymes researchers have identified are currently limited to degrading only a few types of plastic; and
• Knowledge gaps. Research is needed to address the unintended consequences of biorecycling. For example, researchers have not assessed the risks engineered enzymes might pose if released into the environment.

According to GAO, policy context and questions include:

• What aspects of biorecycling could be prioritized to help reduce the accumulation of plastic waste and its economic and environmental effects?
• To what extent do current laws and regulations appropriately address concerns regarding the industrial use of engineered enzymes for biorecycling, while still allowing for their development?
• What steps could the federal government, states, municipalities, and other stakeholders take if they want to support or implement effective policies for biorecycling of plastic waste?

GAO states that it meets Congressional information needs in several ways, including by providing oversight, insight, and foresight on science and technology issues. GAO notes that it also provides targeted assistance on specific science and technology topics to support Congressional oversight activities and provide advice on legislative proposals.

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By Lynn L. Bergeson 
 
On January 11, 2022, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) announced that seven research and development (R&D) projects were selected to receive $13.4 million in funding for R&D projects to advance next generation plastic technologies to reduce the energy consumption and carbon emissions of single-use plastics. The selected R&D projects, led by industry and universities, will focus on converting plastic films into more valuable materials and designing new plastics that are more recyclable and biodegradable. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm stated that “By advancing technologies that repurpose single-use plastics and make the materials biodegradable, we can hit a trifecta of reduced plastic waste, fewer emissions from the plastics industry, and an influx of clean manufacturing jobs for American workers.”
 
According to DOE’s EERE, less than ten percent of plastics are recycled currently. Those plastics that are recycled are typically “downcycled” or repurposed into low-value products. The selected projects will work to develop affordable solutions for “upcycling” plastics into more valuable materials and to design new plastics that are recyclable and biodegradable.

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Ligia Duarte Botelho, M.A.
 
On December 7, 2021, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a study titled: “A Chemicals Perspective on Designing with Sustainable Plastics: Goals, Considerations and Trade-offs.” The study builds on considerations from a similar OECD report from 2018 by analyzing four sector-specific case studies on insulation, flooring, biscuit wrappers, and detergent bottles. To produce this study, OECD conducted literature reviews, interviews, and workshops with chemists and suppliers, examining the chemicals perspective on the material selection process informing designers and engineering in finding sustainable plastics for their products. OECD concludes the study by identifying limitations and recommending the following next steps:

• Identify and address knowledge gaps within scientific insights on chemicals;
• Continue to promote chemical innovation for improved outcomes for products and their operating environment;
• Integrate sustainability design goals earlier in the design process;
• Broaden the scope to include other materials families; and
• Involve more stakeholders.

The full study and a webinar hosted by OECD on December 7, 2021, are available here.

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By Lynn L. Bergeson and Ligia Duarte Botelho, M.A.

On October 28, 2021, the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) announced that several of its scientists discovered in a study that bioplastics can be chemically recycled into nitrogen-rich fertilizers in an environmentally friendly manner. Assistant Professor Daisuke Aoki and Professor Hideyuki Otsuka led the study hoping to address plastic pollution, petrochemical resource depletion, and world hunger. In their novel method, plastics produced from biomass (bioplastics) are chemically recycled back into fertilizers.
 
The study was published in Green Chemistry, a Royal Society of Chemistry journal focused on innovation research on sustainable and eco-friendly technologies.

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