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Biodegradable Plastics Made From Soybean Products

With increased global concern over global warming and disruptions in the supply of fossil fuels, public and private researchers are busy finding alternatives to products and processes that require large fossil fuel inputs. Plastic is one such field, with the material traditionally made from refined oil and presenting numerous environmental issues in its production and disposal. In order to address these concerns, many companies and researchers have proposed plastics made from vegetable products such as corn and soybean oil.

  1. Production

    • The production of soybean plastic uses renewable vegetable soybean oil as a substitute for crude oil. Even using the soybean oil, however, the actual process is actually rather similar to traditional plastic manufacturing. The soybean oil is distilled and processed into a resin called polyactic acid (PLA), equivalent to crude oil plastic resins, and turned into small pellets that are later molded into films or stamped into consumer products like forks or cups. In many cases, the machinery used for plastic molding and stamping can be used with PLA resin.

    Disposal: Recycling and Biodegrading

    • Much like conventional plastic, soybean PLA plastic can be recycled. Nonetheless, PLA plastics must be recycled separately from conventional plastics in order to keep the different resins from mixing. As an organic product, PLA plastics made from soybeans are also biodegradable, but they will not biodegrade quickly at normal temperatures. Instead, PLA plastics are sent to specialized facilities and kept at 140 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 days in order to trigger and accelerate the biodegrading process.

    Benefits

    • PLA plastics present a number of benefits over conventional plastics, including reduced dependency on fossil fuels, manufacture from renewable products like soybean oil and decreased toxicity when disposed of properly. PLA plastics are still an emerging field, and production processes vary widely, but considering the enormous resources used in crude-oil extraction and refining, PLA plastics can also consume less energy when compared to conventional plastics if agricultural production is sufficiently localized and does not make excessive use of fossil fuel inputs like petroleum fertilizers.

    Controversies

    • Much like bio-fuel production from agricultural products like soybean oil, soybean plastics raise a number of controversial issues regarding food safety and food prices. While the industry is still so small that its impacts on the food supply are negligible, the widespread use of soybean oil for plastic production could increase the demand for products like soy and corn, which would cause global food prices to rise. Planting energy crops like soy and corn could also displace other traditional food crops and and cause global agriculture to produce less food.

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