Peace and Environment News* November-December 2004
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Peace and Environment News * November-December 2004 |
by Adrian Larose
A plastic liner for your car made from soy beans? That may sound far-fetched, but pickup-truck liners are just one product of ongoing research about using soybeans in place of petroleum products in the plastic-making process.
Using soy products in place of the petroleum-based plastics on the market today would produce positive effects for the environment, say people in the soy industry. One big benefit is the fact that soybeans are a renewable resource, being grown and harvested each year, while petroleum certainly is not.
Because the supply of petroleum is unreliable and nonrenewable, the price is bound to go up, spurring the need to develop renewable material, according to Professor Jay-lin Jane of Iowa State University. Jane has done pioneering research on using soy products to make plastic.
Like making pasta
How do soybeans get made into plastic? "The basic process is very similar to making pasta," says Roy Taylor, president and CEO of Illinois-based Soy Works Corporation, a company with patents on the process. A protein powder made from soybeans is mixed with water and other food-grade products, meaning the end result will be suitable for use with food. This mixture is put through a machine that makes it into strands resembling spaghetti. Then the strands can be made into the needed plastic product on site, or they can be cut into smaller pellets for shipping or storage before use.
The process for making plastics from petroleum products is somewhat more complicated. Once the correct chemical parts of the petroleum have been separated, they are mixed with other chemicals to create a reaction and form a laundry-detergent like fluff. The fluff is melted and ends up cut into small pellets similar to the soybean plastic ones.
Environmentally friendlier
Despite their similar shapes, though, petroleum and soy plastics have their share of differences. In addition to being a renewable resource, soy plastics are biodegradable. They have smaller environmental impacts in many areas compared to petroleum-based plastics; and they might even help combat global warming.
"When soy plastic biodegrades it is a true biodegradation process," Taylor says. That means that micro-organisms break down the material. The plastics that Taylor's Soy Works Corporation are working with can be composted just like your banana peels and grass clippings. "Some day we would hope to see bio-plastics that will be accepted alongside your yard waste" on city garbage day, Taylor says.
That compares very well with traditional plastics, very little of which are actually recycled. Taylor estimates less than five per cent of plastics are actually recycled, "contributing to landfill crises everywhere." Taylor adds that some of his company's plastics biodegrade completely within 60 days of disposal and most will even break down in the ocean in 90 days, perhaps sparing ocean life from getting stuck in plastic packaging.
According to an article by James Pollack available online, research has found that from production to disposal soy plastics have a much less negative impact on the environment than plastics derived from petroleum. Smog creation, eutrophication (the build up of artificial nutrients like nitrogen in lakes and rivers, which causes algae growth and can kill off fish and other water creatures), and fossil fuel depletion were all significantly reduced by using soy plastics instead of petroleum ones, Pollack says. Soy-based plastics had a seven times smaller impact on eutrophication than petroleum ones did, the research found.
Reducing greenhouse gases
Pollack points out that soy plastics have good potential to reduce the release of global warming gases compared to today's petroleum plastics. "The difference in global warming potential is due to the carbon dioxide being taken up during the soybean agriculture phase," he says.
Petroleum plastics are not a particularly big creator of carbon dioxide, Pollack writes, since they are usually not burned and so just "hold on" to most of the gas, but they do put some into the atmosphere. But instead of releasing carbon dioxide, making soy plastics actually uses up the gas, because the soy plants take in carbon dioxide when they are growing, as do all plants. The study found that soy plastics took about two kilograms of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere per kilogram of the plastic ingredient produced, while petroleum plastics added 3.5 kilograms.
Henry Ford's dream
Researchers like Jay-lin Jane are not the first to be interested in the potential uses of soybeans. Research on soy-based plastics goes as far back as the 1930s.
At that time, Henry Ford, the famous car manufacturer, had a laboratory in Dearborn, Michigan. By 1931 he had decided to focus experiments on the soybean, which seemed to have so many potential uses. By 1933, having spent a great deal of money on the research, Ford was using soybeans to make the paint and the horn buttons of his cars.
In 1937 Ford unveiled his latest triumph: a plastic replacement for steel that he meant to use to make car bodies and exteriors. Ford's plastic was not made entirely from soybeans; like many non-petroleum plastics today, it was a mix of soybeans and crops such as wheat, hemp, and flax.
But Ford was enthusiastic about the soybean in particular. "Almost all new cars will soon be made of such things as soybeans," he proclaimed. "Soybeans will make millions of dollars of added income for farmers...and provide industry with materials to make needed things nobody even knows about now." His dream was cut short when the United States entered World War II and automobile production was suspended. Ford never got the project going in a major way again.
Dishes and dog treats
Ford's prediction looks as if it may be coming true soon. There are many products (in addition to the tofu, the milk and the margarine from soy we know today) that soybean plastics can be used to make, says Taylor.
His company has many prototypes that he says are expected to hit the market. Edible chew treats for dogs, table top dishes and cutlery, and fast food containers are just a few.
Soy plastics are not the most durable things in the world, Taylor explains. The focus is on "things that will last for years until you are ready to dispose of them, but we cannot really expect our items to last for decades."
Taylor points out that these single or limited-use items "are among the biggest culprits filling up our landfills." The fact that many soy-based plastics are impermanent and biodegrade easily once thrown out could be a great help in that regard.
As for that soy-based plastic truck liner, it's coming along pretty well. Named Bio Tuffô, the 20 per cent soy-based liner has been tested by the American Society for Testing and Materials. They found that Bio Tuffô performed just as well as its petroleum counterparts in hardness and tensile strength, and actually beat its competitors in elongation stress tests, a United Soybean Board press release says. Evidently soy plastics can be made hard and durable like their petroleum-based counterparts.
"We are poisoning the food chain on land and in the oceans and must find alternatives. Recycling alone has not and will never make a significant dent in the waste generated," Taylor says.
The humble soybean could help out. Ask yourself what you'd rather think of as being behind the plastic products you use every day: an oil field, noisy drills pumping away, industrial smells in the air—or a field of green soybean plants stirring in the breeze.
Visit www.unitedsoybean.org/newuses for more information on soy plastics and other new uses of soybeans.
Adrian Larose is a journalism student at Carleton University.
Converted January 3, 2005 - Lg
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