It’s hard to imagine a world without petroleum derived plastic materials. Take the pandemic as an example — what else would masks, rapid tests, and vaccine syringes be made of? No other materials come close to being able to be shaped as quickly, easily, and cheaply as plastic. Add to this functional barriers in food packaging and how well it hinders food waste, and you’ve got a pretty great material. No wonder why plastic is the FMCG sector favourite.

At the same time, plastic is having a rough moment. Landfills, oceans and cities fill up with plastic, and the enormous carbon footprint from plastic production is growing fast. There is broad agreement on the negative consequences of plastic consumption. Thats why EU is implementing for large-scale bans on single-use plastics, a strong green movement push for phasing out of oil completely (plastic is made from oil and gas), and both citizens and politicians want to reduce and recycle our plastic.

This makes consumer companies and brands realize that plastic can be bad for business, giving incentives to introduce new bio-based solutions to consumers. To adress the issue without having to make systemic changes, most companies opt for the easy way out. Clothes ordered online come in “compostable” plastic bags made from sugarcane. The straw at the chain restaurant is made from hemp. Products like these fall under the vague category of “bioplastics.” The common denominator is that they are made from natural materials like bamboo, sugarcane, and the like, and are marketed as environmentally friendly. But bioplastics are still plastics. Here’s why we’re sceptical:

1. Bioplastic packaging is not safe when ending up astray

If they end up in the environment, they pose a danger to nature. Take the example of the most widespread bioplastic, PLA, often used for take away trays, single use cutlery and films. It can take up to 80 years to break down in nature, according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Casual experiments back this up. Furthermore, many “degradeable” bioplastics do not actually dissapear, but disintegrates into thousands of microplastic particles.

2. Using bioplastics incentivize harmul farming practices

The biomass used for making bioplastic comes from highly industrialized and polluting agriculture. This type of monopolized mono-culture farming is also very water-intensive, and according to surfrider foundation, can push out food farmers in favor of the bioplastic “money crop”.

3. Many bioplastics contains petroleum plastic and are just as toxic 

The “official” definition of bioplastics is any material that has at least 20% renewable content. That means a lot of the bioplastic you see on the market, actually is mostly regular plastic. Moreover, bioplastics in itself does not necessarily have a lower carbon footprint nor are they less toxic than plastic.This also goes for paper coffee cups with a bioplastic liner.

4. It’s confusing consumers

Eco-friendly, bio-based, degradeable, industrially compostable. What does it mean? Sometimes it feels like you need a PhD in recycling just to put a piece of packaging in the right bin. Especially since all bioplastics look almost exactly like regulart plastic. It shouldn’t be that hard to recycle at home, being a conscious, responsible consumer is hard enough as it is.

5. Bioplastic is not recyclable

This is, in our opinion, the biggest problem: Bioplastics cannot be recycled in the facilities we have today, and there is no market demand for recycled bioplastics, as there is with petroleum based plastic. This means that if bioplastics replace conventional plastic, we will quickly have a gigantic waste problem. Even though far from perfect, the material recycling of fossil based plastics save the climate from significant greenhouse gas emissions and environmental toxins. That’s why governments is investing in facilities that can make plastic more circular. Pouring into the market bio-based “green” plastic that are in pracice un-recycleable, even in large, cutting edge facilities, makes no sense.

No good alternatives

To be clear, being sceptical about bioplastic does not mean embracing fossil based plastic. Just focusing on recycling, and ever increasing investments in the (regular)plastic waste and recycling industry will make us dependent on continually throwing away more plastic. We don’t want to be stuck with plastic forever. That’s why, in addition to moving up the waste pyramid towards reduce, reuse, recycle, we need better materials. And we need it fast, to get rid of our plastic dependency.

Dreaming of better

The future material to replace plastic needs to be renewable, sustainable, and can be produced quickly and inexpensively in massive quantities. It is safe for people to consume and yet strong enough to be used in a car bumper or a ladder hinge. This is a “moon landing” for materials innovation — it requires both resources and broad collaboration.

The lack of action and resources from governments and big corporations related to material innovation is somewhat puzzling. It also stands in stark contrast with the willingness of consumers, and perhaps especially the efforts of beach cleaners who daily stand knee-deep in ocean plastic to prevent our waste from harming life in and around the sea. Both the EU, UN and many european government have presented their plastic strategies the last few years, and their focus on reduce, reuse and recycling is great. But where is the focus on a renewable, safe, and climate-friendly alternatives to today’s (bio)plastic? Where’s the moon landing of material innovation?