Bioplastics in baseball games

The blog first mentioned BASF’s partnership with US major league baseball team Seattle Mariners in April this year, where fans were able to receive compost kit compliments of BASF, Ecosafe (the maker of compostable bags that uses BASF’s Ecovio biodegradable resins) and Seattle Public Utilities.

The compostable offerings now expanded to snack packaging where the Seattle Mariners are now using BASF’s biopolymer resin in their peanut bags at the Safeco Field. Management of the baseball team said they are on track to divert 86% of their waste from landfills.

“All of our service ware is already compostable, but snack food bags have been one of the biggest barriers preventing us from getting to our goal. Flexible packaging made with BASF biopolymers could represent the holy grail of greening for our waste stream.” – Seattle Mariners

The problem right now is separating the contaminants in the compost stream. According to the Seattle Mariners management, they still have to pay a premium to separate regular snack bags and candy wrappers from the compost stream by hand.

“If all of the snacks sold at Safeco came in compostable packaging, it would represent a significant savings of time and money for the team and get us a whole lot closer to achieving zero waste.”

By the way, there’s a Green Sports Summit going on this week organized by the Green Sports Alliance. You can follow the summit’s twitter conversation at #greensports. The non-profit organization’s goal is to help sports teams, venues and leagues enhance their environmental performance.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx5V-AmBC5Q&w=460&h=315]

As I’ve commented before about this news, I was wondering if New York/New Jersey sports teams are also already on board in using compostable products and packaging…

OTHER BIOPLASTIC-RELATED NEWS:

• In Italy, biopolymer company bio-on and furniture product designer Flos SPA have teamed up for the use of polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) resins in a Flos lamp brand. Flos said it is testing the PHA on other products and materials.

• Start-up Kansas-based company Green Dot has been making their compostable bio-based melt blended resin under the trademark GDH-B1, and is currently manufacturing compostable plastic phone cases called BioCase using the resin.

• US ag-based ingredients firm MGP has developed a new line of biodegradable composite resins under the brand Terratek BD. Applications include a variety of injection-molded industrial and consumer products such as disposable packaging materials and containers.

• PVC producer Georgia Gulf has developed a bio-based rigid and flexible vinyl compound products for InPro, a manufacturer of door and wall protection, and other systems for building and construction. The vinyl compounds incorporate a renewable-based plasticizer develop by Segetis.

• Galata Chemicals has introduced Drapex Alpha 200C, designed for use in white and clear PVC compounds as well as other specialty applications requiring performance attributes of trimellitates (plasticizers that are used in wire and cable applications and automobile interiors that require resistance to very high temperatures over long durations).

Two recent bioplastic studies also just came out. According to Transparency Market Research, the synthetic-based and bio-based biodegradable plastics market worldwide was pegged at $2.3bn last year and is expected to reach $7.8bn in 2018, at a growth rate of 19.5% between 2011-2018.

Europe is expected to account 36.8% of market revenue share in 2018 followed by North America.

BCC Research estimated the global use of bioplastics in 2011 was 850,000 tonnes last year, up from 640,000 tonnes in 2010. The market research firm expects bioplastics use to increase up to 3.7m tonnes by 2016, a compound annual growth rate of 34.3%.