Soon your table scraps could turn from trash to plastic bottles, medical equipment or 3D-printing filament. One Canadian small business is using clean technology to turn carbon-packed food waste into biodegradable plastic.<\/p>\n
Founded in 2016, Genecis Bioindustries Inc. is a biotechnology company that uses \u201crecipes of bacteria\u201d to turn food waste into polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), a high-quality bioplastic.<\/p>\n
Manufacturers can use bioplastic \u2013 which includes bio-based and biodegradable plastic \u2013 to create everything from sustainable single-use foodware and packaging to 3D-printing filaments, the moldable plastic needed for the printing process.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe program bacteria to convert low-value waste into high-value materials,\u201d said CEO and founder Luna Yu, a recent graduate of the University of Toronto Scarborough in the Master of Environmental Science program.<\/p>\n
Genecis hopes to cash in on emerging markets and a global shift toward a greener economy. Two years ago, Ms. Yu and her team collected micro-organisms from around the world, including Guatemala and Costa Rica, to isolate 200 new bacteria species that don\u2019t exist in other databases.<\/p>\n
The bacteria create PHA through a two-step process. First, bacteria break down food waste into small carbon building blocks. Afterward, PHA-assembling bacteria eat the carbon and store bioplastic granules in their cells before it\u2019s chemically extracted.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur business model is to work directly with waste-management companies,\u201d Ms. Yu said. \u201cFrom Day One, we had to have super robust bacteria.\u201d<\/p>\n
Genecis is one of few PHA-bioplastic companies using pre- and post-consumer food waste. In Canada, other PHA manufacturers, such as TerraVerdae BioWorks and PolyFerm Canada, use feedstocks like methanol, sugar and oil. By using food waste, Genecis can reduce the production cost of its PHA pellets by 40 per cent compared with other manufacturers.<\/p>\n
Bacteria create PHA through a two-step process. First, bacteria break down food waste into small carbon building blocks. Afterward, PHA-assembling bacteria eat the carbon and store bioplastic granules in their cells before it\u2019s chemically extracted.<\/p>\n
And investors are interested. To date, Genecis has raised approximately $870,000 \u2013 $280,000 during its first round of seed funding and $590,000 from grants and pitch competitions. The company plans to scale up its production line at the University of Toronto\u2019s Banting and Best Centre by December to process 300 kilograms of food waste per week, up from 80.<\/p>\n
From there, the company will also raise a second round of seed funding to fund the construction of a demonstration plant next year, upping its capacity. The goal is to prove Genecis\u2019s technology on an industrial scale, Ms. Yu said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re definitely going after the higher-end markets like thermo-resistant packaging and 3D-printing filaments,\u201d she said. To help Genecis grow, the company is looking to expand its full-time employees from eight to 11, hiring two candidates with experience in genetic engineering and molecular biology and another in artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
But it can be a long, hard road to bring a new polymer, such as PHA, to the market, according to Marifaith Hackett, director, specialty chemicals research at IHS Markit, who works in Northern California.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you look at the history of NatureWorks and PLA, another biodegradable polymer, it took at least 20 years to build a good commercial volume,\u201d Ms. Hackett said.<\/p>\n
NatureWorks in Minnesota is the world\u2019s largest manufacturer of polylactic acid (PLA), one of the most common bioplastics. It\u2019s clear in colour made from corn or dextrose while PHA is made by micro-organisms and biodegrades more easily. In the past, manufacturing cost limited commercial interest in both materials but especially PHA. Close to a decade ago, PLA cost manufacturers about 20 per cent more to use than petroleum-based plastic and PHA was more than double the price.<\/p>\n
Now advancements in both cost and performance are making bioplastics an increasingly feasible alternative to conventional plastics, and demand is expected to grow worldwide. While the current market value of biodegradable plastics exceeds $1.1- billion in 2018, it could reach $1.7-billion by 2023, according to a report by IHS Markit, a London-based consulting firm.<\/p>\n
Internationally, demand is being driven by both changing regulations and consumer expectations about sustainability, especially in the foodware and compostable bag industries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Soon your table scraps could turn from trash to plastic bottles, medical equipment or 3D-printing filament. One Canadian small business is using clean technology to turn carbon-packed food waste into biodegradable plastic. Founded in 2016, Genecis Bioindustries Inc. is a biotechnology company that uses \u201crecipes of bacteria\u201d to turn food waste into polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[13383,15122,5847],"supplier":[15121],"class_list":["post-58493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-bacteria","tag-biodegreadability","tag-bioplastics","supplier-genecis-bioindustries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58493\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58493"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=58493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}