Technolust & Loathing

This was first posted on Feb 18, 2011 on a different, now discontinued blog.

I attended a lecture at the National Building Museum last night entitled “Life After Plastic,” which is part of the “For the greener good” series (#fgg).  The session was overall very engaging, although I think there were many more questions than time allowed!  My reflections and questions are below my notes from the evening.

Notes:

Moderator: Lance Hosey

Panelists: Jay Bolus, Blaine Brownell, and Robert (Bob) Peoples

As an introduction, Lance gave a very brief history of how plastics entered our lives, including a quote from The Graduate (1967): “There’s a great future in plastics”.

Key points I took from the night:

Lance: Less than 5% of plastic is recycled and practically every piece of plastic ever made still exists

Jay: plastic needs to be designed intelligently (reprocessed/recycled/non-toxic)

Bob: Transitions take a long time, so we aren’t near a life without plastic.  It takes time to come up with a replacement, where the materials are benign by design.  He advocates green chemistry to reduce or eliminate the use and development of hazardous materials.

Blaine: We need to understand what happens after the first life of the plastic in order to develop a better manufacturing process.

Bob: Ultimately society has to bare the cost of sustainability.  Right now plastic goes “away”, people don’t have to think about it.  We need to evaluate the true cost of sustainability for the people.  The economics are as important as the policies and process.

Jay: Bioplastics are not a perfect solution as the manufacturing process is not toxins, there is competition with food resources, and farming still requires a lot of petroleum.

Jay: The building block (the base for creating the plastic) is not as important as the end of use (not disposal) of the plastic object.

Jay: In regards to using waste as energy, there is a question of the need for bio products to be broken down to replace top soil.  But some waste as energy strategies could work.

Blaine: we are moving from a hydro-carbonate era to a carbohydrate era, or in laymen terms, from an open system to a closed system; cradle to grave to cradle to cradle.

Bob: food for thought.  China predicts a growth of 40 Billion square meters of building space, where are all the materials going to come from?

Lance:  food for thought.  It would take 3 years of no more homes being built before the growth of US households can catch up to the amount of empty houses.

Blaine: food for thought.  A city the size of Austin, TX needs a land mass the size of Vancouver Island to sustain them.

?: food for thought: 98% of all the energy created from sources like oil/coal is wasted through inefficiencies.

Jay: Regulation is a symptom of design failure.

Bob: US government regulations are sometimes good.  Look at the tire industry.  It took a law, but now over 80% of tires are recycled.

MyResponses/Questions

1.)  There was a question from the audience concerning bioplastic sources.  If we use sugar cane for example, what do we do, put them in the Florida Everglades and ruin that ecosystem?  The response from the panel is that different plants will work in different locations.  They also would prefer to produce bioplastics from cellulose or non-food consumption plants.  I myself can go further on this question.

There is some research into sustainable farming that goes beyond reducing the dependency on petroleum and potentially can improve the issue of top soil loss.  Biomimicry is the term you can use here.  In Kansas there is a research farm that is looking at the natural state of the land (being mainly prairie grasses) in order to determine what recipe of plants is needed to develop a garden/farm that is sustainable in that climate and with that soil.  The idea is that if you have the right combination of plants, then you can remove the need for pesticides (as it’s not a monoculture), allow for some security if one plant fails because there are others, and to help hold down the top soil (turning the soil ruins the top soil).  The problem is that traditional farmers won’t necessarily be able to take the time to figure out the exact recipe for their own climate/land and still make a living.  What can encourage them is the idea of cellulose based bioplastics.  If a state like Kansas, which in its natural state is mainly prairie grasses that are not edible, had farmers let their farms turn back to this natural state, it would reduce loss of top soil, and reduce dependencies on petroleum.  While the land is in this state, the farmers can then sell part of the cellulose to make bioplastics and potentially other forms of energy.  This would allow them an income as they adjust to a different farming practice based on sustainability for their particular climate/land.  They would have time to figure out their special “recipe” for other parts of their land.

As I have learned at USGBC, green building requires a holistic plan, and I hope that those working with bioplastics will also think of the larger implications of how the can improve the farming industry.

2.) The question I was not able to ask had to do with the future of plastic vs all this plastic that has already been produced. How do we package the current plastic so that people will use it in a more thoughtful way and also reclaim all of the disposed of plastic.  Working towards a better solution for future production of plastic is only half the problem.

At the very end of the of the talk, one of the speakers touched on the fact that you wouldn’t want to make everything out of biodegradable plastics.  If there is a need for longevity then the project manager needs to determine what materials too meet the anticipated lifespan.  For example, buildings need to stand potentially for a 100 years (give or take) so you need to think about materials that will allow for such a life time.  The speakers also said there isn’t really a good plan in place for how to deal with all the current plastic.

So my thought is to make a firm distinction between the use of the plastics.  For products that are for everyday use of people, those should be bioplastics.  That way you don’t have to worry about people throwing them out, understanding the best use of plastic, etc.  In most cases those products aren’t meant for longevity either.  It also is less toxic, so people will not be using more dangerous plastics.  When I say everyday objects, I mean like toys, disposable utensils in schools, and water bottles (although I hope those go away).  Then all of the non-bioplastics are repurposed for items like certain types of building materials, cars, and medical items.  I say this because, at least when it comes to green building, there is already a movement to have an end of use plan.  Those people would be more likely to recycle/reuse the materials.  Medical centers have a way to dispose of their products in a safe way, and I’m sure that there is a way to take those items and safely recycle them.  Cars tend to all end up at a junk yard.  Since tires are already part of the culture to recycle then I’m sure that the same collection routes/places can include plastics.  Put the non-bioplastics in the hands of people who will take care of the end of use and in places that simply can’t use bioplastics.

To further market this in order to show the value of retrieving all the plastic dumped in the oceans and in landfills, you have the issue of growth.  Look at China’s anticipated growth.  Wouldn’t it motivate China if they had a green building policy that included that all plastic used in those buildings must be recycled.

I realize my ideas here are somewhat simplistic and do not touch on all pros and cons of such ideas, but I think it’s worth considering.