Biofuels will not impact bioplastic developments

The green blogger will be in Boston for the rest of the week attending (and will be presenting) at the ICIS World Purchasing Summit. I will do a live blog of the event, where most of the major focus will be on the impact of shale gas. Follow me on twitter as well under #Purchasing13 starting Thursday, September 12.

Unfortunately the blog will be a bit sparse as I continue to work on Tecnon OrbiChem's first publication of our Bio-Materials & Intermediates newsletter. This will come out next week Friday.

In the meantime, here is an interesting short study from the Society of the Plastics Industry Bioplastic Coucil talking about the future of bioplastics. According to the study, the bioplastic industry will develop regardless of what happens with biofuels. Why?

• Bioplastics is emerging in a world of mature and sometimes obsolete manufacturing facilities. Bioplastic players have the opportunity to leverage and repurpose existing infrastructure
• Bioplastics is already facing reduced market uncertainties with well-established applications for plastics
• Shale gas can directly enhance the economic drivers for biobased equivalents of other polymers such as polyesters and polyamides.
• The potential environmental and societal impacts of bioplastics will not be as large as the impacts of the biofuels industry. 
• The smaller scale bioplastic industry could move rapidly in terms of innovation and commercialization of new technologies compared to the larger-scale biofuels.

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