Hello, Paul
Thanks for your comment. It made me reflect.
The history of plastics is pretty interesting. Among other lessons, we can realize what we (as a society) valorize most. And I totally agree with you when you say that the world not only loves plastic but needs it.
The major hurdle for bioplastics is the cost of production of it. So to implement a large scale production we need to find ways to reduce costs. The idea of using agro-industrial wastes such as orange peels, go this way.
Not sure if you are familiarized with the concept of biorefinery. It's cool: the idea is to produce many products in one same plant, trying to transform every waste/by-product into a new product for the company's portfolio.
I live in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Here, we have a pilot-scale sugarcane biorefinery plant that produces PHAs bioplastics from sucrose. The company is named PHB Industrial and produces bioplastics, sugar, and ethanol, all in the same plant. This model significantly reduces the cost of production of the bioplastics from $US 5-6/kg of bioplastic to $US 2,25-2,75/kg.
I think the idea is to develop many ways of producing bioplastics as well as multiple types of bioplastics to cover the versatility of the conventional petrochemical ones. Following the bioeconomy concept, each region should invest in its vocation. My country is the world's largest producer of orange and sugarcane. Annually, Brazil generates 6.3 million metric tons of orange peel. And these residues are rich in carbohydrates that could be used as substrates to microbial production of bioplastics in local orange juice factories.
Sure we still have a lot to improve in terms of technology, but I really think bioplastics production won't become viable without more incentives as petrochemical industry taxation.
In this sense, I agree with you about the future of bioplastics in the biomedical field. Since many of these bioplastics are biocompatible (such as PHB and PHB-co-HV) and considering they are expensive, the most viable application are noble uses like scaffolds, sutures, etc.
Best regards
