FDA Greenlights Telles’ Biodegradable Mirel Bioplastics

Home » FDA Greenlights Telles’ Biodegradable Mirel Bioplastics

May 12, 2010

Telles, a joint venture between Metabolix and Archer Daniels Midland, has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its biodegradable Mirel F1005 and F1006 bioplastics to be used in food-contact products such as caps, eating utensils, trays and hot cup lids.

The FDA has also approved Mirel for use in cosmetics, house-wares and medical packaging. Mirel can also be used for freezing, boiling and in microwaves.

Telles’ first commercial-scale plant is located near the ADM wet corn mill in Clinton, Iowa .

“With the Clinton plant now in operation, and this FDA clearance, we now can move forward with brand owners’ requests to use Mirel in their injection molded food packaging applications,” stated Richard Eno, CEO of Metabolix. “These applications, which currently consume billions of pounds of petroleum-based polymers per year, offer considerable opportunity for growth of our biobased, biodegradable polymer, Mirel.”

The market for biodegradable plastics reached 541 million pounds in 2007, and is expected to reach 1.2 billion pounds by 2012 . In March, EL reported that eco-bottlers such as Green Planet Bottling and Keystone Water Company have produced bioplastic water bottles that are made 100 percent from plants, are reusable, recyclable and compostable in 80 days.

The company is also developing technology for co-producing plastics, chemicals and energy from crops such as switchgrass, oilseeds and sugarcane.

Reader Comments

This appears to be a very good thing, but I wonder what the agricultural impact might be. Anybody have any expertise per that?

Ann Beckett | May 12th, 2010

Compostable? Sure, in a comercial operation, but not in a backyard setting? Recyclable? There has been a great deal of controversy on the subject of bio-based plastics and recycling lately. Would have been nice if the author had done some original research instead of just regurgitating a press release.

Chilli | May 12th, 2010

The use of bioplastics is but one alternative in the scope of plastic applications. Issues related to mainstream recycling activities prohibit a mixing of these materials. If the waste stream can be controlled so that all products are made of these materials, then it might be feasible to produce a contingent of products in this material — e.g. all disposable utensils, cups and plates in a hospital, for example. The volume of those wastes might make it feasible and practical. Please acquaint readers with the full scope of using bioplastics within existing solid waste management and recycling scheme so that they fully understand this issue. Meanwhile, expand recycling efforts in local communities — nationwide.

Seba Sheavly | May 12th, 2010

To answer, that really depends on what source is being used to make the bioplastic. Currently, there are many different types of bioplastics, the most popular being Starch-based and PLA bioplastics. Starch-based plastics tend to be made by mixing starch with other chemical additives so that they can withstand high heat during the molding process. PLA-plastics are actually pretty cool (the science of it at least). PLA-plastics are actually plastics made from Polylactic acids. These PLAs are made from bacterial fermentation of corn starch or sugar cane.

So… to answer your question, the answer is… probably not good. But it depends on the source of the plastic. My guess is that in this case it will be from corn because Archer Daniels is involved. In my opinion, making plastic from corn is bad, but I believe it needs to be done for now in order to get our creative juices flowing and start coming up with some cool ideas to solve our problems.

As a side note, I’d like to mention that the bioplastic water bottles mentioned at the end of the article are actually probably made from sugar cane, which is better than corn. I guess this because the water bottles are made by NatureWorks and I believe I read an article that said NatureWorks is located in Florida and the Southeast.

Robin Kalsbeek | May 12th, 2010

This media spin article or these comments do NOT take into account the real fact that the majority of bio-plastics available are created from crops which require soils – sugar cane materials in the so called Green PET are produced in Brazil -crops grown on previous Amazon rain forest soils. Seventy % of US corn used in PLA bio-starch production is GM Corn, the effect of which has never been established by independent study.
Lets get real- these materials are highly inefficient and very expensive products, the LCA of which has already been established -v expensive in terms of energy. Of course ADM and Cargil are inbed with the

Dean | May 13th, 2010

how many types of bioplastics are made till now

reva | March 4th, 2011