Italians and bio-plastic
Sorry, the article about it is in French, in Le Monde : click here. I’ll try to explain in English for those who can’t read it :)
Cet article paru dans Le Monde est dispo ici.
Italian company Novamont, has created several kinds of bio-plastic in the last few years, and its success makes it grow bigger with the time. What’s bio-plastic ? Plastic is usually made from petrol. Novamont uses natural oil like sunflower’s and corn’s, to produce disposable plastic tools, like bags, packing, films of mulching for agriculture, nappies, goblets and disposable forks and spoons, soluble cotton buds, etc. Perhaps even tyres, since they teamed up with Goodyear. They are renewable, recyclable, reusable, biodegradable and “compostables”.
Not only that, but also Italy, like France or many other country in the EU, is producing too much agricultural goods and the EU regulations blocks it. 800,000 hectares of cultures are considered to be in “overproduction”, just in Italy. Novamont has teamed up with local farmers, so that going-to-waste production still finds a good application, making everybody happy (50-50 deal). If they could get all of it, they’d be able to produce 1.5 million tons of bio-plastic.
A factory in France has already been opened, as a result of the success encountered, but according to Catia Bastioli, director of Novamont, the ideal would be to create many many small factories, close to sell points, to avoid unnecessary and expensive transport, rather than big production centres, the main issue of those bio-plastic products being the cost.
Have a good day !