How Northeast Ohio’s polymer industry is confronting backlash on plastic
Even with environmentalists pushing to greatly reduce plastic use, the reality is that consumers still rely on all the benefits that plastics provide, including the convenience of throwing them away.
SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Plastics make modern life safer and more convenient, from cellphones and cars to toys and packaging. But when discarded, they break down into tiny microplastics that pollute the water and air.
In Northeast Ohio, where the plastic and rubber industry is a major player in the economy, companies and researchers are working to reduce the ecological harm.
Even with environmentalists pushing to greatly reduce plastic use, the reality is that consumers still rely on all the benefits that plastics provide, including the convenience of throwing them away. That puts the onus on industry to seek answers, be they materials that biodegrade once discarded, or materials that can be recycled, repurposed or reused.
“There is a ton of innovation going on every day towards making those things better,” said Ray Somich, a former Dow Chemical executive now in charge of government affairs at Synthomer, a British company that bought locally based Omnova Solutions in 2020.
Much of that innovation — aimed at reducing the environmental impact rather than eliminating plastics outright — is happening in Northeast Ohio, where companies and researchers at University of Akron, Case Western Reserve University and other schools are working on those challenges.
Economic impact
TeamNEO, the region’s primary economic development organization, estimates rubber and plastic production accounts for nearly 37,000 jobs in the Cleveland-Akron-Canton corridor, with a total gross domestic product of more than $11 billion.
A focus these days has been on making materials more responsibly, by using less oil and gas – the primary components for plastic – and by formulating products that allow for greater ease of recycling or decomposition.
Somich said it’s an industrywide initiative, as evidenced by his involvement with the American Chemistry Council.
“I genuinely see the CEOs and my peers that are actively trying to make their products better with a sustainability mindset,” he said. “It’s not easy because you have to get adoption of those products.”
Synthomer is one company forging ahead. It recently launched Plastvance T, a thermoplastic resin used to make food packaging, such as yogurt cups, water bottles and film. It allows manufacturers to transition from polystyrene to polypropylene, which has a lower carbon footprint and is easier to recycle.
“It essentially is replacing certain plastics that don’t need to be used because this material is being used in its place,” Somich said.
Many minds at work
Across the region, companies and universities have been aided in their pursuits by the Polymer Industry Cluster, an Akron-based organization launched in 2021 to support innovation and expansion in the plastics, rubber and chemical sectors.
“Our goal is to find solutions that reduce environmental impact,” said Hans Dorfi, executive director and chief innovation officer of the cluster.
That means developing new base materials that don’t come from fossil fuels, figuring out ways to minimize waste, or making that waste easier to recycle or degrade in a landfill. Dorfi is realistic about the challenges, however, acknowledging that many plastics were never designed with their end of life in mind.
Or, as Somich puts it, “How do you make something that’s durable all its life but then kind of falls apart at the end?”
Many projects
The Polymer Industry Cluster supports a number of projects around the region by administering federal and state grants of more than $80 million to support the Sustainable Polymer Tech Hub and the Greater Akron Polymer Innovation Hub.
Among the beneficiaries is Peak Nano, a late-stage startup in Valley View that has received funding to develop biodegradable film for food and medical packaging.
Many of today’s grocery store plastics are made with ethylene vinyl alcohol, which provides a barrier to oxygen and odors, and polyethylene, good for keeping out moisture, explained Zahidul Wahab, a research fellow at Peak Nano.
The company hopes to achieve the same performance qualities by layering polymers made mostly from plant-based materials that would later break down into carbon dioxide and water in a landfill.
Peak Nano has also created technology to improve recycling, by allowing for greater amounts of post-consumer plastic to be combined with virgin plastic to create new products without sacrificing quality.
The key, again, is layering hundreds if not thousands of thin polymers – as opposed to blending the material altogether.
“Our technology takes it to the next level and helps to incorporate more recycled content,” Wahab said.
Supportive research
Companies aren’t the only ones preoccupied with innovation. Researchers at universities, sometimes working with industry partners, are trying new things. One of them is James Eagen, an assistant professor in the School of Polymer Science and Polymer Engineering at University of Akron.
Eagen’s team, which includes several doctoral students, is working with Synthomer to scale up a process of making polymers from carbon dioxide instead of fossil fuels.
Carbon dioxide can be captured from a variety of sources, including power plants or the fermentation process at a brewery, he said. It can even be pulled out of the air.
The trick will be figuring out how to pressurize the carbon dioxide with a catalyst and a chemical called butadiene to produce polymer materials at quantities that can make everything from adhesives to tires to composites.
A benefit of butadiene is that it can come from oil and gas taken from the ground, Eagen said, but also from farm-produced methane and plant-based ethanol.
That’s important, Eagen said, “because in the near term, we’re going to keep using fossil fuels because they’re cheap.”
Eagen said the process may also allow for recycling or biodegradation, which could help solve the growing problem of discarded wind turbines, as well as cars and battery casings.
“That’s where I think we’re going to have the most value,” he said.
Meanwhile, at Case Western Reserve University, Changyong “Chase” Cao, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, has embarked on a three-year project funded by a $611,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Cao is hoping to develop a new type of plastic packaging that is sound enough to keep food fresh and safe, but also biodegradable.
He’s working with Gary Wnek, a professor of macromolecular science and engineering at the Case School of Engineering, and Qin Wang, a professor at the University of Maryland.
“The basic idea behind this USDA proposal is to tackle two important and ambitious goals simultaneously,” Wnek said. One is using biodegradable polymers in place of traditional plastic, and the other is to reduce food spoilage by combining the films with additives that can increase longevity.'
Prospects for success
Nobody is predicting overnight success when it comes to sustainability, but there is a tremendous amount of pressure from consumers and Wall Street to create better materials, Somich said.
“The old way of doing things has to improve,” he said. But innovation takes time and those just starting out might not see success for several years.
“In our industry we don’t rush any innovation to market,” he said. “It goes through a very methodical process,”
Some environmentalists, however, believe the polymer industry is engaging in diversionary tactics to allow for the continued, unfettered production of plastics. They believe plastics are by their very nature unsustainable and that trying to prove otherwise is a waste of time, allowing for continued harm to the community.
Plastic, unlike paper, cardboard, metal and glass, is too diverse in its contents to be blended together on a large scale, which explains why recycling rates for plastic are still in the single digits, said Judith Enck, a former regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Obama administration who is now president of the advocacy group Beyond Plastics.
“We just need a giant societal shift away from plastics,” she said.
And yet that’s not what the industry is counting on. Indeed, the next generation of polymer scientists are now being weaned on the concept of sustainability, said Eagen, with the “life cycle assessment” of plastics now part of the curriculum at University of Akron.
It’s a methodology that both consumers and governments worldwide are starting to embrace, said Nick Barendt, assistant vice president of research for technology and ecosystem growth at Case Western Reserve University.
Life cycle assessment is a long-term trend, he said. It’s knowing not just how a product will perform, but where it comes from and how it will be disposed of in the end.
“Companies are interested in working on this,” Barendt said. “Consumers are demanding it.”
Courtesy: www.cleveland.com