BIOPLAST resins are partly or completely made from renewable plant-based resources such as potato starch, which are an opportunity to avoid fossil resources and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Life cycle assesment shows that biobased plastics could provide a reduction in CO2 of between 30 and 70% compared to conventional plastics, depending on the feedstock, the product and the application.
Potato starch used by BIOTEC presents interesting environmental and industrial properties:
• GMO-free
• No need for irrigation
• Little transportation due to regional suppliers
How about food consumption?
As stated in the European Bioplastics fact sheet on renewable resources: the agricultural cultivation area needed to fully generate current global production capacity of biobased plastic would today amount to 286,000 hectares, which is equal to approximately 0.02% of the total arable land available in the world.
Research conducted by the University of Applied Science and Arts in Hannover (Germany) indicates that even a complete shift in plastics production standing at approximately 250 million tonnes p.a. to biobased plastics would require only a 5% portion of arable land.