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"They have made a mess that others now have to clean up,"
complains Bruce Dale, professor of chemical engineering at Michigan State University.
"It is simply not credible to come up with one number for a bioplastic
evaluation." The object of Dale's ire, a study from the University of
Pittsburgh, asserts that the production of bioplastics poses more
environmental problems than the manufacture of conventional plastics.
According to Dale, the Pittsburgh study ignores the life
cycle analysis requirement from ISO 14044 that prohibits weighting. By
combining 10 different environmental and health impact factors to reach "a single,
overarching conclusion", the Pittsburgh study hides the raw data and prevents
other researchers from checking conclusions. It's "like mixing impacts for
apples, oranges, pears and bananas," Dale explains.
Steve Davies, the global marketing director for a
Minnesota-based manufacturer of polylactic acid (PLA), adds his own criticisms.
The Pittsburgh researchers "didn't compare any type of products," he explains. "They
just compared the resins" while failing to examine how bioplastics products are
disposed, an essential part of life cycle analysis.
Is the Pittsburgh bioplastics study fatally flawed?
Source: Plastics News
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Re: Battle Over Bioplastics
