we just can't seem
to get enough guac last year americans
consumed more than
6 billion avocados
and that produces a lot of inedible
waste
now a company has developed a process to
transform avocado pits
into plastic bioplastics like these
could help reduce pollution because they
break down
faster and use less fossil fuels
but how they're made and disposed of
determines if they
really are a cleaner alternative
we visited biofosse in monterey mexico
to see how it all works
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mexico exports about half of the world's
avocados
a single worker at this plantation in
michoacan can cut over 800 pounds of the
fruit per
day many of these avocados will be
shipped whole
but some are pitted and processed
locally
this factory produces ready-to-eat
guacamole and salsa
they tried composting the avocado scraps
but
it didn't work avocado pits contain oils
that made the process
complicated so now they sell their seeds
to biofosse
bioplastics are what we call products
that are mostly made of biological
substances
instead of petroleum the process starts
with avocado seeds
that have been washed at the supplying
factory
as the seed is going through the machine
it's turned into a bioplastic resin
that's ready to withstand a lot of heat
what comes out the other end is a
malleable sheet that can be molded
and cut into different shapes
studies have shown that bioplastics are
an improvement over traditional plastics
it takes less fossil fuels to produce
them they contain
fewer toxic chemicals and they decompose
faster
the technology to make these products
has improved over the past few years
and has grown to a nearly 20 billion
dollar industry
that's about the same size as the
rapidly growing plant-based meat
industry
biofosse is part of that trend the
company launched eight years
ago with a single facility today it has
three locations
across mexico but there are
issues bio plastics require special
industrial facilities to properly
compost
and they can contaminate the regular
recycling stream
they're also more expensive than regular
plastic
which is made from readily available
petroleum there are two reasons
because first of all crude oil is quite
cheap
right now and and secondly the
production capacity
for bioplastics is much lower
while for fossil based plastic it's much
bigger
so they have an economy of scale in
terms of production biofossa produces
about 130 tons of bioplastics each month
that's equivalent to the conventional
plastic waste produced by 13
000 americans it's a modest output for
now
but bio faucet products are shipped
across mexico
the uk and other countries in europe and
the company recently expanded to
australia
but there's a long way to go bioplastics
i think is probably a little bit less
than one percent
of the fossil based plastics for now
they are mostly used in restaurants
but the idea that biodegradables can be
thrown into nature and will eventually
go away
is false it can take up to a year
for bioplastics to break down in natural
conditions
that's still plenty of time to clog
waterways or
harm animal habitats still that's much
shorter than conventional plastic items
some of which will stick around for
hundreds of years
bioplastics can replace some traditional
plastics
so far that's only been tried on a small
scale
but thanks to bio we may be one avocado
toast away
from a cleaner planet
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