Pretty soon, your disposable coffee cup could get a whole lot cleaner, thanks to a Georgia-based company’s partnership with Finnish chemical company Kemira.
Danimer Scientific, based in Bainbridge, is an early entrant in the race to scale up the production of PHA, or polyhydroxyalkanoates, a naturally occurring “biopolymer” that can be produced via bacterial processing of plant oils.
With qualities similar to plastic, PHAs can be used in a wide array of packaging applications, as well as to make biodegradable straws, cups, lids, bottles, seals, labels, shopping bags and replacements for other polluting single-use plastic items.
Danimer has reached an exclusive agreement to provide Kemira with PHAs that will be used for coatings in the food and beverage packaging sector across the Finnish company’s “core markets” — which amount to pretty much everywhere in the world except Asia. The companies started working together to develop such “aqueous coatings” in December 2020. Under the new deal, Danimer will supply the PHA, while Kemira will make the liquid dispersion that goes to the end user.
Barrier coatings, as the material is also known, are applied to the inside of a coffee cup or takeaway container to block liquid or grease. It’s what makes the inside of your coffee cup shiny, while keeping the paper fiber from absorbing the heated liquid inside.
But despite their usefulness, the coatings’ plastic provenance has made them the bane of recycling efforts. They’re made from polyethylene derived from fossil fuels that cannot be separated from the paper fiber. And to make matters worse, plastic coatings do not biodegrade in a landfill and can leach into rivers and streams.
PHA solves both those problems, according to Danimer. The company says the material is “repulpable,” which means that paper recyclers and reliably separate the PHA from the material, allowing for fiber recovery. If the cup does get thrown away, PHA will be broken down by microorganisms, though Danimer’s claims about the time it takes to biodegrade have taken some heat.
Kemira, for its part, is convinced in the sustainability of the material and the future of PHA.
“This new, exclusive agreement is a major step in realizing our biobased strategy to deliver high-quality, sustainable and circular packaging solutions to our customers,” said Antti Matula, SVP, Global Product Lines & Business Development for Kemira Pulp & Paper.
The deal applies only to the food and beverage sector, and Kemira is expected to begin offering the PHA-based coating to customers “in the coming years.” The companies estimate the global market for “dispersion barriers” is worth 500 million euros and will grow 10 percent per year. Danimer CEO Stephen Croskrey said the collaboration between the Kemira and Danimer will help “support the global commercialization of PHA.”
The market for PHA globally is relatively small, but major players in the industry — two of which are located in Georgia — are aiming for a slice of the broader $350 billion plastic packaging market globally and say the time is right, given rising concerns over pollution, micro-plastics in waterways and climate change. Many brands are also requiring their vendors to introduce sustainable materials into their packaging, partly in response to mounting consumer concerns over solid waste.
In addition to Danimer, Georgia is home to RWDC Industries, which has a partner in Singapore and has raised $208 million from international investors. It is building out a massive PHA plant in Athens, where the first 5,000-ton production module is fully operational and serves clients such as Kimberly-Clark Corp. Daniel Carraway, RWDC’s CEO and co-founder, also started Danimer in Bainbridge after a decade working there for International Paper. He sold off his Danimer stake in 2014.