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IsPlasticTheUltimateGreenMaterial - November10,20091

Is Plastic the Ultimate Green Material?

What can you do with plastic? Building bridges.The Great Satan of materials is the new green.

MichaelKanellos:

Plastic that ubiquitous, impervious, toughpetroleum-based material is becoming the greenmaterial of choice for a number of entrepreneurs,

largely because it's impervous, tough andubiquitous.

"Plastics were the Great Satan," said Jim Kerstein,

CEO of Axion International (AXIH) which makesbuilding components like I-beams and girders outof recycled plastic. "You could pull a milk jug outof a landfill and say 'Good God! This has beenhere since 1973.' But if you take a negative andturn that around with an application that requires

longevity, that's a positive."

Two of the bridges built with components from theNew Providence, N.J.-based company whichemerged from research at nearby RutgersUniversity exist to support tanks at army bases.

It's not the only company heeding the siren songfrom The Graduate. Sollega next year plans torelease the InstaRack, a modular, lightweight rackfor solar panels made from recycled high-densitypolyethylene (milk jug plastic). Not only will therack cost less to ship than conventional steel oraluminum racking, it comes pre-molded, therebycutting installation work by up to 50 percent. Italso won't corrode. In a similar vein, Ascent Solarand other makers of copper indium galliumselenide (CIGS) solar cells have or will soon moveto plastic substrates.

Envion wants to produce synthetic petroleum fromrecyclables. As part of its sustainability initiative,Valley Forge Fabrics, which provides linens andfabrics to hotel chains, has started to make drapesfrom recycled plastic threads rather than newpolyester.

"Natural fibers also don't meet the longevityrequirements for hotels," says Diana Dobin, seniorvice president of design and sales.

Like a lot of companies, IBM has moved toinflated plastic bags for shipping, says RichardLechner, vice president of energy and environmentat IBM.

Meanwhile, some startups hope to improve plasticrecycling. Bioplastech, out of the UniversityCollege Dublin in Ireland, has engineered amicrobe that can eat oil from polypropylene andsecrete a fatty acid that can be turned into a

recyclable plastic.

And, of course, there are the bioplasticmanufacturers. Cereplast has produced resins forconsumer bioplastic for years while Metabolixrecently announced that it was developing a strainof tobacco plants that generate polymers. Somedaysoon, communities may brag about being theSaudi Arabia of old milk jugs.

Many of these efforts serve as a way to get rid ofthe mountains of old plastic that humanity has

generated. Plastic bottles have a low recyclingvalue. As a result, some nations, like England andIreland, tend to ship it to emerging nations, whereit gets put into landfills. In Sweden and Germany,plastic gets burned as a dirty fuel. Interestingly,penalties can work: A 15 cent tax on plastic bags

RecycledPlasticBridgeatFortBragg

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IsPlasticTheUltimateGreenMaterial November10,20092

dropped their use by over 99 percent, BioplastechCEO Kevin O'Connor told us last year.At the same time, it's a somewhat economicalfeedstock, particularly when avoided landfill costsand taxes are added. Prices vary by marketconditions and quality, but it compares wellagainst metals, adds Axion's Kerstein. (Recycledplastic is comparable to virgin plastic around the$75 per barrel price of oil, says conventionalwisdom.)

Kerstein further added that plastic helps architectsand contractors reduce the energy required to buildand maintain large structures. Overall, a bridgemade from plastic components weighs 40 percentless than one made from traditional counterparts,which leads to 25 percent to 30 percent loweroverall costs.

"It takes less energy to produce our materials thanit takes to produce wood or mill steel," he said.(His calculations look at the energy consumedfrom when the raw material plastic, wood andsteel arrives at a plant to when it gets turned intoa board, beam or piling.)

Plastic components also don't have to be painted,won't corrode, and won't get worn down by theelements. The building components can also comein a variety of colors. The Army likely won't wanthot pink siding with floral patterns, but you might

someday.

Engineers at Fort Bragg and Fort Leonard Woodhave installed bridges made from Axion's

components built to carry tanks. The bridges arerated to carry 73 tons worth of tread vehicles or 84tons worth of four-wheeled trucks. The Fort Braggbridge consists of 85,000 pounds of plastic, or550,000 milk jugs.Skeptics come with the territory. When the Armyfirst tested the Fort Bragg bridge, it also broughtalong a crane on another truck, Kerstein recalled.That was just in case the tank fell in and had to beplucked from the gully. It wasn't needed.

About 200,000 plastic railroad ties, made from 1.5billion tons of post consumer plastic, have beenproduced and some have been in constant use at atest track in Pueblo, Colo. If you've driven in NewJersey's Wharton State Forest, you may havecrossed over a 56-foot bridge made from Axion'scomponents.

How does it work? Axion first grinds down theplastic and melts it into a hot Play Doh-likesubstance, when it can then be manipulated intoshapes. When it cools, a building component isborn. Axion can work with different types ofplastics, but typically a single type of plastic willbe used in a component.

"Saying plastic is like saying wood," he said."There is a big difference between yellow pine andtropical hardwoods."

Overall, the strength of the finished product(compared to steel or wood) is not much of anissue, he said.

"We need to work on absolute stiffness. Steel,cement and wood are substantially stiffer," he said.

Axion bypasses this problem through design. Abridge made with interlocking plastic I-beamsmight be supported by a larger-than-normalnumber of pilings, or the pilings might be sunkdeeper than normal. In the end, the resultingstructure costs less and takes less time to build butexhibits the same integrity, he said.

Kerstein, who had worked in plastics for years,read about research conducted by Tom Nosker at

Rutgers. "Being the Jersey guy that I am calledhim up to have a beer," he said.

Close-upofaFortBraggPlasticBridge