After mountains of tiny cups of dairy free coconut ice cream, heaping mouthfuls of fermented probiotic salsa, blinding LED displays, movie stars promising to plant trees, plant fiber compostable mattresses, and fair trade biodegradable elephant poop paper, we arrive at the Green A-Plus Pick of the Show: Energy Collective.

EC: Energy Collective is a manufacturers representative and we went out to find who we thought had the absolute best product.  We do biodegradable and compostable plastics.  When we first started looking at this market we were trying cups, utensils, knives, spoons and things were melting, breaking and disintegrating.  We’re like, “Hey!  If people are ever gonna use these things, they’re gonna have to work.” So we’ve partnered with a company called Minima Tech and we have a modified PLA which enables it to take very high strength tolerances and heat tolerances.

GA: What is a modified PLA?

EC: A modified PLA is modified with a compound called PHB, it’s an organic compound that gives it strength and tensile structure.  So, we’re able to have things that are strong, elastic, puncture resistant, to heat resistant. With that we’re able to make products that you’ve seen already on the market such as cups, spoons, knives, cutlery, restaurant ware, a full line of plastic bags from garbage bags to doggie poop bags to vegetable bags.  On top of that we’re also representing manufacturing so we’re able to do injection molding, vacu-forming, extrusion; we have full plastic production capabilities so that whatever you can make out of regular plastic, we can make out of a fully certified and accredited bio-plastic.  We’re US and European certified and one of the few companies that have actually been able to do that.

GA: One of the big problems is that a lot of the bad plastics were coming out of China, now, you guys ARE the Chinese manufacturing.

EC: Taiwanese.

GA: Which I know is a big deal.  But that’s significant.  Maybe you can tell us a little bit about that.

EC: It is.  I mean, we were weighing the difference.  I mean, yes, there’s increased shipping.  Yes, it is a foreign company, for as much as you want to be anti-global.  We found that they have products that work.  And we’re like, “Well, you’re never gonna push the market if you’re offering kind of a half-bagged product that’s a poorer version of an existing product.”  So we said we’re gonna deal with it, we’re turning the big ships.  Yes, they are a division of Mitsubishi Chemical, the company’s called Minima Tech, but eventually the big ships have to turn and make quality product.  And that’s really what we’re looking at to offset the fact that, yes, it is offshore there’s a shipping cost.

GA: So you’re also coming out with a biodegradable Styrofoam?

EC: Yes.

GA: I talked a little bit with one of your chief marketing guys from the actual company, Minima.  What are some of the actual things that you can make out of it, like, what are some of the examples you have?

EC: One of the key things that we have is extruded so we’re able to make netting.  So it’s a whole new line of biodegradable plastic products.  In my hands that you can’t can see (left), I have a loofah.  So you’re able to make mesh bags.  Think onion bags, think vegetable packaging; things that are typically made out of nylon, things that have not been bio-plastic available before.  We’re able to do organic plastic coatings, like, one of the products we have over there is an organic compact, it has an organic, stone powder coating.  It’ll stay has a hard plastic until that coating is scratched off allowing heat and humidity to get inside.

Really, we’re pushing the bounds of what bio-plastic and plastic are starting to be interchangeable.  It used to be a poorer version, a weaker version, and yes it will biodegrade but it won’t last and it won’t function and that’s what we’re really seeing changing now.

Photos by rich_awn.