The article mentions muffin liners as an alternative use case, but those are usually made of thin paper and are already compostable.
However, the bio-plastics made from shellfish leftovers (think: crab, lobster, shrimp) would be appropriate for this.
The problem with petroleum based products (Styrofoam, plastics) is that they are crazy cheap due to our oil based economy. At some point the economics of that industry will change, and with it the prevailing winds on using plastics as building materials.
I would welcome more products being made as sturdy as they used to be. Take for example, pooper scoopers. It's actually quite difficult to buy a scissor-style one made of any kind of metal (there's one which is 80ish USD and made of steel - sort of a vanity product). They're all plastic. They all break, some sooner than others. The one I picked up from my parents' house recently was used from about 1990 to 2003 (and left outdoors since), and performs better than any of the plastic ones we used. It's wood and aluminum, and probably was no more expensive than the plastic ones on offer today. We broke a 25 dollar scooper within a month, and the scooper we inherited will likely outlive yet another dog.
KSA can pump oil at current rates for 40 years at $20 per barrel.
That'll definitely be enough for global plastic consumption.
Economics itself isn't going to phase out plastics in my lifetime.
But the big complicated supply chain for petrochemicals can break at lower scale. Compare how freaked out the markets have gotten at Meta and Netflix for losing users while still being profitable, and you can see how financing could dry up before the wells do.
I doubt it’s enough to phase out plastics, but it might make alternatives more economically viable.
At $20 per barrel - the economics alone will be tough to beat with some other material.
They’re going to need that magic when the primary export collapses — or if it doesn’t, wet bulb temperatures in the Gulf make it literally unlivable. The $20 a barrel will be even harder to sustain in a protracted civil war, which is where they are headed if they don’t diversify enough.
KSA refines all its own oil.
KSA doesn't need capital. It's a money printing machine - even at $30 per barrel.
Shipping will have some impact. ~40% of global shipping cargo is fossil fuels.
However, my guess is, fossil fuel shipping would get even cheaper, not more expensive.
Anyways. I am sure the boffins are working on the shellfish allergy angle.
Best argument I could come up with.
There's nowhere near enough of that and it's a natural resource we are already plundering at brutal levels.
If world fisheries had shown that it was possible to control extraction such that we did not destroy stocks, then this would be a great way to meet a significant (~10%, it seems?) portion of world packaging plastics needs. However, it seems pretty clear that the fishing industry as a whole has any interest in ensuring sustainable production.
This is reflexivity in action [2]. In the first year you start manufacturing this biofilm, your sentiment is true, it is using waste stream. In the Nth year, fisheries are collapsing shrimp stocks, flooding markets with shrimp to extract what used to be a waste stream to eke out ever decreasing margins in a vicious cycle.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexivity_(social_theory)
If well-intentioned government subsidies aggressively push for using the waste stream however (about the only way I see such a biofilm ever ramping up beyond niche markets), then it is very difficult to conceive those policy makers calibrating to the same homeostatic outcome. That's not how the plastics industry works. The demand scale is on such a bonkers level that distorts normal incentives.
I always worry about such reflexivity when these breathless articles come out about alternative production-side solutions to our current plastics production-consumption matrix. It's way more complex and large than most people understand outside that industry.
It could also replace individually wrapped items, such as in a box of cereal bars the individual bars wouldn't need plastic wrap.
Not to mention how nasty the last one is when it takes you 2 months to finish a box... All of them exposed to air? Thanks but no thanks.
Meh.
I use reusable containers for 90% of the stuff I use, especially tools, projects, etc.
I also use glass reusable containers all the time for food, as they don’t soak up weird smells and stains that can’t be cleaned out, and have bacterial problems and leeching issues like reusable plastic containers.
They aren’t practical for anywhere they’ll be exposed to impacts a lot or weight matters, like kids lunches or whatever, so I use plastic ones there.
But I’m under no illusions that any of those make any sense whatsoever for large scale food distribution, and neither should anyone else.
When I go shopping, I:
* bring my own bag
* buy oat, rice, sugar, pasta, chocolate etc in bulk (w/ textile bags I bring)
* refill detergent containers in-shop
* buy fruit & veg without packaging
.. and I have no meaningful reduction of my living standard. I know it's difficult to make some sacrifices. But honestly, if we can't as a society be ars*d to do even that, perhaps we deserve to disappear after ecological collapse, and the geopolitical consequences of that.
Weird huh?
What I'm saying is, the chance of that happening IS considerably high elsewhere, and in such elsewhere it is imperative that oat, rice, not sugar but pasta, and chocolate, must be denied of life under sterile light of an ultra processing foodstuff factory and somewhat hermetically sealed. Otherwise you wouldn't know what you'll be getting later.
Just something which reason isn't immediately obvious sometimes.
For backpacks and the like you will need something else to keep it clean, same as you would for an apple. May I present to you the lunch box, already used by 100s of millions.
At least for me - when I hike I usually have a box and put all of those items there “raw” - the box protects them from mechanical forces but I don’t need to individually wrap my apples inside that box. Having other edible things have such an edible covering would be amazing actually.
If you care about avoiding "processed foods" in other domains and are consuming shrink-wrapped bars with a shelf life of 2+ months: here be dragons!
I store ours in a glass container the refrigerator, where they're individually wrapped in butcher paper. I'd consider them good outside of the fridge (in the paper) for 32 hours, inside the fridge for a week or two. Making a batch takes about 10 minutes + overnight refrigeration, and the recipe is trivial to scale-up/down in size.
They're certainly not as convenient or robust as shrink-wrapped lara bars, but we're not frequently in situations where the diff disappoints, ymmv.
I expect the ones made without processed ingredients like protein powders to be especially in that category. Not that there's anything necessarily bad about that, but it does bug me when folk label products as "high" in protein when all the protein comes from nuts, legumes, etc.
I totally agree re the disappointing macro-nutritional composition of most protein bars. Especially disappointing (to me) is the sugar content and its source (typically rice syrup or corn syrup).
After computing the macros for homemade bars, it's hard to feel like you're getting much bang for the buck with those bars -- it feels like you're better off eating some dried and mixed nuts.
But the main ingredients are creamy natural peanut butter, one of either local honey or local maple syrup, and "old-fashioned" rolled oats.
Stir until combined 200g PB, 135g honey/maple syrup, 5g vanilla extract, 3g sea salt.
To this mixture, add 100g rolled oats, 80g whey, ~200g nuts and seeds (can be crushed or whole, although partially-crushed is a bit easier). I use pecans, pepitas, walnuts, almonds, cashews. Whatever is in the pantry.
Transfer + compress to an appropriate-sized casserole dish (above is good for 8x8) with a large spoon, I usually line it first with paper to make later transfer easier.
Cover + chill for at least 1 hour, then slice with a sharp instrument (I use a pizza slicer, but a chef's knife is great). These proportions yield 12-ish bars. But you can compute the macronutrients for yourself to decide how big a serving should be.
In short, it's pretty similar to granola. Only without baking and without oil. I've found the flavor to vary widely depending on the honey/pb/whey used.
Sometimes, they taste like peanut butter cups. :)
We need to at least start replacing the pallet-wrap with non-petroleum material.
Could make some interesting food items with an edible film though.