How Did We Become So Dependent on Plastic?

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Reduce, reuse, recycle, reduce, reuse. That's the three R's. So we're kind of, we're kind of coming back to that. And, and, and we're, we're aware of that in our own family, right? Like, let's reduce our dependency on foods that are not healthy. Let's reduce our dependency on plastic items that we're, that we're going to use for 30 seconds and then throw in the trash. Right? If there's a suitable alternative, we're going to, we're going to go for that. Our, our cookware, our, you know, our, our tableware. We're shifting that back to things that, that make. That make more sense from a health perspective. Right. And I think there's a, I think there's a big re. I think there's a big reorganization and re, I guess, is re. Centering in people's hearts and minds across that big political divide in America that seems to drive everything. Right. There's nothing that has more momentum than an issue that crosses the political divide. I think that's where we're at with a lot of these problems that we face, but the roadblocks in industry that are real. [00:01:17] Speaker B: This episode of Roots to Fruits is produced and distributed by Be Connected, a Midwest social media and digital growth agency. Welcome to another episode of Roots to Fruits. I'm your host, Kelly Williams. And something strange is happening. For decades, we have been sending both matter and people farther and farther from home. We pulled ancient carbon from deep underground. Once cellulose from plants, now zombified dead carbon. And we turn it into one of the most capable and obedient materials humanity has ever created. Plastic could be light, cheap, sterile, flexible, sealable, and incredibly durable. And then we built an entire world around it. But there was a catch. The longer we leave plastic unrecovered, the harder it becomes to recover. Sunlight, heat, abrasion waves. Entropy never stops working. A bottle becomes fragments. Fragments become microplastics. They scatter into water, soil, air, food, and eventually us. We created extraordinary permanence inside a world that is continuously trying to break things down. And that's basically what we're going to explore today. So I'm really excited to introduce my friend, J.T. turner, who is one of the brightest material scientists that I know and an expert in biomaterials, bioplastics. And we have both been observing these same trends for so long, and we thought, you know what? We need to talk about it. So today we're going to talk about that. JT welcome to Roots to fruits. [00:03:09] Speaker A: Thank you, Kelly. Thank you, Kelly. I've only been a polymer engineer for going on eight years, but I'm in my 40s, so I've had, I've had another life, right, previous to going back to college. And, you know, I like to say that before I went to college, you know, I was in construction, building roads and bridges and hospitals and, and things like that. And, and then I went to college, I was going to be a civil engineer, and I was taking general chemistry too, which I had to take as a civil engineer. And the professor talked me into taking organic chemistry. Fell in love with it. Right. So that starts the second phase of my life. But what I don't often share about the first phase of my life is that, that spiritual recognition of, okay, we've, we've got a problem, right? I've got a problem. You know, I'm, I'm familiar with that, right? I. There's, there's periods of my life that, that, that destruction was in my path, right? And so many people get to that place, or institutions or collectively, we get to that place where we say, okay, we've got a problem, but there's 11 more steps. Or, you know, if it's in Christianity, there's. There's probably 15 more steps, right? Or if you're, you know, whatever you practice, just the recognition of the problem is just a tiny fraction of, of what is needed to come to, you know, a spiritual place of oneness or, or wholeness. Right? There's action that has to be taken once you recognize that you have that problem. I hope that we can get to a lot of that today in this podcast is what, what's the action after we recognize that we have a problem? You know, I sent you that video yesterday. Yesterday morning I'm very early. I'm going to visit a friend of mine and I get behind a garbage truck that he's running his early morning route. He's picking up the receptacles that people have, you know, they've, they've put it right by the street just like they're supposed to do this. [00:05:30] Speaker B: The modern trucks, like today's modern truck. [00:05:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. This is like a new truck, right? This is like a new garbage truck. And, and he's got the arm picking up the receptacles, putting it into the, into the bin. And I'm, I'm just, I'm not in a hurry. I'm just kind of following along his path and trash just starts float, you know, flying out of the, you know, not all of it, but pieces of it are flying out and it was all lightweight plastics. Right. And it took me back to a recent conference that I was at and you know, the general consensus there was that like as you, you know, everybody that came to that conference got on the interstate, went to an airport, got on an airplane, some might have drove, but everybody had a recognition of litter in our environment that, that day or that week. Right. But the collective consensus there is still that, that somebody's just tossing things out the window. And I really don't think that's true. I think, I think we have a litter problem significantly, but I think it's institutional litter and I think we have to do something about it. Right. And I think there's, I think there's two propositions to do something about that litter. You've either got to completely stop the litter, so you got to completely redesign the systems that are managing waste, or you have to design the things that are highly littered to the environment in a format that's Earth digestible. And, and, and look, that's. Option number two is probably not the best option. The best option is to have a system that, that waste can't escape. Right. But I think option number one, designing a system that waste can escape is a much taller option than, than designing things that are Earth digestible. [00:07:21] Speaker B: There's the saying, boiling the frog, you boil it slowly so it doesn't jump out. And, and that's what normalization is when you just normalize discomfort to normal. And I think the average person is just, we've normalized. We see litter stuck in every chain link fence, along the highway, in every ditch. It's just pervasively everywhere. And you know how much of the global population lives on the coast. So every time there's a flood, you just see it's like backwashing. Nothing but a problem that's going to continue on and on and on. [00:07:55] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think you make a good point about the, the bowl, another frog. You know, I talk to my boys about that all the time. You know, I got two, two boys that I just love dearly. And I try to tell them, I said, you know, boys, you got to watch for things in life because it's not the things that shock you quickly that hurt you. Right? Usually things that shock you quickly, they might hurt you once, but that's, that's only, you know, you're going to remember that. You'll be like, I'm not doing that again. But the things that, the things that slowly and progressively get more pervasive or, you know, more difficult to manage. Those are the things. And that, that, that hearkens back to that, you know, age old story of bull and the frog in the pot. And you're right, I think we're there and I think, I think also ties in really nicely with the spiritual aspect that we're talking about, right? So the frog in that pot never recognized he had a problem because the water just slowly, slowly, slowly got hotter, right? But if you just drop that frog in a pot, that's bowling. He's like, this is a problem, dude. I'm out of here. [00:09:05] Speaker B: I' Right, right. [00:09:08] Speaker A: If I see a pot again, I'm, I'm not even coming close, right? So, but you know, I think that's where we're at. And usually if I, if I take this back to the spiritual angle that I first brought it in on, usually something has to happen that is so detrimental that it gets your attention. It seems to me that in our society today that that's, that's probably what it's going to take in terms of, in terms of litter and waste that's in enough in the environment because litter is not the only form. There's multiple forms, you know, that, that micro particles and microplastics are going into the environment. But you know, you and I both, we talk a lot about spiritual things and you, you know, having spiritual awareness is a gift, right? And it's usually not something that you just come here with. You usually have to earn it through, through going through some trials or something difficult in your life and you reach that point where you say something's got to change and, and, and hopefully the pain is enough that you make that change. Right. I was gifted with that opportunity. And along with that comes a spiritual awareness that I really wish, you know, everyone could have on that level because it, it really gives you the ability to look around and say, hey, I don't have to let things get to that point where we're at catastrophic failure before I decide to take action. So that's what I'd really love to see. But I fear that we're going to have to have some type of health crisis or you know, some, some type of major crisis to make us stack. [00:10:54] Speaker B: I'll share my theory on where we're stuck and why we're stuck. And I think it largely has to, it depends on what's your relationship with uncertainty. So that nervous system need for certainty works for a point. Some people will go through great lengths to build the fanciest of shelters on that one branch of belief and live there their entire lives. [00:11:18] Speaker A: Sure. [00:11:18] Speaker B: But most people don't realize they're living on a branch until they realize they're living on that branch. So. So, and that happens when things, when the, the answers stop adding up, when the math ain't math in, you kind of subconsciously start murmuring in a different direction. I think that that's what we're seeing right now, but I think it's actually a little worse because there's so many people that will understand everything we're talking about. Their nervous systems are going to be like, yes, I know, right? Finally, somebody's breaking groupthink. But they can't do anything about it because they get two kids, they need healthcare, they need a paycheck. They're just trying to survive season by season, so they're not going to do anything about it. And the institutions themselves are stuck in this financial eddy that just, you just can't, you know, look, 1989. Most people don't realize how important 1989 was. Before 1989, local banks were what you would typically borrow from to build a house or open a shop on Main Street. That evaporated because they were trying to help those local communities. That's where private equity was born. And these guys are professional hillside strip miners. They will strip everything out. So I kind of feel like we're stuck in that inertia with all these people who are starting to murmur in the awareness that this isn't mathing. So how do we help them? Right. Yeah, [00:12:35] Speaker A: that's a hard one. Because, you know, I can, I can relate to everything you're saying. You know, we got, we got two kids traveling for work, you know, grateful that my wife is now a stay at home mom and homeschooling, but we play baseball. I mean, I mean, we, we got a lot of stuff going on. Right. And I think everybody does. And I think, I think you're right. Even at the institutional level, the personal level, the family level, everybody's crying out for help. Because to go all the way back to your, to your monologue when we came in. Right. Is we're, we're becoming so disconnected. Right? And I think that disconnection is, is probably one of the most important aspects of the conversation. You know, I often think back to when I was a kid and we didn't plan to go see our grandparents or our cousins, right. It was like a given thing that every Sunday or, you know, every Sunday after church, we were going to be at my grandmother's house and there Were going to be a lot of the family there. And every, you know, mostly every Saturday we would go to one of my dad's friends or one of my mom's friend's house. And we just don't, we don't, we don't prioritize connection anymore like we used to. Right. I think that's a very important aspect of the conversation. And then at the institutional level, right, you got, you got SEC rules that, that, that say, you know, these, these institutions have to do what's best for their shareholder, right? So that, that puts them, that puts them in a legal box, you know, not just an ethical box, but a legal box that they have to operate within and they have to manage profits and, and their decisions are, are weighed against shareholder value, not what's best for the environment or sometimes not even what's [00:14:29] Speaker B: best for the consumer for, for, for all people. Right. You just hit on something really. [00:14:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:33] Speaker B: I'm really glad you said that because it's so true. They're legally bound to shareholders and. Which may explain why every single day, daily life is becoming thicker soup to swim through. From scheduling to medical approvals to this or that. It's like every. All of that belonging that used to be shared in the village is all you. It's like your four walls is. It's up to you to manage. And it's so heavy and so hard. So these things like the litter we just normally see every day, it's like, where do we start? You know, it's like, it's like an overwhelm. We're just overwhelmed. [00:15:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So to, to. To talk a little bit about my career as a polymer engineer. I, I came out of the University of Southern Mississippi, fabulous institution for polymer engineering. So if anybody's watching this and you want to get a school for polymer engineering, check out USM and Hattiesburg, Mississippi. [00:15:35] Speaker B: I can, I can second that statement. [00:15:38] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. The first job that I had, I got really. I got really lucky, right? When that guy told me, hey, take organic chemistry. I fall in love with it. With organic chemistry pushing electrons to a lot of people, that might sound weird, but that's just kind of my jam. It just so happens that there's a polymer school 30 minutes north of my home. And so I'm like, wow, this is, you know, this is, this is a blessing. And then I get ready to go to work and there's a, There's a compound in the. One of the largest compounders in North America is 30 minutes south of my house, right? And so I'm like, man, this is just, you know, this is just perfect. So I go to work there and you know, compounding polyolphins, natural minerals and, and got an opportunity to compound biodegradable polyesters. And, and you know, I, my love affair with chemistry just kept growing and growing and growing as I, as I got introduced to, to biodegradable polyesters. You know, I would, I would do things like okay, you know, the, the, the certification bodies say that this is compostable or soil biodegradable or whatever. That's great. I'm going to take it to my house and I'm going to find out, right? And so all these things that, that I've, that I've been able to make along the way, I'll take them to my house, put them in grass clippings, put them in soil. And the reality is, is that they work, right? They work. They're not the only solution on the market. I mean there's so much work going on with natural polymer cellulose, six, you know, natural fibers. I mean there's so much work going on there. I feel like here on Earth, right, we have a solution for every one of our problems, right? But, but we got to be able to recognize that we have that issue and we got to be able to look open mindedly for what that solution is, right? And I'm going to tell this story from the lands of PHA because it just fits so well. I mean I work for a PHA manufacturer. This is not. [00:17:51] Speaker B: Can you real quick explain PHA for those who may not know what it is? [00:17:54] Speaker A: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. So I was about to break into that. So PHA is, is a, is a family of polymers called polyhydroxy alkanoates, right? And within PHA you've got different types of polymers. Phb, phbh, phbv. But basically these polymers are, are long chains of, of hydrocarbons and, and acids put together, right? And, and they're basically they're made from sugars, natural sugars and alcohols that are, that are in the environment naturally. And the thing is different about PHAs from you know, polyethylene or polypropylene is. They're not, they're not made in a reactor out of, you know, ethylene gas and octane, right? These polymers are made within the cell structures of, of, of microorganisms, bacterias, right? Things that, things that exist right outside. You know, look outside my window right now. There are huge populations of, of bacteria and fungi, you know, in all the things that make natural decomposition work, well within. Within some of those cell structures, when they're breaking down matter, they store energy much like the human body stores fat, right? And so the, the fat of a p. Of a. Of a bacteria or certain bacteria and microorganisms is a polymer called pajama. So we figured out how to do, as a civilization, right? We figured out how to do fermentation technology, isolate those bacteria, certain strains, and feed them the things that they like to consume, right? Plant oils, waste cooking oils. You can feed them all sorts of things, Right? And then they make that polymer so that they can store up energy for the same reason that our body does, right? If you end up in a starved state, you have energy. You can still have energy for some period of time. So when you harvest that polymer and you make packaging or a T shirt bag or a produce bag or all this stuff that I was seeing fly off of that garbage truck the other day, right? If you, if you, if you make those things out of phas, when they end up in the environment, you know, like, as I look out at my yard, there's a whole population of. Of microbes out there that are like, man, who. Who threw out the ribeye steaks, right? Yep. You know, I was thinking about, like, like, how could I. How could I talk about this where it would resonate? And I don't know about you, Kelly, but, man, I love a ribeye steak. I love a ribeye steak. And like that, that. That little partial ring around that ribeye steak with that. With that little layer fat around the edge of it, man, that's the best part. It just doesn't get better than that for me. Right? And in my opinion, I think that's the way microbes see pha when they encounter in the environment. Because it's something that they reckon it may. It may not come from the same strain of bacteria that's. That's there trying to do the decomposition. But it recognizes it, right? It's a. It recognizes it as. As a natural food source. [00:21:27] Speaker B: And, and maybe another analogy would be they're used to seeing it as like a. A cupcake and this is like a giant prepared cake. [00:21:36] Speaker A: Yeah, a lot of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then naturally, a microbial community grows on whatever that article is, right? And it's. I mean, I almost imagine it is like them calling their buddies over and be like, hey, I just got like a hundred thousand free ribeyes, right? Like, call everybody. You know, we're going to watch NFL this Sunday. And like, we're going to do it for the rest of the year, right? That's just one small example. There are a lot of biodegradable polyesters. Polylactic acid is made from lactic acid from corn. And even some of them right now, Kelly, are made from some petrochemical origins, but they have really good. They have really good compost or biodegradation properties or kinetics. And you know that that's a good stepping stone along the way as well, right? I think, I think the part that's most important is, is the polymers being earth digestible, right? It's something. Something that naturally exists, that can digest it. [00:22:39] Speaker B: I love the steak analogy. I have one for pla that that I think is useful. I'll share it real quick. If you think about poly lactic acid, okay, Lactic acid is part of so many cycles in our bodies and the environment. And even when we work out that glucose burns creates lactic acid and then magically our livers turn it back into glucose. Talk about circularity. That's pretty awesome. And then nature naturally takes carbohydrates and takes it to not only lactic acid, but the physical corality, the shape of lactic acid needed to make the polymer version. I'm like, oh, by the way, that's like the most common, I believe, way to preserve food is using lactic acid as the preservative. I'm like, okay, so we can preserve it with lactic acid and then contain it with a polymer version of it. It makes sense. And it's one of the most recyclable polymers because I can take it back to lactic acid in an instant pot, you know, easily. So it's like all of the technical requirements have been solved largely. And if you have any doubt about that, let's go back to where packaging started. Glassing, coated paper and cellophane like it was natural materials. We conveniently replaced it with a class of materials that didn't. We didn't have to meet it where it was because it was still alive. We used zombie carbon, dead carbon, obedient carbon, and we did whatever we wanted with it, but we forgot about recoverability because recoverability, which we haven't gotten into, but at some point, I think we need to paint that real picture for people. [00:24:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that. I think that leads in to recoverability really well. You know, we. We've been. We've been talking about this concept, you know, quite a lot throughout our conversations. I kind of. I kind of like to start this, this part of the conversation with, with a recognition of what, of what? Polyethylene and polypropylene, polystyrene, all these hydrocarbon based polymers, what they did when they came on the scene, right? They solved a huge problem. We had, right? We had, we had options to make things out of natural materials that, that, that, that you just explained. We could make packaging out of glass. You know, we could put things in mason jars, we could put things in aluminum cans, right? The natural materials, not so much, but that, but when you look at the case of glass and aluminum, the temperature at which you have to process those items or the, you know, the energy required to turn, you know, aluminum into a sheet, you got to get aluminum to a really high temperature to process it into a sheet glass, even higher temperature, process it, right? So when these polymers came on the scene, they, that their building blocks were an output of the oil industry and the oil industry was booming, right? It was, it was probably the greatest factor for the industrial revolution, right? So we, we have to recognize those facts. Like, like it did magical things when it came on the scene, right? I've got a byproduct of, of, of Kraken oil, right? And I can turn it into a polymer that is nearly indestructible and I can process it with a fraction of the energy used to process glass and aluminum. And I can make packaging structures that are extremely lightweight compared to their aluminum or glass counterparts. And I can ship things all over the world, right? I can, I can, I can start to really centralize all of my processing and then I can distribute over long, long, you know, freight lines, right? So there was real sustainability in that story, right? There was, but with every, with every magical thing or every great thing that you come upon in your life, and this is another lesson that I try to teach my boys, right? Is when something great happens, unintended consequences are going to be coming, right? I mean, look at people who become professional athletes, right? They become, they, some of them become millionaires overnight. And then there's so many unintended consequences that come along with having that kind of wealth in, in the snap of a finger, right? Or, you know, take the polymer industry. We had a perfect solution, an almost perfect solution to packaging, processing and, and, and, and delivering something to a consumer, right? Almost perfect. But now those, those same qualities that made them what they are end up becoming a liability when we can't recover them, right? Even when we can recover them. And this is where I'm going to say something. This is, this is a Personal opinion. This does not represent the up. The, the opinion of anybody that I've ever worked for, currently work for, will work for in the future. This is my personal opinion as a polymer engineer. Polymer molecules cannot be circular if we're going to put them through a thermal and mechanical process to try to bring them back into the system because they naturally go through some level of thermal or mechanical degradation which reduces their value in the marketplace as to what we can make out of them. Now can we down cycle? Sure, we can, we can down cycle [00:28:36] Speaker B: dog Frisbees and park benches. [00:28:38] Speaker A: Correct. You know, we can make, you know, park, you know, things for the kids to play on right out of. Maybe packaging. We can't really recover packaging. That's a separate deal. But even the thick things that we can recover, right, like your, your laundry detergent bottles, right, Those are really good ones. They can float out. They can grind those into chips and put them back in. But they're, they're not going to make another laundry bottle with it, right? They're just, just not going to do it. The drop testing is, requirements are astronomical so that you don't drop it in your, you know, detergent goes all over the floor. And when you put post consumer recycle back into there, it's just very, very difficult to pass all those requirements. [00:29:24] Speaker B: And it's a one time thing. I think that's what most people don't realize about recycling. Look, these plastics don't recycle. You're not a bag of chips and make another bag of chips ever. And so you're going into something else. And then on the, even on pcr, like there's a big move towards pcr and I get it because you can measure it and you can market it as PCR containing. But look, post consumer recycled plastics, in whatever it is, a bottle, a bag, it's, there's no other destination than landfill or litter from there. You're not, you can't reprocess this stuff. [00:30:01] Speaker A: No. And that, that's, that's, that's a good point because the, the more times that that molecule tries to go back through that system, the farther you have to down cycle it. Right. Because you're going to have higher levels of thermal and mechanical degradation. There's methods that we use to test it in, in, in, in polymer engineering, right. You just, you just run a melt index over and over again in every single polymer. That melt index is going to get higher and higher and higher, which means those chains are getting shorter and shorter and shorter and you Know, unfortunately, that's the same thing that happens when, when we don't recover it and it goes into the environment. Now it doesn't happen as quickly as it happens in an extruder at 400 or 440 degrees Fahrenheit, but when it goes into the environment, it is going to fragment into smaller and smaller particles. And look, we, we've got a huge debate going on right now within, you know, the scientific community and at large as to, you know, do, do microplastics exist? You know, there, there's a camp that thinks maybe they don't exist. That's a pretty small camp. There's a camp that says they do exist. But we need to know how to characterize them. We need to know what they are. We need to know every fine little detail about them. And then we need to try to take action to prevent the generation of micro particles. That's probably the biggest camp. And then there's the camp that I'm in that's also pretty small. Is. I'm happy for us to do research and academic study on microplastics. I'm not. Please don't misunderstand what I'm about to say. We've got to keep doing that, right? We need to understand and characterize these molecules and these particles as they continue to evolve into smaller and smaller pieces. But I've already been taught enough to know that when a polymer article ends up in the environment, it's going to undergo UV degradation. It's going to, depending on where it's at. If it's in the ocean, the tidal energy, you know, moving it back and forth up against sand or, you know, other other things that's going to cause, that's going to cause abrasion, right? That can, that can take particles off of it. Just exposure to moisture, right. You can't extrude something at 5%, 10% moisture. Our environment is 30, 40% moisture. You know, when the humidity is high. Right. All these mechanisms that, that make polymers break down, they don't magically not happen, right. I mean, you have to UV stabilize things that you use for exterior building products. Why you have to UV stabilize that? Because it, because it's going to break down an ultraviolet radiation. Right. So it's going to happen, okay. The rate at which it's happening in the environment, that's hard to, that's hard to know for sure. And that academic work is going to tell us that. But I know for a fact on what I've been taught so far and what I See around me that these, these, these, these hydrocarbon plastics are. You know, conventional plastics are going to break into micro particles and they're eventually going to infiltrate our, our, our, our water, our soil, our food. Probably already there, Right? Yeah. In our bodies. [00:33:45] Speaker B: And, and when you think about down cycling them and making, you know, railroad ties and park benches is basically our best attempt to put it back where we got it. Because it doesn't. Anytime you take an unnatural system and dump it into a natural system, entropy, like the laws of physics are going to tell you it's going to get rejected. So it's not even how many millions of tons we produce every year. It's that the millions of tons we produced last year are still there, and the year before that and the year before that. And then I'll quickly open the lid and you can run with it. But I think the average person's nervous system, no matter what their mouth and their brain tries to override, nobody wants plastics in their bodies or their babies, period. [00:34:29] Speaker A: No. [00:34:30] Speaker B: And I don't care how much you say otherwise. And, and so those are. Want to know. Well, what, what, what? The one thing we know is that the cells have these things called tight junctures, which lets things go in and out, controlled flow in and out of the cell, like control permeability. Like basically a healthy person knows how to push bad energy away and pull good energy to them and works the same way. Well, when it gets. The door gets jammed open with a microplastic. Why do you think we've got seven new flavors of autoimmune on every commercial and ibs, but inflammation is probably the one place that. So, yeah, we do need to study it because we're gonna have to figure out corrective. We're gonna have to figure out therapies because we can't. The smaller it gets, it's not recoverable anymore. And we're just looking at it everywhere in the process of the frog is there. We're watching it boiling. [00:35:25] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the bad part is the smaller it gets, the more dangerous it gets for the human body. You know what you're talking about now is having a door jammed open, right? But what happens when the polymer molecules get small enough that they can go in and out of the door? Right. Or come in the door and invade the cell and, and wreak havoc, Right. I mean, look, if, if we were made to have hydrocarbon polymer fragments in our sails, they'd already be there, right? And they're not there. They're a foreign entity to our body. And you're right, they're a foreign entity to our environment, right? We, we've, we've pulled them from the depths and we've brought them back out. And you know, there's, there's, there's, there's some, there's some arguments that, like, okay, nature compressed material beneath our surface and, and turn these, you know, turned it into, turn, you know, organic matter into hydrocarbons. So if we, you know, if we got polymers out there everywhere, Earth is just going to do the same thing. It's two totally different timescales, right? I mean, we're talking about stuff being in surface ecosystems that never naturally existed, right? Those, those hydrocarbons that are deep beneath the earth, right? That's, that's the results of immense, you know, immense pressure and heat on, on natural things, right? I mean, you know, however many thousands or millions of years ago, you know, matter was going beneath the earth and getting covered up to make these, you know, these materials. I don't think anybody was making polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, things like that back then. So they're just, you know, they're, they're. While they're a great solution to many problems, if, if they're in and up in the environment, they're just, we've, we've got to have smarter material, develop the material deployment technologies, right? We got to deploy a technology that's not foreign to the environment. And, and all those technologies exist and are readily available, but they come at a premium, right? And at this stage of the game, I think we really need to talk about cost versus price per pound, right? I work in the biopolymer space and really have been working in the biopolymer space since 2020. And you hear it over and over again. It's like, all right, what's the factor higher than polyethylene or polypropylene that your material is? Right. You know, they only ask you on the basis of dollars and cents, like, what's the factor? Is it 2x? Is it 5x? Is it 7x? And I think we, in, in that scenario, we're in a really, really disadvantaged comparison, right? Because from my perspective, if you design an article out of a material that is Earth digestible, if it ends up in the earth, we don't have, we don't have a cost anymore, right? The best outlet is it for it to go to a compost center. And there are some cost associated with that, no doubt, right? But if it ends up in the environment and the earth can break it down. We have not put a major burden on the environment but conventional plastics. I think if you take the price per pound that someone pays for it and you also add in the cost that that dead. The cost that we would incur to go into the environment and recover all of the waste that has been put into the environment and get that back into the system. I think about, I think a biopolymer that's earth digestible is much cheaper than a conventional alternative. And then if you talk about the, the health effects that we could have because they're so ubiquitous if we end up with health health effects they are going to be widespread. They're going to. The health effects are going to be just as ubiquitous. [00:39:57] Speaker B: Yes. [00:39:58] Speaker A: As the plastics that, that generated them. Right. So that puts the cost off of the chart you like. Like that's on a whole different scale. Right. So we have to start thinking in terms of cost and value instead of price per pound. And it's probably going to take governments to step in. As much as I hate to say that because I think the government can, can really make things difficult but, but that's probably what it's going to take. [00:40:24] Speaker B: You hit on something early on that I want to bring out because it's very relevant. You hinted to it just now and I think it's deserving of a couple things I want to circle back on. But the one I want to do now is you made the comment how plastics allowed us to centralize efficient manufacturing. Because now I can. You would never ship a container load of empty blow molded bottles from Germany to San Diego, fill them with something and then send them back to Europe to sell them. But with, with film on a roll printed ready to go on a machine and fill chips in a bag, you can do that stuff. So when, when we also get compared to scale it's like well, you know, so we, we if we don't start looking at. And I think Covid was a. Was happened at just the right time for just the right reason because distributed manufacturing and all of the reasons why that moving back to regional manufacturing was already a conversation. Covid really proved that if you build these enormous supply chains single events can, can. Can kill you in, in terms of financial. So all these things happening. That's the beauty of biopolymers particularly PHAs is you can make them anywhere. And we start thinking about not only making the packaging because I did a, a study once for digital printing and I was showing that if you did looked at the population density states by county. And you went into those populated areas and did a search for co packers who are packaging food. No. You know, no surprise. Food is packaged where people live. So now I want to make not only the packaging there, I want to make it from the agricultural biomass. I want to make it from the natural materials. And then I'll just quickly jump to the other point I wanted to make about composting. It's like we don't look at, no one should ever look at composting as like an end to life. Just like recycling's not disposing of a problem you created. This is where renewal happens. If your circularity starts with the renewal, the new carbon going back into the cycle, the new nutrition going back into the cycle. So compost is where the renewal starts and we start thinking about it in those terms, I think that also may help some people get their head around this current. [00:42:39] Speaker A: A couple of comments just at the beginning that I'll preface this with is a lot of times when we talk about compostable or soil and marine biodegradable products, we usually get the, the backlash of, like, you can't give people a license to litter. And I'm like, you know, I think, I think, I think that's, I think that's pretty brazen. But, but I think, I don't think people want a litter, you know, to go back to the garbage truck story. People don't want a litter, right? And if you give them something that's compostable and you explain to them, you know, you actually tell them, hey, this is soil and marine biodegradable, but that's not the best outlet for it. You know, just get this in the compost the best way that you can. And it, and it really does the same thing as if you put, you know, your, your, your fruit shavings or whatever, whatever you have, that. If you have a compost pile and you're putting things into it and microorganisms are breaking those things down and making compost, if the polymer system is certified home compostable, right? And it's, and it's going into a home compost pile, it's, it's contributing to the nutrients of that system. Just like the shavings of a cucumber or, you know, an apple or whatever it is, you know, if you put grass clippings or leaves or stick now, it's probably a much lower mass than what you have going in there, but it's broken down by microorganisms and turned into nutrients for the soil. Just like all those other things that we, that we put into it, not to mention the fact that when it breaks down in the soil is contributing nutrients to the soil. Again, that's not the, it's not the best way to deal with the, with the earth digestible solution. That's the reality. [00:44:34] Speaker B: It's not managing contamination. Exactly. [00:44:37] Speaker A: Yeah, right, right. [00:44:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Like for me it's, I, I related to if you, if you've got a hole in your boat, you don't start scooping water until you plug the hole. So I would rather see compostables going to landfill and addressing the leakage. [00:44:51] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:44:52] Speaker B: Because it'll take time to bring circularity more local to. It'll take time because once the capital sees a return and you know, look, BlackRock has even made these comments to, to the market about ignoring natural capital is going to be a wake up call for, for many modern businesses. But you know, you look at what they're doing in a lot of areas and, and I feel like we're in a good spot because where this is heading, unless somebody decides to become the McDonald's of material science, you can't own this anymore. Because it distributed means you can't centralize control and power. I feel like it's almost like a way to break away from the cycle. Which gets me back to our problem with certainty in this industry and our lack of relationship with uncertainty and how that murmurization is just going to continue to erode the foundation for which that certainty sits on and how do we help dissolve that faster? Like look at California. Like compostable activity is really stalled because the state of California wants to make it very difficult to sell compostables because they want to believe that we can, you know, so believing that we can recycle, which again we just covered it. You're not recycling it, you're repurposing it. But we were tripling down on a fool's errand because you can't recover the unrecoverable and when you do, you can't make anything of value out of it. [00:46:21] Speaker A: So from an energy and an entropy perspective, recycling is just, it's just not, it don't even make sense on a basis of value. Right? You, you, when you purchase pcr, you're going to pay a premium on that. Right? But you can't use it in the same application that it came from. So there's a, there's a huge mismatch in value there. Right. And, and when those value propositions are not distributed correctly, you know, something's off, right? And I really think how, how much more money do we have to throw at recycling, which is just at this point down cycling some portion of what we recover, right. I mean, how much longer do we have to keep throwing money at that and completely press out any other potential solution, Right? Because that, you're right, that, that, that fight is real, right? It's, it's not, it's not that. It's not that they're saying, you know, we want to do recycling and. Right. It's like we only want to do recycling. And you have to fight, you have to fight that battle really hard to keep composting as a, as a part of the conversation. And there's a, there's a cup, there's a couple of key members in California. Senator Blakes beer is, is, is one of the, the greatest, right. She's out there telling that story like, hey, like you can really do compost, right? And this is, and this is real true circularity, right? Because these nutrients, I mean, if you think about the way that PHAs or PLAs are made, okay, PLA is going to take lack of lactic acid, probably from corn. They can take it from other sources, right? [00:48:24] Speaker B: Take it from food waste if they wanted to. [00:48:26] Speaker A: Sure. But in the United States, it's pretty effective to, to make it out of, out of corn because we just have such an abundance of corn or even phas, right. We're feeding, you know, plant oils or waste cooking all stocks to them. But you're taking something that's plant derived, right. You're making a package out of it. You're deploying that package into a, into an application and then you recover that package and you get that package into compost, right. It breaks down into nutrients that then feed another plant. Now, are we going to harvest that specific plant and make PLA or pha? Again, probably not. But, but if mass balance is okay for recycling, I think that'll be okay. Yeah, exactly. You know, this mass balance actually, actually calculates well. And you know, I, I think there's, I think there's one topic that we just haven't, I feel like we haven't covered. [00:49:29] Speaker B: Well, can I throw something else at you that we missed? You. You touched on it. But I think I want to add another layer of just relevance and I want to alarm people. I want to end this with like, real hope. You know, when plastics did all the great things, you know, there was something else going on too. You know, the green revolution. Post World War II, we started using that nitrogen from the Bosch process. We stopped making bombs, we started making fertilizer, and we just started growing food at such an alarming rate. We kind of produced food faster than the natural materials could keep up. So plastics was like the EMT on the scene and then we just built around it. But part of that too was like the role that it played was just making stuff last longer. So we went from processing to ultra processing to now even micro, like, even the microorganisms don't want those chips in that bag. Like they may not even eat it. So we've got this incredible scale of it which makes it also hard to, you know, back away. But it's not about backing away, it's about just rebuilding it with what we've learned. There's nothing wrong with taking what we've learned and rethinking it. But for the human, for the average consumer, start thinking about like wellness and all the things we're starting to, to look into or do in our own levels of self awareness. We're eating shittier food because food independence has become very hard for most people because they made it easy to stop worrying about food dependence. And now we're highly food not independent, food dependent. [00:50:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:56] Speaker B: And we have no control over it. So those. That's another reason it kind of locks the average family, household into this inertia is food, food reliability. [00:51:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And that really resonates with me because the awareness of microplastics and health issues. Right. Has crossed the political divide in America. Right. It used to be just an environmentalism cause that existed mostly on the left side of the aisle. But now with the Maha movement on the right side of the aisle, um, we're seeing, we're seeing a collective agreement all the way across the spectrum on some of these issues related to health. And microplastics is becoming a big part of that. Right. So I think there's a lot of inertia that's building within the nervous systems of people because of what they see. And then when you talk about that on a level of a family, look, I'm going to be completely transparent with you. We are actively trying to depolymerize our own right now. And depolymerize is probably not the best term for that, but deplastic our home. Right. We're trying to go back to glass and things because, you know, I started this by saying plastics in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, leading up to, you know, their, when they came on the scene, they solved a big energy equation. Right. What it took to process things. So. But if you use Those, like, if we're going to go get ceramics or glass or in every place that we can, or aluminum. But what we have to be recognizing cognizant of is we have to use those things, you know, responsibly. So then that we're, we're kind of going all the way back to that, those Rs that we had, right? Reduce, reuse, recycle, reduce, reuse. That's the three R's. So we're kind of, we're kind of coming back to that. And, and, and we're, we're aware of that in our own family, right? Like, let's reduce our dependency on foods that are not healthy. Let's reduce our dependency on plastic items that we're, that we're going to use for 30 seconds and then throw in the trash. Right. If there's a suitable alternative, we're going to, we're going to go for that. Our, our cookware, our, you know, our, our tableware. We're shifting that back to things that, that make. That make more sense from a health perspective. Right. And I think there's a, I think there's a big Re. I think there's a big reorganization and re. I guess he's re. Centering in people's hearts and minds across that big political divide in America that, that seems to drive everything. Right. There's nothing that has more momentum than an issue that crosses the political divide. I think that's where we're at with a lot of these problems that we face. But the roadblocks in industry that are real. You know, we talk about the sec, the shareholder value, all those different things, those are, those are real issues that are roadblocks to the industry. But I think recentering the conversation around cost and value instead of price, and then, and then we've got to figure out a way to put an economic value on the environmental consequences of our selection and materials. [00:54:37] Speaker B: You made me laugh thinking about that because I wrote something down that I think we should talk about real quick. I was on a, a zoom call with there's like eight or nine PhD chemical engineers from different universities. It was about sustainability. And I just asked the question, you know, you guys are all smart. You know what entropy is? When is somebody going to calculate the entropy here of the current problem in your proposed solution? And they just look at me with like, no one even responded to the question. But I think that's the only thing that's going to finally tip. This is the entropy bill is going to get paid. The system has been Absorbing it for long enough. Now you say, well, no Snowflake takes the responsibility for the avalanche. Trust me, they will put enough together to direct the, the, to direct that. So is that a, an equivalent to 911 that happens in human health? I don't know, but it's going to be some, something's going to trigger that, that, that truth. And you know, another thing that I think the average consumer doesn't know is part of it is congressional, because in 1979 we passed a law called, called the Rickroll Law, but it's a Recycle Conservation and Recovery act. And that's what basically tells the 50 states that waste is your problem to manage. Until we stop thinking about it that way, we're going to continue to, to be stuck. [00:56:01] Speaker A: Yeah, there's many problems that can be solved at the state level, local level. You know, we, we've, we've, we've even talked about it in this podcast. Right? Is, is, you know, decentralizing is, is a good thing. But when it comes to human health, you know, security, things like that, there's places where it really, it really takes the, the power of the federal government to step in and say, okay, I'm going to bring some harmonization at least, maybe some legislation. But it, but even just harmonization at the level of definitions and regulations can, can bring a lot of, you know, a lot of value to the independent states as they're trying to figure out how they manage that waste. And you know, I want to go back to the thing you were talking about about entropy with the engineers and then tie that back to what I was talking about with recycling, right? Is you've got that difference in value between when you recycle something and, and you put it back in an extruder and you make it into a pellet again. It all of a sudden becomes worth more because you put more energy into it. But what you can put it into goes down in value, right? So there's a. I don't even think we properly calculated the energy equation yet, Kelly. So, so the entropy part, and anybody that studied engineering knows that you can understand energy, but when understanding entropy is a different, is a, is a different ball game, right? I mean, solving, solving problems on the basis of energy is, is much easier than solving problems on the basis of entropy. But you're absolutely right, that bill is going to come due. It will have to be paid. Right? And it's just, you know, you talked about a 911 event. What scares me is that polymers are so ubiquitous in our environment that if they're, if, if they're, if it does become an acute medical or health concern. And by acute, I mean something that, you know, is, you know, deadly within a short amount of time. [00:58:24] Speaker B: Exposure and fatality relationships. Yep, exactly. [00:58:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Exposure and fatality. Let's say something like that happens. They're so ubiquitous that 9, 11 would, would, would pale in comparison to what could happen. Now, I choose to look at this from a, from a hopeful perspective. I think that, I think the group of people who are just looking around themselves, you know, to, to tie back to your introduction, talking about how, you know, how disconnected we've become. The more disconnected we get, the more we yearn for connection, Right? [00:59:13] Speaker B: That's right. [00:59:15] Speaker A: So at some point, and I think this awakening is already starting to happen within people. And I don't want to make this just about materials, right. I want to make it about human consciousness and happiness and spirituality. Right. And let materials just be a portion of what that awakening is. Right? But just to, just to reconnect with nature, reconnect with our families, reconnect with our communities, right? We have communities that, that we're connected with. Right? Like, like we go to church and you don't have to go to church. You can go whatever your spiritual outlet is, man, that's like a lifeline for us. I can't tell you how much belonging and, and inclusivity and, and just love that we get from that. Right? And that, that, that, that sense of feeling and belonging, that same relationship exists in the environment around us. It was designed to be that way, right? When a tree falls down, microorganisms consume it and turn it into soul. Right? But when a bag flies off the back of a garbage truck that the microbes don't know what to do with it, right? It don't belong there, in a sense. It's that, it's that same relationship. And I think people are awakening to that and I hope that it grows at an alarming rate. Right? Because I think, I think with that is going to come a time where people say, okay, we, we just can't do this anymore. Bring the solutions, let's deploy them, let's scale them, and, and let's, let's write the ship, right? I mean, I'm hopeful that that's going to happen soon. [01:01:09] Speaker B: I think it will, and I think it's already happening. I'll give you a couple of examples. And nothing's like, we always want something big to happen, like the government is going to make it happen. Nothing happens that way. It happens Small, like at the cellular level. So we're seeing, like, just community composting and community centers. Like these are popping up all over, but there's no data on it, there's no stats on it, but I'm seeing it all over where I live. I see it when I travel, so I think it is happening. So for those that are hearing this, that resonates with you, but you're like, what do I do? I feel that I've been murmuring inside for a while, and I'm not saying go find other people to murmur with, but I will ask you to look at your local situation because I think the best way to get involved is to get a part to get involved in what you can do in your own backyard. Maybe it is finding out, is there a community compost facility or just, you know, reach out to me. I'm happy to guide you any way I can. But it's going to happen in your backyard. So you can wait for it or you can go be a proactive part of it, but it's going to happen. Because what. The path we're on now is not sustainable. We all know it. Our nervous systems know it. We just got to come to terms with that. But then that fear that need to be certain about, well, what's it going to look like? How's it going to impact me? Am I going to have to start growing my own food? Just relax and be in. As a. As a, you know, as in superposition. You're not here nor there. You're in both places. Just relax and breathe. Because a lot's going to change. But our way of living in its conveniences, none of that's going to go away. We're just going to change a little bit of the way we do things. I do believe that. What do you think? [01:02:52] Speaker A: I think so. I believe it too. And, and I encourage. I encourage anyone who's out there, who is. Is looking for, you know, how do I. How do I do my part? I'm. I'm likewise happy, happy to share with anybody who's interested in how they can do their part in making their life and their community more sustainable. You know, I'm. I'm looking inward at my small community and seeing what, what can we do here, right, to grow awareness. I've talked at schools and, and, you know, kids just light up when you show them, you know, a straw that's made out of pla or pha or, you know, and, and, and I think. I think we have to, you know, we have to Continue to, to bring that message to people and, and, and let people come to those conclusions. Because I, I agree with you. I think there are many people that are coming to those conclusions. And I want to, I want to put in a little disclaimer here at the end because I want to let people know that I'm not, I'm not an advocate of completely shutting down industries or completely discontinuing the use of materials. What I'm advocating for is a much more intelligent deployment of materials. Right. Like, I'm a firm believer that, you know, the, the volume of polyethylene or polypropylene that would come from light flexible applications probably has some really good application in building and construction where it's a highly concentrated amount that can be recovered at the end of its life. [01:04:36] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:04:36] Speaker A: And, and put to a good use. And you know, and then the, the, the lumber folks that would hear that would be like, man, you can't do. Well, the lumber that we're not putting into these light structural applications could be used for the paperization of a lot of these small packaging formats. Right. And we could coat them with biopolymers and different things. So, you know, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to be an alarmist and think we have to, you know, shut everything down and everything. Sky's falling tomorrow. I know that entropy bill is going to come due. I don't know if it's tomorrow or I don't know if it's the year 2400. Right. But I know that taking action now gets us closer to where we need to be when that bill does become due and start to manage how we pay that bill. Right, exactly. Yeah. [01:05:29] Speaker B: You know, there's a, another study that was done. I, I just, I can't help but not, not share because it just, it has such a great. Again, I'm just thinking like, how's the average person digest and metabolize what we've been talking about? University of Georgia did a study funded by the Walmart Walmart foundation, which looked at around 80 homes in Athens, Georgia. And the whole idea was can you build a comp. A home compost infrastructure. So they had a hauler. They had. And the takeaway after months of this program was it worked very, very well. But the real soft belonging benefits down to the age of four, got it and kept the family accountable to it, participated in it. They got to know those haulers like family. They started eating better, cooking at home. It became part of their ritual, which we've wholly lost in the American family is that ritual. So it actually brought belonging back to those families because it means so much to me. So I had Evan on, on last season to talk about that because I think it's like, yes, it works. It starts with community. It starts with village. We could do it. [01:06:36] Speaker A: Yeah, we can do it. You can do it. All right. [01:06:40] Speaker B: J.T. we've been talking about doing this for a while because every time we talk, it's almost like half therapy, half ideas for the future. But, but, man, I'm so glad we waited because this was such a great time. I feel like we covered the kind of stuff people wonder about, think about. And if they didn't, now they're. They're armed with that knowledge and. And again, go seek it. Reach out to us. I'll put our contact info on the links and like I close every show. Bond soft and build Strong. I'm Kelly Williams, your host of Roots to fruits. Thank you. J.T. turner. [01:07:17] Speaker A: Thanks, Kelly. [01:07:21] Speaker B: Thanks for tuning in to Roots to Fruits. If this conversation resonated with you, follow and share it with someone else who's trying to build something meaningful in the world. Healthy systems, strong communities, and lasting change all start at the Roots. For a more insights breakdown, visit my website at KellyWilliams me where you will discover resources you can read, watch or listen to that will help you in your own resonance journey. Until next time. Bond soft, Build strong.