ENVIRONMENT-PAKISTAN: It Feels Like Plastic, But It Isn’t

By Zofeen Ebrahim Reprint | | Print |

Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, Pakistan, Jul 27 2004 (IPS) - It feels and ‘acts’ like plastic, is slippery and is smooth to touch. But unlike real plastic, it will not clog your drains, choke marine life or hang forever on trees and electric wires. Once used and disposed of, it disintegrates.

Nazia Jamil, a PhD student at the Centre for Molecular Genetics in Pakistan, was stunned one day when a culture she had been growing for over two weeks in a flask ”looked like plastic”.

Slipping into scientist’s lexicon, her mentor, Professor Nuzhat Ahmed, marvels at the power of the single cell organism and says she is sure they have been successful in isolating a tongue-twisting biopolymer called polyhydroxyalkanoates, or PHA for short, ”because it even smelled like new plastic slippers!”

They had collected the bacteria from the sediment of Arabia Sea.

After toiling in their laboratories for almost four years, the energetic duo finally came up with a formula for what Dr Ahmed calls making ”eco-friendly biodegradable plastic”, one that uses indigenous bacteria and can be disposed off right at one’s very doorstep.

The sample was validated by Dr Atta-ur-Rehman, a scientist of world acclaim who is also the minister for science and technology. It was later sent abroad for further verification.

From razors to shampoo containers, baby bottles, medicine bottles, sandwich wrappers to surgical pins and even bone replacements and plates, just about anything and everything can be produced and used from bioplastic, says its developers.

Ahmed adds that it could provide a solution to the disposal of plastic in a more green-friendly matter.

”Conventional plastic made of polystyrene, polyvinyl and polychloride is resistant to degradation and persists in the environment. Incinerating plastics is an option but it is a dangerous one as harmful chemicals like hydrochloric acid and hydrogen cyanide are released,” says Dr Ahmed.

Already, according to Dr Nuzhat Ahmed, bioplastic is ”a reality and a practical truth” all over the world, including in countries like China, the United States and Australia.

But it is a first for Pakistan, where local researchers are the ones pushing it and advocating its use with local material to address the country’s own waste and environment problems. ”It is a big deal because we would be the first among the developing countries to move from lab-scale to commercial scale,” adds Ahmed.

Jamil says that in Australia, all sugar industries already have a side unit to use the waste from sugar for making plastic. Biodegradable and recyclable packaging was used at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

From July onwards, the research by Jamil will involve trying to upscale the project and cut down the price of bioplastic. ”We want to use a cheap source to isolate the bacteria from and are thinking of using molasses from sugar or whey from the dairy industry,” Jamil explains.

Pakistan Telecommunication Co will give assistance worth 5.4 million rupees (923,400 U.S. dollars) for a year and provide more help if they succeed in making the product on a large scale at low cost.

Jamil says the research project in Pakistan is being done in collaboration with Chinese scientists, where the product is being used on a mass scale.

Some 40 percent of plastic produced per year is dumped into landfills that are fast filling up.

”We must make the people aware of the hazards of plastic, and take this up on a war footing,” Jamil says. ”If we don’t stop its use, the number of cancer patients will multiply, children will be born with abnormalities,” Jamil adds, referring to the health risks from the toxins emitted from the burning of plastic as a way to dispose of it.

The developers of bioplastic say it degrades completely, breaking down into carbon dioxide and water. Microorganisms then use up the carbon dioxide as carbon source.

While the shelf life of the material is short, Dr Ahmed says, ”It’s not so short that the plastic disintegrates before the product that has been packaged in has been used or consumed.”

Dr Ahmed assures that the bacteria from which bioplastic are made cannot react with food products that may be packaged in it. ”Bacteria become plastic, they die and only those from the soil would react with the newly formed plastic.”

But if consumers hope to be able to toss biodegradable plastic out of the window and expect to disappear into thin air, they are in for some disappointment. This material takes longer to become degraded – ”a couple of months” in the soil (or the sea bed) ”because the microbes in the earth eat it as its food”, Ahmed says.

That perhaps is the major stumbling block – the cost. ”Yes it is expensive but we are trying to cut the cost by using industrial waste for the production of biodegradable plastic. But if one compares the cost of biodegradable plastic and the cost of reducing the human suffering and the money spent on medical bills, it is not expensive,” explains Dr Ahmed.

”We will actually be killing two birds with one stone. The industrial waste will be recycled and you get a product that provides the same function and yet has no carcinogenic effect,” Ahmed stresses.

Estimates for the global market for biodegradable plastic put it at over 1.4 billion tonnes by next year In Pakistan, almost the entire raw material or 0.3 million tonnes used in the plastic industry is imported at a cost of 200 million U.S. dollars against a negligible export of 20 million dollars.

Despite its promised benefits, it is not going to be easy to win public confidence in bioplastic.

”The process would be quicker if we get support from industrialists. In Pakistan, we don’t have the culture of commercialising lab scale technologies. We lack an intermediary setup, which may take up the indigenous technologies to the pilot scale so that industrialists can adapt it,” Ahmed explains.

But before, that, she says: ”What needs to be done immediately is to put a ban on the use of plastic bags through legislation and make sure that it is implemented.”