As readers, clients, contacts, and associates know, Island Leaf Commodities is a trading company that serves as the sales and marketing team for Lastic® Bamboo Resin and Lastic® BAMBOO products. Lastic®'s cutting-edge home and garden (H&G) and commercially compostable plastic-replacement resin and BAMBOO products are in the market's upper echelon of bioplastics and biodegradable products.
The Island Leaf Team believes wholeheartedly in Lastic® Bamboo Resin and BAMBOO products. Our faith in the products stems from the multiple biodegradable certifications that Lastic® Bamboo Resin BAMBOO products have earned. Additionally, Lastic® BAMBOO extrusion products are versatile, and reusable. They possess structural integrity and flexibility like HDPE and PP extrusion products.
With a brimming bevy of certifications and positive test results, we still face a few challenges when marketing our products.
Currently, humanity is in the early days of bioplastic adoption. Companies are more eager than ever to replace traditional plastic inputs with bioplastics. They hunger for bioplastics because they no longer want to contribute to the man-made plastic pollution crisis. In desperation, some companies have adopted non-H&G compostable bioplastics like PLA. Other companies abandon bioplastics and opt for paper and plant fiber (bagasse) material (bagasse). Unfortunately, switching to paper or bagasse will most likely result in compostability-confounding problems similar to those posed by PLA. To make matters worse, paper fiber and bagasse might contain molecules within them that pose severe threats to human health and the natural environment.
What are these potentially nasty, compostability-killing compounds? They're called perfluoroalkyl and poly-fluoroalkyl substances. Luckily for you, dear readers, we don't have the patience nor time to continually type those long chemistry-centric names for the rest of this piece. Instead, we'll refer to them by the acronym you've most likely heard: PFAS. Today, we'll explain what PFAS are, how they became popular, why PFAS are problematic, and how PFAS are inevitably part of paper and bagasse food-packaging products and straws. Then, we'll conclude with what we believe regulators will do with PFAS products in the future.
PFAS: From Inception to Today
Before we examine the applications and controversies that come with PFAS, we need to give a brief history of the molecules.
Created Through Accident
In 1938, Roy Plunkett was a junior Dupont chemist working on developing refrigeration chemicals. One day, Plunkett began inspecting a recently thawed tetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) compound. Before freezing, the PTFE had a gaseous form, but the state change morphed the PTFE into a waxy resin. Plunkett was not expecting such a result.
Then, when Plunkett touched the PTFE resin, he felt even more shocked. The resulting resin had a frictionless, slippery feel. Even more bizarre was that liquid substances such as water and cooking oil could not permeate the resin. Plunkett and his team at Dupont ran further tests on the resin and intuited an ingenious application.
Families worldwide would not have Plunkett's discovery contribute to their refrigerators' cooling, but it would stay in the kitchen and become a household name. Dupont started mass producing the resin in 1945, giving it the ubiquitous, well-known name Teflon®.
While we all know Teflon® as the coating that keeps food from sticking to one's cooking pan, Dupont did not initially apply it to household use. Instead, Dupont sold Teflon® to companies in industry and the military. Most notably, Teflon® even played a role in the Manhattan Project.
By the 1960s, scientists had discovered ways to fix Teflon® to pots, pans, and utensils. Scientists also developed other PFAS types that performed various functions like waterproofing clothes, immediately putting out fires, extinguishing fires, and lubricating industrial equipment.
According to the US EPA, thousands of PFAS are in use today. The FDA must approve all PFASs intended for food contact before they hit the market. The FDA has done so since Teflon®'s emergence in the 1960s. But, unfortunately, there are a few inconveniences that PFAS bring with them.
PFAS Issues
Recent improvements in science and technology have led to some damming PFAS discoveries about PFAS. Consequently, healthcare professionals and advocates question their widespread use and application.
In 2021,The Agency For Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ASTDR) finalized its PFAS report. Although the ASTDR had not (yet) established cause-and-effect relationships, several maladies correlated with people having high exposure to PFAS. These maladies include pregnancy complications, lower sperm count, and immune system attenuation. PFASs' effect on humans living near or working in PFAS manufacturing facilities is even more concerning. For this group, males had an increased risk of testicular cancer, while both sexes had an increased risk of kidney cancer.
In recent years, because of the increased use of PFAS in consumer products, the number of people exposed to PFAS has accelerated alarmingly. While scientists have yet to fully gauge and assess the risks PFAS pose to the population, another frightening fact lingers. This fact is summed up by the findings of a 2015 study by the National Institute of Environmental Services (NIES). The NIES found that 97% of Americans have PFAS in their blood.
Chemists, scientists, and other health professionals have given PFAS a moniker as unenviable as the one given to King Charles IV of France (that's Charles the Mad): "forever chemicals."
The term doesn't need any explanation. It illustrates the reasons for growing concerns about PFAS. PFASs' molecular structure makes them impossible to break down. Like plastics, PFAS do not biodegrade. While scientists have only assessed the harm PFAS have inflicted on people having extreme exposure to them, i.e., those working in or living near PFAS manufacturing facilities, it's no wonder why PFAS concern is burgeoning amongst the citizenry. As a result, swathes of people aim to decrease their exposure to PFAS, hoping not to increase the current PFAS accumulation that's likely in their bloodstream.
Implications for PFAS in Compostable Products
In a consumer-education webpage, the ASTDR highlights how people can get exposed to PFAS. For example, some food packaging is a standard PFAS-containing product that has, hitherto now, been an unknown PFAS-ingestion source.
Remember, over 4,000 PFAS exist, and not all necessarily pose the health risks outlined above. For example, the FDA currently approves 62 PFAS for food contact and advocates for their safety. But, because all PFAS accumulate in the human body, many people are concerned about using PFAS products and would like to avoid them. As a result, a growing number of states are implementing PFAS regulation policies.
The fact that PFAS do not biodegrade and are indeed unflatteringly dubbed "forever chemicals" raises two point-blank questions pertinent to those involved in the blossoming compostables industry. Do products claimed to be either commercially or H&G compostable contain PFAS? And importantly, do 3rd-party certification companies test for PFAS in certification candidates' initial testing?
Strikingly, the answer to the first question is "no," and the second is "maybe."
Food Packaging with PFAS
Unfortunately, there are high levels of PFAS in many "biodegradable" products like bagasse (plant fiber) and paper fiber packaging (including paper straws). Why? Most bagasse and paper fiber products have PFAS as an adhesive agent. In bagasse, PFAS "glues" the natural plant fibers together. And in paper-fiber packaging and straws, PFAS prevents grease or other liquids from making the packaging soggy. Ever wonder why some paper straws don't get soggy after remaining in an icy drink for hours? It's because they have a PFAS-made, water-repelling coating.
Unfortunately for PFAS-using manufacturers and the planet, utilizing an ingredient that's a "forever chemical" renders a product non-commercially compostable and non-H&G compostable.
It's no secret that some products marketed as "biodegradable" contain PFAS. In 2019, a media report revealed the bitter truth about how a few popular restaurant chains packed take-out food in PFAS-containing food packaging.
Additionally, Imperial Dade, a major distributor of restaurant accessories, published an information-rich blog about the current state of PFAS in packaging. Imperial Dade drives home the fact that bagasse and paper fiber containing PFAS will never be commercially or H&G compostable. Unfortunately, the blog's Achilles Heel is the erroneous claim that PLA is a viable compostable replacement for plant fiber and paper packaging.
Next, a University of Florida research team published a scientific paper revealing the levels of PFAS in plant-fiber drinking straws. The scientists made the not-so-bold claim that any drinking straw containing PFAS is "not fully biodegradable" and contributes to the "direct human ingestion of PFAS. Additionally, the presence of PFAS in straws facilitates the cycle of PFAS between waste streams and the environment."
Finally, over the last several months, Island Leaf has made significant strides in marketing Lastic® Bamboo Resin and BAMBOO products to various packaging makers. A few packaging makers have told us they're not considering using any bagasse or paper-fiber inputs due to PFASs' presence.
A victory against PFAS in compostable packaging and straws comes from BPI World. BPI World is the preferred commercial-composting certifier in the United States that packagers use as their standard. Since late 2019, BPI World has required all applicants to submit a test result from a BPI-approved lab that proves the applicant's product has no more than 100ppm of fluorocarbons. Fluorocarbons are to PFAS as what hydrogen is to water—if a product doesn't contain fluorocarbons, it can't contain PFAS.
PFAS, Compostable Packaging, and the Future
Although the FDA has declared the PFAS types found in food packaging safe for human use, any food packaging that contains PFAS will never be compostable. So until scientists discover a new compounding adhesive, we can confidently say that all bagasse and plant-fiber products aren't compostable. But the fact that PFAS in food packaging—however safe the FDA may deem them at this time—will undoubtedly enter and remain in each user's body for their entire lifespan, is disturbing.
Island Leaf has a high-quality, structurally strong alternative to bagasse, paper, and PLA: Lastic® Bamboo Resin and BAMBOO products. To prove to our clientele how much PFAS concerns us, we've had SGS run PFAS-trace tests on Lastic® Bamboo Resin. We're happy to say that SGS found no trace amounts of PFAS. Furthermore, we're unsurprised because we've had our Lastic® products certified by BPI World for almost one year.
Lastic® only uses fewer than a handful all-natural ingredients to produce its Lastic® Bamboo Resin. And we've got a growing list of compostable and environmental certifications. So if you're interested in a top-quality, PFAS-free, home and garden compostable plastic substitute for your packaging-production feedstock, send the Island Leaf Team a message!
*FROM PFAS SGS Test REPORT –
1. "RL": Reporting limit
2. "ND": Not Detected
3. "0.1": Acceptable limit (here, 1,000ppm)
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