1. Why did Emirates Biotech choose the UAE for a PLA production facility?
If you build a production plan - and honestly it doesn't matter what type of production plan you're building - you often have two choices. Either you go to where your customers are - and ultimately that's the choice we made -, or you go to where your raw materials are. It was a difficult and interesting internal discussion as to whether we should build a PLA plant in Thailand or the US, like everyone else is doing, or whether we should go to where our customers are. For us that decision became a little bit easier when it became clear that somebody from the royal family of the Emirates wanted to become shareholder.
If you just look at the region, the amount of plastics and particularly the amount of disposable plastics being used in the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, the Middle East in general, is enormous. Being in the Middle East puts you within distance to Europe, to India, Turkey, and North Africa. The great thing about a product like PLA or sustainable plastics in general, is that the issues they address are a truly global phenomenon. It’s not something that only Europeans care about, or that only something Americans care about. If you talk to folks here in Dubai, they have exactly the same questions and are looking for solutions like anywhere else in the world.
So not only did the decision became a little bit easier with a large important local investor, but on top of that we thought it was very important to be where your market is, and that's why we ultimately made a decision to build a plan in the UAE.
2. Investments in bioplastics in the MENA region are still minimal compared with the US, for example. What do you think can change that?
We're not experts on the political space yet, but we do see a number of political policies in place or being worked on, especially in the Emirates. That goes from eliminating certain applications, to promoting biodegradability and recycling. The Middle East in general, the Emirates in particular, don't have a great history in what to do with plastic [at the end of life]. I think the number I've seen is that 10% of plastics get recycled in the Emirates, which is very low. But if you look behind the scenes at what's going on from a governmental point of view, that rate is clearly not accepted as good. They want to do better on recycling, on biodegradability, and even on banning certain applications. We are going to be part of that solution. PLA is not a solution for everything, but for certain plastic applications, especially disposable plastic applications, it can be a great improvement, and we will be part of that.
Let's also not forget that our plant will be up and running in 2028, so it takes time. The good thing is also that then we have time to prepare ourselves and that also includes legislation. The Emirates is a reasonably small country, so it doesn't take a lot of time to get to know the decision makers, even government agencies. Discussions are ongoing, and of course they did not wait for us to start them.
3. Emirates Biotech will also offer recycling solutions. You will be exhibiting at the upcoming PRS Middle East and Africa. What will you be showcasing at the show? What are your plans for increasing PLA’s acceptability in recycling streams?
One of the things every PLA company out there needs to continue to do, is to make people in the traditional plastics industry understand that we are not the enemy. We don't go out and say that 20 years from now, every piece of plastics will be PLA. That would be a stupid thing to say anyway. Our approach has always been that if you have certain applications were recycling works well, don’t even think about PLA, just recycle. However, we have learnt that there are certain applications where recycling is just very difficult: tea bags, coffee capsules, for example. Technically it can be done, but it makes so much more sense to take those coffee capsules and put them into industrial or even home composting.
That's the message you have to give to the traditional plastics industry. We are not here to fight you over every disposable plastic application. We just want to carve out a small space in the big scheme of things where our use makes sense for everyone.
That’s also the message we have to share with the recycling industry. Yes, we will also create recycling opportunities for PLA, yes, we will be able and willing to take PLA back and turn it back into lactic acid and ultimately into PLA. That’s one the great things about PLA: it’s very easy to recycle from a technical point of view. People talk about chemical recycling of traditional plastics all the time now. You can do it for PET, but it’s not easy and is very capital intensive. For PLA, it is easy. What we need to get right is the logistics, for example raising capital to build plants.
As for solutions we are planning to offer, it is still very early days, but we can see it in terms of easiest solution to hardest. One of the easiest solutions is post-industrial recycling. We are going to have a bunch of converters in the region who are going to have PLA waste. A second solution, which will need more work but is also fairly straightforward, is closed loop venues. We have seen that being very successful, for example in the United States, where you have, say, a basketball venue that only uses PLA cups, bottles, plates. That means that no sorting is needed, you just put everything into a big container and that containers goes to an industrial composting site.
The most difficult solution is kerbside recycling: you have to sort the waste, get the PLA back to the plant, the economics aren’t easy. We don’t have a kerbside solution ready to go at the moment, but we want to develop a strategy to figure that out. And again, the good thing about Dubai is that things are centralised and government often has a big impact on what’s going on. So that makes your life from a logistics point of view easier than in, say, North America, where you have independent recyclers, independent sorting, and so on. My hope and expectation is that if and when we develop a workable strategy for all parties involved - and it has to involve all parties, including the consumer who needs to figure out where to put the PLA waste – the Emirates are actually a great place to make it work.
4. How important do you think LCAs will become in product choice in the coming years?
It should be important because ultimately LCA is carbon footprint, and carbon footprint is important for every government and for every big brand and ultimately for every consumer. But there's always a balance between economics and lowest carbon footprint. For example, having our PLA plant in Thailand can give you the lowest carbon footprint if sugar is the feedstock with the lowest footprint. But now you have to put it on a boat and get it to the Emirates, and that is clearly adding to your carbon footprint. So that’s a balance we must find. I think from an energy point of view, we're in a good place here in the Emirates, but first we need to figure out what a LCA for a PLA plant is. Then you start thinking about where the lactic acid is going to come from, and that decision has not yet been made, so that’s a variable we must consider. Of course, you also have to consider the logistics of moving your product from A to B, and from B to A in the case of recycling. So, I do think LCAs are important, but there are other parameters you have to balance out to find the best solution.
5. If you had to pick one sustainability trend that will drop off the agenda by 2030, what would it be?
I think the drive to eliminate certain applications is going to slow down, simply because of better understanding of what the options are. Take straws as an example. People are out there saying: oh, why do we need straws? And if we need straws, why do they need to be plastic? Well, I'm not sure whether you use or have tried a paper straw, but it’s not great. That whole discussion around let's ban this, let's ban that, or let’s go back to traditional products – good luck with that. Plastic is now around 70 years old, and it is still a fantastic product from a price/performance point of view. Because of this popularity, its success became almost its own worst enemy because we forgot to think about all the side effects and end of life options, recycling being an important one. But let’s be clear, plastics are so popular for a good reason. The banning of certain applications is something that I think specially NGOs tend to be very narrow minded about. They might argue that fruit and vegetables don’t need to be packed in plastics, for example. But that packaging keeps products fresh for longer and reduces food waste. I think that before one makes these big statements in favour of banning plastic applications, you better be careful about what you wish for. I think that discussion is going to get smarter and more nuanced going forward.