Biome Bioplastics talks bioplastics with Costing the Earth

26 October 2018
Biome Bioplastics talks bioplastics with Costing the Earth

Does living plastic-free really put the interest of the planet first? Or are we in danger of damaging environmental side effects from demonizing plastic?”

This is a bold question from Costing the Earth’s presenter Tom Heap, at a time where plastic pollution has been made Public Enemy #1 and nearly all actions undertaken focus around banning, rather than reimagining, plastic.

But can we make plastic better? The latest episode of BBC Radio 4’s prominent show Costing the Earth focuses on the current ‘Plasticphobia’ we are currently experiencing. It explores innovative ways to rethink our system and Biome Bioplastics was on their list.

Being climate friendly, water-saving, lands-bearing and even on the side of social justice. Do these need to be balanced on the plastic charge sheet against the crime of worldwide pollution?”

We opened the door of our Southampton research unit to Tom Heap and his team a couple of weeks ago to give them a guided tour of our whole process, from touching our raw materials to listening to our terminated bioplastics… the perfect time to debunk some preconceived ideas around bioplastics!

You can listen to our CEO Paul Mines at 10:47 here.

And as usual, we are always left with the big questions. What will it take to create a good plastic system? We’ll leave the answer with a representative of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

We need to eliminate the plastics we don’t need and innovate the ones we need in order to make sure that all of them can be safely reused, recycled or composted. And we need to make sure that everything that we use is circulated so that it never becomes waste or pollution”

Listen to the full episode here.