Italy Launches the First Integrated "Bio-Plastics" Network
    By Jean-Jacques Bozonnet
    Le Monde

    Monday 16 October 2006

    A low-profile industrial revolution based on corn and sunflower seeds is being born in Terni, a middle-sized Umbrian city, situated some 100 kilometers north of Rome. On Friday 13 October, in this once-prosperous steel and chemical industry cluster, the Italian company Novamont, pioneer in the sector of biodegradable products, inaugurated the "first green bio-refinery in the world, able to produce bio-polyesters based on vegetable oil." European leader in bio-plastics based on starch thanks to its star product, Master-Bi, 35,000 tons of which already are turned out by the Terni site, the firm is raising its production capacity to 60,000 tons, or about 60% of the global market.

    Compared to 40 million tons of petroleum-based plastics consumed in Europe, this is only a first step. Moreover, the interest in bio-plastics is still dwarfed by the present craze for bio-carburants. Nonetheless, everyday objects manufactured on the basis of agricultural products are no longer a utopia. Bio-plastics like Master-Bi combine many environmental properties. They are renewable, recyclable, reusable, biodegradable, and "compostable." They are used to make bags, packaging, mulching films for agriculture, disposable diapers, throw-away glasses and cutlery, soluble cotton swabs, etc. The applications are infinite: Novamont has, notably, collaborated with the American outfitter Goodyear to develop an "environmental" tire that reduces road resistance by 40%.

    Born from a Montedison laboratory in 1989, Novamont is above all a company of researchers that continues to devote 30% of its resources to research. The company holds 56 patents that it is developing. Today, the addition of vegetable oils (sunflower, castor-bean, rapeseed) to the traditional starch allows it to reduce the share of fossil products used still further. Above all, that makes the manufacturing process more energy efficient and reduces its environmental impact.

    The initial project of inventing "a living chemistry in service to quality of life" has become an industrial challenge. On its site, Novamont has invested 100 million Euros since launching production in 1996. With 120 employees and a turnover of 50 million Euros, the Italian producer has a small business dimension, but multi-national ambitions. France, which has the most developed legislative framework in Europe in these matters (biodegradable store shopping bags will be obligatory as of 2010), attracts the company: it has just created a subsidiary there, the first milestone toward the opening of a factory, most likely in the Rhone-Alps region.

    The main brake on the expansion of bio-plastics remains their cost of production. "We must begin to consider not only the raw material costs, but those of the whole channel of production and distribution, which include hidden environmental and social costs such as those of transportation. Hence the necessity of creating small units close to their destined markets rather than big manufacturing centers," explains Catia Bastioli, Novamont General Director.

    Simultaneous with the announcement of its ultra-modern bio-refinery, Novamont made public the creation of a joint venture with the main Italian agricultural organization, Coldiretti. "It's an even more important event because it marks a change in perspective," exults Catia Bastioli. "It's the first economic model of integrated vertical organization around planned sustainable development. We've found a great openness of mind among the farmers and an approach very close to ours, since they are seeking an economic model that gives value to their land, brings added-value to their specialized crops, and integrates them with an industrial process."

    In concrete terms, several hundreds of sunflower producers from the Terni province have constituted themselves into a cooperative which is becoming Novamont's partner in a new 50-50 entity that is supposed to be operational in 2008. The perspectives for this kind of network are significant without, all the same, impinging on the space devoted to agriculture for food purposes. The greatest optimists have already calculated that by exploiting the 800,000 hectares for crops in Italy that are presently frozen by the European Union, an effective bio-industrial network could obtain over 1.5 million tons of bio-plastics. And Catia Bastioli even dreams of an analogous cooperation with French agricultural organizations in the near future.

    Production. Novamont has a line of 15 different varieties of Master-Bi. It supplies 60% of the world production of bio-plastics. Virtually all production takes place in Terni (Umbria); the rest under license in the United States. Thirty-five thousand tons of Master-Bi are already produced by the Italian Terni site. That capacity will soon rise to 60,000 tons.

    Competitors. American multinational chemical companies Cargill and Dow Chemical have associated to develop PLA, obtained by fermenting starch, the only alternative at present to Master-Bi. Master-Bi does not use GMO. France is the largest European producer of starch, with 60% of the European market.

    Cost. A bio-degradable check-out bag costs 8-9 Euro cents vs. 5 cents for a traditional bag (15 billion/year in France). Bio-plastic is completely reabsorbed in three to eight weeks versus 100 to 400 years for traditional plastics, which burn easily, but emit toxic fumes.