Biodegradable bags

It’s conceivable that a little company overlooking Nutting Lake in Billerica may solve the severe environmental threats posed by plastics. The GXT Green team believes that its technology can replace plastic grocery bags, “packaging peanuts” and other threats to animals and the environment.

It all started in a Burlington garage in 2009 when Manas “Bob” Chatterjee launched a company called Global Exchange Technologies. As an offshoot of this company’s work in carbon offset trading, a new plastic replacement technology was created, which sparked a new company direction and spin-off, called GXT Green, Inc. 

 According to GXT Green’s management team, there are multiple disposal problems with plastic grocery bags. Burning plastic creates gooey residue that clog incinerators and the bags take decades, if not centuries, to break down in the environment, remaining toxic as they degrade. Multiply these problems by the 100 billion plastic grocery bags that Inspiration.com says U.S. consumers throw away each year.

The company’s original goal was to improve the burnability of plastic, but research in this area led to the accidental development of a new product that performs as well as plastic, but that breaks down in sunlight. The company’s patented product is a non-toxic resin that can replace any kind of plastic to create a photodegradable material, which is called “ECOgrade Calcium Olefinic Glucosate.”

As tested by independent laboratory Q-Lab Corporation, ECOgrade bags starts breaking down after 40 days and fully degrade in 240 days or less when exposed to sunlight before biodegrading. There is no need for specialized composting, and the process leaves no chemicals behind that are harmful to plants or animals. Products made from the new material can also be recycled with plastics.

Locally the ECOgrade bag is undergoing trials at the Roche Bros/Sudbury Farms/Brothers Marketplace supermarket chain.

Rich Ordway, director of facilities & maintenance for the 20-store Roche Bros. chain, said, “Green products typically cost more, and that chases everyone away. Green is great until it takes more of my ‘green’,” he said. “If the alternative is truly green and equal cost, I’m all in, and the ECOgrade bag seems to be.” He added that his customers love the texture and strength of the ECOgrade bags.

 Paper, plastic, reusable or ECOgrade?

California’s recent statewide ban on single-use plastic bags has fueled debate coast to coast. Many consumers now opt for reusable or paper shopping bags.

GXT Green’s Chief Operating Officer and Senior Vice President of Sales, Michael Vanin, said, “Reusable bags are energy-intensive to manufacture and can spread harmful bacteria if not cleaned regularly.”

Edward Weisberg, the company’s senior vice president of marketing and business development, said that paper bags are not an ideal replacement for plastic, either. “Paper bags are more expensive, produce four times more greenhouse gases and they don’t decompose in landfills. They mummify,” he said.

GXT Green claims to be the first company to market and manufacture an economically viable degradable bag that performs as well as plastic, which is called the ECOgrade bag. Vanin explained that other choices on the market include biodegradable bags that require commercial composting, and oxo-degradable bags that are 95 percent plastic, leave behind a heavy metal residue and micro-plastics. Vanin said that these options are also more expensive than the ECOgrade bag.

Vanin said, “Our bags are less expensive because our resin is made from natural and plentiful materials that cost less.”

 According to Reuseit.com, over a trillion plastic bags are used worldwide every year. Initially, GXT Green focused its sales efforts in Japan, since consumers in Japan don’t like to mix different types of purchases in a single shopping bag. This results in a much higher per capita bag use than in the U.S. However, the new law in California has spurred interest in the ECOgrade bag among retailers throughout this country. The company has signed supplier agreements with several users worldwide, including Wal-Mart.

 Meeting the market’s demand

Today GXT Green’s enviable challenge is meeting demand.  Chatterjee said that he currently has a backlog of two billion bags. Vanin said that some of these orders are from cities that already have banned regular plastic bags, but are using the ECOgrade bag as a viable alternative.

Plans are underway for manufacturing facilities in the Midwest and Taiwan. In addition, Chatterjee is currently overseeing the start-up of new bag factories in India and in the Midwest, but said that GXT Green’s ECOgrade bags can be made in any existing bag manufacturing facility. Chatterjee projects that the 50-person company will reach $10 million in revenue in 2015. Beyond that, the future looks bright if the company’s $8 billion estimate for the U.S. plastic bag market is anywhere near accurate.

Other GXT Green products

In addition to ECOgrade bags, the venture-funded company offers a low-cost reusable packing material called ECO-R3SP that enables products of any size and shape to be suspended below or between sheets of high strength, elastic, skid resistant film. This packaging system can replace polystyrene “peanuts,” foam inserts, bubble wrap, and other packing materials.

GXT Green also sells degradable plastic mulch for use by farmers. It degrades at the end of the growing season, leaving a calcium-rich ash that Vanin says is good for the soil.

Other creative uses of degradable plastic will surely follow. The company’s resin, which management calls its “secret sauce,” can be used by other plastics manufacturers to replace any type of plastic product imaginable to a degradable alternative.