NEC Pushes Plastics Made From Crops

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But in the hypercompetitive handset business, even the slightest price markup could doom a product. That could change as NEC and partner Unitika ramp up production, and as others pay licensing fees to get a piece of the action.

Disillusionment was the inspiration for Iji's invention. After coming to NEC's labs from a small plastics maker in 1990, Iji's first job was improving recycling technology for plastics. But he quickly became frustrated. "I realized that no matter how good the recycling technology was, the plastics we were using would never be 100% recyclable," he says. He blamed flame retardants and other additives that make plastics more heat-resistant and durable but also bad for the environment.

Urban sprawl fed Iji's environmental streak. He grew up on the outskirts of Tokyo surrounded by lush forests, but the trees were later cleared to make way for homes and apartment buildings, and that got Iji thinking about greener substitutes for plastics. In the mid-1990s, Iji began secretly experimenting with nontoxic flame retardants. Within two years, he showed a prototype to his boss and got funding to research bioplastics.

Not a Moneymaker

Most bioplastics are a mix of biomass and petroleum-based plastics. That's because biomass-only materials are often too brittle and flammable for use in consumer electronics. Iji added kenaf fibers, a natural stiffening agent and flame retardant, and nano-sized particles to make the corn-based (polylactic acid) material stronger. The goal, says Iji, is to enhance those properties so bioplastic can eventually be used for TVs and laptops and in chips.

But will bioplastics be good for earnings, or just good for public relations? Rising oil prices have made bioplastics more attractive. Nonetheless, even with higher prices for regular plastics, NEC will likely pay a premium to adopt the bio variety. That suggests the company either wants to wean itself off fossil fuels or win kudos from environmentally minded consumers and businesses, or both.

It's debatable whether bioplastics are even environmentally friendly. The perception that they are a greener option than petroleum-based plastics may be true if the material decomposes quickly, as Iji says his does. But designing bioplastics that hold up during the life of a product and then break down the moment you bury them is tricky. "Many bioplastic products, particularly packaging, are promoted and marketed as 'compostable,'" says Sara Ver Bruggen, editor-in-chief at IntertechPira, a publisher of plastics-industry news and reports. "But in reality very few countries have the infrastructure to compost them. The majority [of bioplastics] end up in landfill."

Waiting for a Breakthrough

And because bioplastics use material from plants, they often require more energy to process than traditional plastics, says Tillman Gerngross, a professor at Dartmouth College, who has published papers on the effects. "The common view that bioplastics are good for the environment is incorrect," says Gerngross. Bioplastics "don't solve any environmental problems but in fact exacerbate issues related to air and water pollution."

Another criticism: Bioplastics are made from crops. With the United Nations estimating that 854 million people suffer from hunger worldwide, it's hard to imagine that fertile land should be used to make TVs and PCs rather than to produce food for the hungry. Says Bob Davenport at SRI Consulting, a market researcher in Menlo Park, Calif., "For all plastics, or even a substantial portion, to come from crops, there would have to be some kind of breakthrough."

Hall is BusinessWeek's technology correspondent in Tokyo
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