If you’ve been following the developing story of algae biofuels, the thought may have struck you: “If we can make oil out of algae… and we already make plastic out of oil… could we make plastic… out of algae?”

The answer is: “Yes”.

The Cereplast company of California is working on technology that does just that.

They’ve been making compostable and biodegradable plastics out of wheat, corn, tapioca and potatoes for a number of years, so moving from starch to algae wasn’t much of a stretch.

In October, they announced they were developing a breakthrough technology to transform algae into bioplastics, and they intend to launch a new family of algae-based resins.

“Based on our own efforts, as well as recent commitments by major players in the algae field, we believe that algae has the potential to become one of the most important ‘green’ feedstocks for biofuels, as well as bioplastics,” said Cereplast Founder, Chairman and CEO, Frederic Scheer.

They don’t say anything about how biodegradable the new plastic will be, but if it’s anything like their other products, it should be fully compostable within 60 to 180 days. That’s good news for landfills, and better news for the oceans [link to gyre]

Other companies are working on their own processes:  The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis just recieved a $44 million Recovery Act award for their research, and Algaeventure Systems of Ohio gave a sneak peak to local journalists early in 2009. Petrosun is working on both biofuel and bioplastic; And Algenol Biofuels are working with Dow Chemicals on a pilot project. There has been extensive research at the University of Texas at Austin, MIT, and other places.

What could all this mean for the planet? It takes about 1.78 pounds of petroleum to make 1 pound of plastic, so you can see why replacing some of the 100 billion pounds of resins used annually in the US (and 540 billion pounds worldwide) would be good.

With some estimates as high as 8 percent of world oil production going to the plastic industry, it would be great to shift that non-sustainable stream into a sustainable one. And since the algae pulls CO2 out of the atmosphere as it grows, using it doesn’t contribute to higher CO2 levels, unlike fossil fuels.

http://www.videocrux.com/video/17810i17814/Turning-algae-into-sturdy-plastic