In California, Mango Materials, which we covered when they were first starting out, is taking advantage of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Small Business Vouchers pilot program and its access to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to test out its different processes for creating bioplastics. The program gives Mango access to the 15,000 square-foot lab where they can use bacterial fermentation and methane gas to create a polymer similar to existing petroleum-based polyethylene and polypropylene plastics. Instead of genetically modifying the bacteria, Mango uses methane as a feedstock.
Mango’s biodegradable plastic can replace plastics that are causing problems for aquatic life, drinking water, and landfills. Mango Materials CEO Molly Morse told Packaging Materials, 笛ust imagine a polymer that can be digested by sea life⑿nstead of tast technology, we can ultimately drop the price of polymers at commercial scale to be competitive with traditional plastics.