Plants into Plastics

The 2005 Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award for small business was presented this week to Metabolix, Inc by the SBA’s Chief Counsel for Advocacy, Thomas M. Sullivan. Metabolix is a small business that is turning plant materials into usable plastics for a variety of applications.
The Metabolix web site describes their core technology as applying “the cutting edge tools of biotechnology to create a new generation of highly versatile, sustainable, biobased, biodegradable, natural plastics and chemicals.”
The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Awards provide national recognition of outstanding chemical technologies that incorporate the principles of green chemistry into chemical design, manufacture, and use, and that have been or can be utilized by industry in achieving their pollution prevention goals.
Hat’s off to Metabolix for being a pioneer in what may become a major new industry over the coming years. Could they have done it without this award? Certainly, since the company has been working on this technology since 1992 and has entered into strategic alliances with companies such as BP and ADM to apply their technology to different markets.
Seems like the EPA is simply after a little positive p.r. with this one. Maybe we should just keep the overhead that it takes to run an award program like this in the private sector.