PLA is a biodegradable plastic made from organic material, such as corn. Unlike conventional plastic, PLA contains no crude oil, and is seen as a green product.
The high-grade PLA market is dominated by NatureWorks LLC, a venture involving the US firms Cargill and Dow Chemical, and car giant Toyota of Japan.

Mr Supachai shows off an egg carton made from bioplastic in a Japanese store.
NatureWorks' production capacity is 80,000 tonnes per year while its designed capacity is up to 140,000 tones. The company cannot optimise its production capacity because of insufficient corn _ the company's main raw material. Supachai Lorlowhakarn, director of the National Innovation Agency (NIA), said that the company could use other biomass materials such as cassava and sugarcane to produce lactic acid for their materials.

He said Thailand had an enormous opportunity to produce PLA because the country is now the world's largest cassava producer and the world's third largest cassava exporter.

Thailand also has a strong plastics industry that can support the development of bio-based-biodegradable plastic. Thailand produces plastic bags, plastic sacks, and plastic film worth about 200 billion baht per year.

Mr Supachai and NIA executives met Tetsuya Okamoto, manager of new energy business unit of Mitsubishi Corporation and Hiroyuki Suematsu, director for the environment policy division of Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries last Friday to discuss bilateral collaboration on biodegradable plastic development.

NIA requested that the Japanese and Thai governments create a 100-million-baht fund to support development, and that Toyota transfer technology to Thailand.

If Toyota refuses to transfer its technology for biodegradable plastic production, Thailand would utilise technology from the United States or Germany, noted Mr Supachai.

Investing in a PLA factory with production capacity of 10,000 tonnes per year requires 30 million euros and the factory would reach the break-even point within eight years.

Source : The Bangkok Post, Wednesday June 06, 2007