Sustainability
The introduction of biomass into materials that have always been made as pure petrochemicals, and their derivatives, helps conserve precious oil resources while it improves the ecology of our waste stream. Various degrees of biodegradability, coupled with the generally sustainable nature of farming, combine to create a double benefit for using Trellis Earth® blends, when compared to conventional plastic.
We are approaching a time when oil will be in shorter supply, and our need to practice "modern ecology" will rise in importance. Sustainability means making life better for everyone -- bringing nature back into natural symbiotic balance, preserving future potential while we take better care in the present to preserve our ability to sustain the global ecosystems. Sustainable food packaging and utensils are a natural step in that direction, as is eating healthy, organic food. Reducing our consumption of oil "at every turn" will improve future stability and livability for all.
Materials
Trellis uses starch and biomass materials that are grown as industrial ingredient sources, without genetic engineering. Our starches and biomass fillers can be incorporated and polymerized into plastic molecules, greatly reducing the demand to consume petrochemicals while making containers used in the food service industry. Carbon in plant mass is similar to carbon molecules in oil (which were once carbon molecules in plant mass) and combining them to displace a majority of the oil needed while still retaining the properties of the underlying structure of plastic, is a sensible displacement of oil by plant mass. Eventually removing all oil by-products from plastics is impossible -- because even growing corn requires petroleum-based energy. But a widely dispersed agricultural community able to create innovative, plant-based materials is eventually part of a solution set of sustainability that Big Oil cannot offer.
Landfills
Plastics with high biomass content are properly disposed of in a landfill, or regathered for recycling, including into 2nd generation industrial fuel products. Bioplastics are capable of degrading in a landfill, depending on the conditions of that landfill. If a landfill is decomposing rapidly because of accelerated anaerobic action, the biomass in bioplastics will accelerate the process given that they provide easily digested carbohydrates. When part of a methane production and recapture system, this can reclaim energy, as is commonly done in most active urban landfills today. Landfills are energy sources and reclamation systems, and bioplastics contribute to their BTU potential when the plant mater is oxidized through natural processes yielding energy in the process.
Compost Facilities
Organic materials can quickly be composted into new soil amendments, and should be as part of sensible waste management. However plastics and most bioplastics are not entirely organic material and attempting to compost them into nutrient sources used to grow food, can be problematic. Limited access to facilities and heavy fuel costs moving organic material to processing facilities make industrial composting a relative rarity and products that depend on them more complex to recycle. Bagasse and other plant fiber based products are inherently compostable and easier to sort for recycling than pure plant bioplastics, such as PLA and until recycling system capture higher rates of reclaimation, sustainable alternatives with high plant mass are considered dramatic improvements in ecological footprint reduction.