Compostable Plastics • Dr. Heather Mayes
(Staff Scientist, National Renewable Energy Lab || CO USA)
“We’re trying to understand how to decompose existing plastics as well as design new compostable plastics that use biomaterial — trees, grass, corn stalk — as a starting point. I use computational methods to study polymer structures and how to decompose them. Enzymes have all these tricks — it’s so neat, when they’re breaking down sugars they bend the molecules to make them more reactive. We’re trying to see what we can make from biomass that has better properties than traditional plastics. Of course a big advantage of biomass is it’s compostable — there are already organisms that have evolved to degrade it.
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I’m a computational scientist, but I have meetings with biologists and inorganic experimentalists. One of the things I like about working at the National Renewable Energy Lab is everyone’s mushed together — it’s easy to collaborate between different fields. And you get to work in teams with staff who know what they’re doing from the get go. One of the cool things about NREL is it takes things closer to commercialization than other national labs. One of my biomaterials colleagues is specifically targeting LEGO plastics because there’s a substantial market with a high profit margin. You can be really strategic with your research goals.
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This job makes you really aware of how much plastic you use! I avoided researching plastics for a long time, but you can’t just ignore the problem. We need to keep in mind human nature. That’s what I like about compostable plastics — the problem isn’t just the material, but that it’s not properly disposed of. It’s nice to think that the plastic bag you just threw away isn’t going to be here for 1000 years! There are technological challenges, but the policy and our cultural thinking is where we need to evolve most. We’re trying to make solutions, so when people want to embrace them, they’re there. I see things going in a very positive direction, both in our capabilities and in our appetites.”
