One Man's Trash…

Cryptic Moth traveled through the Virginias to Tennessee. With some time to kill before our shoot on Monday we decided to stop by Dupont's newest project – a distillation plant that will soon make bio-based nylon (PDO) called Sorona.



It will take some 6.4 million bushels of corn (requiring 40,000 acres) to produce 100 million pounds of the material and they expect to sell $200 million worth by 2010. And while that's a drop in the 5.4 billion pound bucket for global nylon consumption, just 240 million pounds of Sorona would offset greenhouse gasses equivalent to 115,000 cars.



Unfortunately, there weren't any communications people working on a Sunday so we took some exteriors from across the valley and drove on to our next locale.



With so much open space, Tennessee isn't a place you'd expect to find a solution to landfills. But it is.



Waste Away (www.bouldincorp.com) takes municipal garbage from the town of Morrison – including food waste, plastic, metal, you name it – and then sort, grind, wash and treat the materials into what they call "fluff."



They recently took all the non-recyclable materials from the local Bonnaroo Festival, which was orchestrated by Lee ( scalarparty.livejournal.com) - CMP's number one fan and eco-coordinator for Bonnaroo.



Fluff is basically a mixture of organic and synthetic materials that can be turned into three applications. The first and most popular is used in agriculture as a replacement for peat moss. According to Tim, the company's president, the process makes the fluff completely benign without any risk of the plastic leeching into the soil.



This park bench and building blocks represent the second application.



By adding larger plastic chunks and heating the fluff in an extruder they are able to form the material into a variety of forms – like this rest area.



They are also working on using fluff as a potential energy source to power the plant itself. Not surprisingly, the people most psyched about the technology are from overseas – where land is a bit more valuable. Nevertheless, Tim definitely saw a day where mining landfills could be an economic engine.



The shooting was hot (like everywhere these days) and the smell, repugnant.



Cryptic Moth would like to thank Teddy and Tim for showing us around and proving that what we throw away indeed has value.




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Another Plastic Perspective

After spending the night in Washington D.C., Cryptic Moth drove over the bridge to Arlington, Virginia. We were there to visit the American Plastics Council– a trade association that promotes the benefits of all things plastic.



Robert Krebs, communications director, greeted us warmly into his corner office overlooking the Pentagon. We wanted to get an overview of the size and scope of the industry (APS represents resin manufacturers like Cargill and Dupont and not necessarily finished goods).



With a background in acting (apparently once playing Ronald McDonald in commercials) and lobbying for industry, Robert was the perfect man for the job. He spoke passionately about the benefits of synthetics – from medical uses, automobile parts, foam insulation and the powder put in diapers that absorbs an enormous amount of water.



When pressed about plastic accumulation in the oceans and on the land, Robert acknowledged that solutions are necessary; although promoted anti-litter education over new bio-based materials and implied that a few bad apples (consumers + industry) were to blame.



Rob also refuted scientific studies regarding toxins like BPA and dioxins used as catalysts in plastics, insisting there are no harmful effects to human and environmental health.



The interview ran nearly 3 hours and we covered a lot of ground. Cryptic Moth sincerely thanks Rob for his candid remarks, his passion for an obviously undervalued resource and for treating two Canadian filmmakers to lunch. Although we didn't see eye-to-eye on everything, he definitely gave us a wider – and more objective – perspective.



Next stop…Tennessee.



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Rubber Chicken

On Thursday, August 3rd, we traveled to the USDA’s research facility in Maryland, a location that also housed FBI and ATF agencies.



We were there to meet Dr. Walter and his colleague Dr. Justin. They’ve spent the last few years perfecting a new plastic made – from all things – chicken feathers.



After cleaning and stripping the feathers, they grind up the quills, which consist of keratin – a natural polymer. Instead of adding such things as polycarbonate or fiberglass to increase the strength, these chemists and engineers are using glycerol – another waste product from the biodiesel industry (they are also experimenting with fibers from coconuts, bananas, you name it).



That makes this product 100% bio-based, 100% biodegradable and an excellent replacement for polyethylene.



Justin, who used to work for big oil, demonstrated how they put the material into an extruder, make a film, grind that up into pellets and injection-mould it into everything from cups, bags, flower pots and mulching films for the horticulture industry.



So just how viable is chicken plastic? Well, consider that 2.5 billion pounds of chicken feathers are produced in the USA every year and the horticultural industry alone is approximately a $40 billion industry. Not only that, but they’ve got the price down to 50 cents a pound! That’s about 20-30 cents less than some petroleum plastics!



Cryptic Moth applauds these scientists for finding value in waste, an obvious choice for petroleum alternatives.



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The Plastic Hunter

After a late night on the town, a sluggish Cryptic Moth crew emerged from the hotel to greet the hottest day of the summer. With temperatures expected to exceed 110 F in the Big Apple, we weren't exactly looking forward to an outdoor shoot.



Ever-the-determined, we crossed the Hudson into Jersey to meet Bill, one of the founding members of Bag Snaggers, Inc. ( muzen.com/snagger.html) – a motley collective of artists and musicians who rescue plastic bags from trees.



This is their tool of trade – a 40-foot extendable pole with a patented hook that can cut, grab and snatch these menacing tokens of convenience. Not only has Bill and his pals collected thousands of bags out of trees from all over the USA, other items have included carpet, bicycles, lawn chairs and miles of audio and video tape.



Being the artists that they are, the Bag Snaggers have since spliced together the audio tape into bizarre montages of Latin, hip hop and reggae beats.




The video revealed some crazy dude giving sermons from his home, a corporate video on textiles and a Japanese action flick. If anything, the experiment shows just how diverse the origins of these synthetics can be.



Not surprisingly, there were many bags in the park to demo his technique. Click below to see a quick video clip.

Bagger%20Snagger.wmv

The snagger poles are available for those that are annoyed by tree-borne rubbish and Bill is even willing to pay house calls free of charge.



Cryptic Moth thanks Bill for enduring the heat and proving that every one of us can indeed make a difference.


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Plastics 101

Monday started at 4 a.m. We drove 4 hours south to Leominster, Massachusetts to the National Plastics Center and Museum.



We were there to shoot exhibits of yesteryear plastic (from celluloid to bakelite to current medical applications) as well as the plastic pioneers who built our synthetic century. Luckily it was closed to the public and we had the run of the place – thanks Marianne!



And because the location had great backdrops for interviews, we invited a polymer chemist to give us a lesson in plastic basics – how it's made, the different kinds and why different materials serve the purposes they do.



Dr. John is from the University of Massachusetts-Lowell and despite recently battling a case of pneumonia, more than adequately stepped up to the challenge.



He broke down plastic number 1 through 7 (you know, those triangles at the bottom of, say, a margarine container) and did it three times for different camera angles.



After lunch we re-set for a more formal interview on Dr. John's real passion – Green Chemistry. Simply put, this is a field of chemistry that trains new chemists to consider environmental and human health in the development of new materials. Apparently, chemists are not traditionally taught subjects like toxicology or endocrinology. For John, ignorance is precisely why products with nasty ingredients hit the shelves even though there may be perfectly better – and more benign – alternatives.




He has since developed the only PHD program in the USA (although Canada, Europe, India, China, and Japan are on it) and has written the authoritative book on the subject entitled, "Green Chemistry: Theory and Practice."



It was a long day so we agreed to return on Tuesday to get the last of broll from the museum. While taking still shots of the inventor of Bakelite, Leo Baekeland, Marianne mentioned that she was in contact with his great grandson.



Within a few hours we were sipping lemonade with Hugh and his mother, Celine.



Celine provided wonderful personal anecdotes, pictures and diary entries about her grandfather – who, after selling Bakelite to Union Carbide, spent the rest of his life traveling the world and enjoying his favourite pastime, sailing.



Most interesting, the ancestors of the man who invented a product that never disappears have become stout environmentalists. Celine even thought most of the imitation jewelry made from bakelite was cheap and obnoxious.



Many thanks go to our hosts for letting us into their homes and revealing some personality behind the history books.

Our final stop of the day would be NYC to celebrate Ian's birthday in style. We can only hope there's a break in the heat.




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