“We did the impossible!” Mexico’s Green Team offers solutions to the microplastic problem
By John Pint
It seems the world is being smothered by microplastic. Our oceans are full of it. The fish are eating it. Our clothes are shedding it. Here in Mexico the ubiquitous leafblower raises huge clouds of it for us to breathe. And a little bit of it gets inside us whenever we eat or drink anything from a plastic container.
Didn't they invent biodegradable bags—and paper cups—and paper plates—to get rid of this problem?
Well, the truth is now out: the “paper” in those cups is actually impregnated or coated with plastic. In fact, neither the cups nor the plates are recyclable, and when they finally break down, what you get is microplastic.
Not so biodegradable
Most “biodegradable” bags may need over 500 years to biodegrade.
Likewise those “biodegradable” bags. A 2017 study shows that, over a year, there was no degradation seen in so-called biodegradable bags submerged in seawater at 25°C. When they’re deposited in a landfill, a US National Library of Medicine report (2021) says that only one percent will be degraded after 100 years.
To make matters worse, it turns out that the “biodegradable” bags can only be biodegraded in special facilities. At present Mexico hasn’t a single such facility. In fact, in all of Latin America there is only one plant that can do the job and it’s located in Chile.
And what do those bags eventually turn into? You guessed it: microplastic.
You don't believe it? Sad to say, it’s true. Those bags are made out of polylactic acid (PLA) which comes principally from corn. It should be harmless, but in the end, it, too, becomes microplastic.
Here’s how bad it is. A recent report claims that every year, we all get a new layer of microplastic inside our lungs, equivalent to the amount of plastic in a credit card.
At last, a biodegradable cup
Unlike most "paper" cups, this one by the Green Team decomposes in 12 weeks
I came upon what appears to be a solution to the problem. It's a paper cup made by Ecovasos of León, Guanajuato. Like all “paper” cups, it's impregnated with something to allow it to hold water. In this case, the “something” is called Biovitalio, and Ecovasos says it will decompose in a landfill in 12 weeks and they claim it will never, never turn into microplastic or—even worse—nanoplastic, which is capable of going through your nose and directly into your brain .
This Ecovaso displays logotypes representing certifications from Mexico, the USA, and Germany.
Biovitalio, the magic ingredient in the Ecovaso, is made by a company called The Green Team whose headquarters are in Mexico City. They put me in contact with the company’s representative, Margarita Vilanova.
“Can you tell me something about your organization?” I asked her.
From pineapples to plastic
“The Green Team,” she told me, “is the first corporation created to offer eco-compatible products and solutions to reduce the environmental impact of plastics. We have a presence in Asia, America, and Europe, and we operate out of Mexico City. Our expansion plan in Mexico includes manufacturing and certifying locally in order to enter markets in the United States, Canada, Central America, and the Caribbean.”
As for Biovitalio, Vilanova told me it was developed in response to the false belief that cardboard cups and plates don't pollute. “Just in America,” she said, “more than 25 million cups are used every day and nobody is going to recycle them and they will not biodegrade even though you've deposited them in a container for recyclables. So we created Biovitalio and you can actually use our cup to plant a seedling in your garden. The cup will naturally decompose in 12 weeks, in the meantime providing nutrients for your plant because all the ingredients of the cup comply with food grade standards.”
Conversing with Vilanova, I learned that the Green Team has a great many other truly biodegradable products that substitute for plastic: heat-shrink film, straws, trays, bio cellophane, bags of all kinds and sizes, bottles, material for 3D printing and a water-soluble laundry detergent called Natural Load, which comes in the form of lightweight biodegradable sheets.
They even have flushable dog-waste bags.
Says Vilanova, “Our bags are all home compostable and they never leave microplastics, unlike those made from avocado seed or cornstarch, which need at least 500 years to biodegrade. And we have certifications and laboratory tests to confirm what we say.”
Biovitalio, I learned, is made from pineapples.
“We buy Asian pineapples from restaurants,” Vilanova told me. “They sell us the parts of the pineapple that they don't use. We wash and process this material and extract the alcohol. This forms the base to which we add components developed by Green Team to create polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH).”
The scientists who changed plastics
I was surprised to learn that this formula—and the Green Team’s roots—go back to the work of Emo Chiellini, award-winning Professor of Chemistry at Pisa University in Italy.
According to bioplastics expert Michael Stephen, Chiellini and his British colleague, Professor Gerald Scott, were among the scientists who had developed plastic in the post-war period. But they came to understand that the durability they had given it would eventually produce serious problems for the whole world.
This led them to develop what they called “oxo-biodegradable” plastic, but, wrote Stephen in 2020, “their invention ran into fierce opposition from the commercial interests of the bio-based plastic companies and is in consequence being actively obstructed by the EU Commission. However, it is clear to me that more people every day (even in the EU) are realising the value of their invention.”
Today, as we find ourselves and our world smothered in microplastic, we appreciate all the more the work of Chiellini and Scott. Carry on, Green Team!
Ecofix of Mexico City makes pizza packaging from Biovitalio.
Magnefix is a Mexico-City-based company which makes packaging material from Biovitalio.
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