These Plates and Bowls Serve the Environment

Richard Feldman is trying to put himself out of the plastic business.

For years, Feldman, an importer of plastic containers, gave little thought to the nation’s overflowing landfills. But that changed when he realized that many of his customers, including Whole Foods Market Inc., were going green.

“I will lose the business someday,” said Feldman, the founder of Los Angeles-based Clear Creek Compostables. “I just want to lose it to myself.”

It’s already happening. Last year, Feldman began importing biodegradable plates and bowls from China that are composed of 90% sugar-cane pulp and 10% paper.

He also is making clear containers from a corn-based resin developed by NatureWorks, a subsidiary of food supplier Cargill Inc.

“I’ve spent a career filling landfills. Now, it’s time to reverse that,” said Feldman, who calls himself a “born-again environmentalist.”

Compostable products are a tiny fraction of America’s $8-billion-to-$12-billion-a-year container and packaging industry, according to the Foodservice & Packaging Institute Inc. in Falls Church, Va. But demand is growing as companies migrate to more environmentally friendly operations in such areas as energy and water consumption as well as in the products they sell and use.

Compostable products biologically decompose in an oxygen-rich process used by industrial facilities.

In addition to being biodegradable, Feldman’s products are made from a renewable resource that is a byproduct of sugar production. The plates and bowls -- which can be used in the microwave and will hold boiling water -- are sold at Whole Foods, Sam’s Club and a number of independent natural food stores.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that each year, Americans discard about 14.4 million tons of plastic-- 8% of total waste. Much of the container and packaging waste ends up in landfills, which produce methane, a greenhouse gas that is blamed for contributing significantly to global warming. Rising oil prices also have pushed up the cost of petroleum-based products such as plastic.

The plastics industry has fought back by promoting the reusability of its products and encouraging recycling.

Steve Mojo, executive director of the Biodegradable Products Institute in New York, said environmentally savvy consumers such as college students were putting pressure on their food service providers to reduce waste and move away from natural resources in danger of depletion.

“This market is beginning to accelerate because all these drivers are coming together,” said Mojo, who compared composting to the recycling movement a decade ago.

The institute tests products to make sure they meet the biodegradable standards set by ASTM International, formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials. Nearly two dozen producers of biodegradable bags and food service items carry the “Compostable Logo,” more than double the number two years ago.

At Austin, Texas-based Whole Foods, using and selling compostable products is a natural extension of the company’s “Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet” philosophy, said Patrick Lewis, the retailer’s regional buyer in Emeryville, Calif.

“We’re trying to put our money where our mouth is,” he said.

In addition to selling Feldman’s bowls and plates under its Green Mission brand, Whole Foods has begun testing the sugar cane products in its deli and bakery operations and food sampling programs. The retailer also is considering substituting corn resin-based containers for the millions of plastic products it uses each year.

Although those biodegradable products are more expensive, the prices should go down if other companies join in and the market expands, Lewis said.

“We’re a very small fish in the pond when it comes to packaging,” he said.

The whale in that pond is Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which has promised to step up its recycling and energy efficiency programs and offer its customers more healthful and environmentally friendly products.

But the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer has discovered that it isn’t easy going green without undermining its drive to deliver the lowest possible price to its customers.

Sam’s Club began carrying Clear Creek’s plates this year in 18 stores in Southern California, the first time it’s offering such a program. At $11.88 for 100 plates, the compostable products cost about 20% more than a comparable paper product. Sales have been slow and Feldman was told that the product might be dropped. But he won a reprieve after arguing that customers needed to be educated about the benefits of recycling and composting.

Matt Kistler, vice president of products and packaging innovation for Sam’s Club, agreed that the retailer should “step up the effort” to market Clear Creek’s plates because they are a novel product. But in the end, he said, the customers rule.

“We want to see what the opportunity is,” he said. “Ultimately, our members will decide whether or not we carry the product.”

Feldman, who has spent three decades in the food service business, is working to keep his costs low. He has outsourced his back-office work, and just three employees work in a small, crowded office in West Los Angeles. He gets his products through Jervey Ho, a Hong Kong entrepreneur who has produced plastic action figures and Halloween costumes in China for decades.

Producing the biodegradable products is similar to making waffles. The basic material is sugar-cane pulp, or bagasse, which comes to the factories in flat sheets and is mixed with water and some chemicals before going into a molding machine. Using a combination of heat and steam, the machine presses the pulp into the final shape.

It wasn’t easy locating Chinese companies that could produce a high-quality product and meet the strict environmental and labor standards demanded by U.S. companies. Ho is working with three factories in southern China, but production is limited because the process is so time-consuming. One $70,000 machine can produce only six plates at a time and a factory’s daily output is about 175,000 pieces.

“We cannot invest too much unless there’s greater demand from the buyers,” said Ho, owner of Palco International and an associate director at Clear Creek.

To meet Clear Creek’s green mandate, Ho has asked his sugar-pulp suppliers to stop using bleach, which means the products are light brown. He also is looking for a more environmentally friendly replacement for a petroleum-based additive that is mixed into the pulp to make the products water- and oil-resistant.

“It will not be 100% biodegradable, but maybe 98%,” Ho said. “It will certainly be better than 100% Styrofoam.”