Telles, a joint venture between Metabolix and Archer Daniels Midland, has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its biodegradable Mirel F1005 and F1006 bioplastics to be used in food-contact products such as caps, eating utensils, trays and hot cup lids.
The FDA has also approved Mirel for use in cosmetics, house-wares and medical packaging. Mirel can also be used for freezing, boiling and in microwaves.
Telles’ first commercial-scale plant is located near the ADM wet corn mill in Clinton, Iowa .
"With the Clinton plant now in operation, and this FDA clearance, we now can move forward with brand owners' requests to use Mirel in their injection molded food packaging applications," stated Richard Eno, CEO of Metabolix. "These applications, which currently consume billions of pounds of petroleum-based polymers per year, offer considerable opportunity for growth of our biobased, biodegradable polymer, Mirel."
The market for biodegradable plastics reached 541 million pounds in 2007, and is expected to reach 1.2 billion pounds by 2012 . In March, EL reported that eco-bottlers such as Green Planet Bottling and Keystone Water Company have produced bioplastic water bottles that are made 100 percent from plants, are reusable, recyclable and compostable in 80 days.
The company is also developing technology for co-producing plastics, chemicals and energy from crops such as switchgrass, oilseeds and sugarcane.