A VC in Vacationland

One of the uglier aspects of supply chain operations is the huge amount of waste created by packaging materials.  The following innovators are trying to "reverse the curse" of packaging disposal by using green, biodegradable materials.  My thanks to the guys at Alarm Clock for scouting them out for me. Unfortunately, they will be competing for the same crops as the ethanol boys, so expect to pay a premium for these products. They are true candidates for Dave’s supply chain, marketing and sales innovators Hall of Fame:

Khosla Inserts $15M More Into Organic Plastic’s Segetis

When we last posted on Plymouth, MN-based Segetis, we called the stealth mode startup a "friendly chemicals" company. It had just closed $5M in funding from Khosla Ventures. Today we learn that Khosla has invested a full $15M in Series A. We think this is has brilliant marketing hook. Every product maker that sells in Whole Foods would love to be able to say that even its packaging is organic.

The company’s CEO Sergey Selifonov, gives us some more to chew on: "For decades, the production of many products of every day life from plastic table tops to shampoo bottles to car seat cushions has been dependent on fossil materials such as petroleum, gas and coal. Green chemistry can deliver novel cost-competitive products that perform at par with or better than the existing petrochemical goods."

Segetis says its bio-based chemical products from renewable agricultural and forestry feedstocks can be used for production of surfactants, plasticizers, adhesives, coalescent solvents and other compounds for specialty chemical applications.

New Biobased Biodegradable Plastic Hits Market

Mirel Natural Plastics, a family of high performance natural plastics that are biobased, sustainable and completely biodegradable will be produced by ADM and Metabolix Inc. the companies announced earlier this month.

The companies formed a joint venture, Telles (named for the Roman goddess of the Earth), to produce the natural plastic which will manufactured at a plant in Clinton, Iowa. This plant is expected to start up in 2008 and will produce Mirel at an annual rate of 110 million pounds.

"We are now commercializing biobased, renewable alternatives to petroleum-based plastics that will reduce our reliance on oil and the impact petroleum use has on climate change," said Jim Barber, CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Metabolix.

Mirel is produced from renewable resources like corn sugar which can biodegrade harmlessly back to nature in a wide range of environments such as soil, compost, rivers and oceans. It can provide an alternative to traditional, oil-based plastics. More than 350 billion pounds of plastic is produced each year and nearly 10% of total U.S. oil consumption — about two million barrels a day — is used to make plastic each year.

Mirel can be used as an alternative in a wide variety of conversion processes, including injection molding, paper coating, cast film and sheet, blown film and thermoforming. Metabolix is currently working on more than 60 applications, including consumer products, packaging, single use disposables, and products used in agriculture and erosion control.