You’ve probably heard of bioplastics, these new kinds of plastics that are marketed as environmentally friendly. If you’ve been following this show, you might know the episode from 2019 in which Anja tried to better understand this group of materials and the confusion around it. If you haven't listened, here it is: https://soundcloud.com/plastisphere-podcast/ep-7-bioplastics

After speaking to several experts from science, industry and NGOs, Anja came away with the conclusion that bioplastics have their own issues, and that they won’t be a silver bullet for solving plastic pollution. That was five years ago. Since then, things have developed - and Anja repeatedly heard about one material that people put a lot of hope in: PHA, short for polyhydroxyalkanoates. The interesting thing is that PHAs are made by bacteria, but we only covered them shortly in our previous episode.

Now the people over at The Indisposable Podcast just posted an episode that covers this in greater detail. If you don’t know their podcast yet, do check it out! The Indisposable Podcast is produced by Upstream, a change agency in the US that works on the transition from the throw-away economy to one that is regenerative, circular and equitable. You can visit them at https://upstreamsolutions.org/

They recently had Lisa Erdle on the show, who works for 5 Gyres. 5Gyres is the NGO from California that has been leading the plastic discussion since the very beginning. It was their founders who first sampled all five ocean gyres for plastic pollution. Find out more here: https://www.5gyres.org/

Lisa shares their latest research with Upstream’s host, Brooking Gatewood: They tested biodegradable products in different environments, from a desert to the sea. Enjoy listening!

Find more episodes of The Indisposable Podcast here:

https://upstreamsolutions.org/podcast