![]() Kumala has demonstrated their nontoxic qualities by melting them in water and drinking the result. These cassava bags are designed to decompose over a period of several months when exposed to the elements, but also dissolve quickly in hot water. Avani Eco branched out from the poncho business and now makes “plastic” bags. Unlike the usual kind of plastic, which is made from petrochemicals and requires oil or natural gas as a feedstock, bioplastics rely on renewable materials such as corn, soy, or in this case, cassava and vegetable oil. Kumala eventually launched Avani Eco, a company that began manufacturing alternative rain ponchos made from bioplastic. It looks terrible, but even worse, it’s a danger to ocean animals, and works its way back up the food chain to us. In coastal areas, like Indonesia, light plastic waste often finds its way into the surrounding sea. Unless it’s been incinerated, all the plastic we’ve ever used is still with us, somewhere. All at once, he realized that the cheap, disposable plastic ponchos that the motorcyclists were wearing would be used, at best, a few times before they were thrown away, but that they would never really decompose. Kevin Kumala started studying the manufacture of bioplastics after he and a friend sat at a bar watching traffic pass by in a rainstorm. But how green are these new cassava bags? Let’s take a look. ![]() One Indonesian entrepreneur is looking to solve the problem by using cassava, a fast-growing and inexpensive food crop, to formulate a new take on the ubiquitous plastic shopping bag. Strong economic growth combined with the usual suite of externalities (that is, it would have cost somebody something to clean up all that plastic) means that Balinese beaches and the bellies of sea creatures alike are filling up with plastic flotsam. Southeast Asia is awash in plastic waste. An Indonesian entrepreneur began manufacturing bioplastic from starch to solve his country’s waste problem, but are cassava bags really a “green” solution?
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