Cost

The cost to manufacture oxo-biodegradable plastic products, using EPI technology, is only a few percent higher than if the products were made without the TDPA™ component. Hydro-biodegradable plastics (those such as linear polyesters that hydrolyze to produce biodegradable products) on the other hand, are generally complicated to produce, lack the economies of large scale production enjoyed by the polyolefins, are characterized by difficulties in recycling in-process scrap, but are subject to the same inflationary feedstock pressures as conventional plastics. Since many of the hydro-biodegradable products use plant-based inputs whose alternative uses are as foods and as inputs for biofuels (e.g., bioethanol) for all or part of their composition, their cost structure is increasingly driven by rising energy costs. They are already considerably more expensive (2-5 times) to manufacture and this is expected to persist or even increase as energy costs increase.