Environment Friendly: Research focuses on biodegradable box

ALBANY — TUCKED AWAY, a gallop across the freeway
from Golden Gate Fields, the Western Regional
Research Center is easy to overlook.

By Alec Rosenberg Business Writer,

(If anywone knows the contact info for a similar entity providing assistance for MT, please send it to me
and I’ll provide it to the Roundtable- Russ)

"A lot of people don’t know we’re here or what we do,"
center Director James Seiber said.

Despite its low profile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture research center has been helping businesses for
more than 60 years. In the 1940s, Albany scientists improved frozen food technology. Today, they are turning
wheat starch and wheat straw into biodegradable burger boxes, making edible films to keep sliced fruits
attractive and flavorful, and studying ways to make renewable fuels from crops.

The Albany center serves the Western region from seafood processors in Alaska to wheat farmers in California,
Idaho, Oregon and Washington. The Buchanan Street complex runs on a $25 million yearly budget with 225
employees divided into eight units.

The center’s research is receiving national recognition. Chemist William Orts just won an early career research
scientist award from USDA’s Agricultural Research Service for his work in developing biodegradable burger
boxes and coffee cups. Chemist Dominic Wong and two retired colleagues just won an award from the
agency’s Office of Technology Transfer for their edible film research.

The research is finding new markets for existing crops.

The wheat starch and straw research could be a boon to U.S. wheat farmers, who have been producing surplus
wheat for years. It could improve air quality by reducing wheat-straw burning. Also, it could cut the nation’s
dependence on foreign oil, offering an alternative to petroleum-based plastic containers.

Plastic foam burger boxes are cheap and effective but are made from petroleum, used only once and take
hundreds of years to degrade, Orts said.

McDonald’s fast-food restaurants tried cardboard boxes, but they cost more money and don’t keep burgers
warm, Orts said. McDonald’s has had success using degradable potato starch and limestone clamshells from
EarthShell of Santa Barbara, he said.

EarthShell’s technology is protected by a patent that also covers corn, rice, wheat and tapioca. "It’s a very
flexible technology — that is one of its strengths," EarthShell’s John Nevling said.

Orts and colleague Gregory Glenn have been developing similar burger boxes made of wheat starch and
straw. Wheat insulates well, costs less than potatoes and is more plentiful, they said. Glenn, the project leader,
said he hopes to work with EarthShell to bring the wheat-based containers to market.

Similar technology could be used to make biodegradable cups for coffee and other hot beverages.

"Functionally, they’re fine," Glenn said. "The question is, ‘What will consumers want?’"

In another project, Orts is working with Napa’s Regale to mix rice straw with recycled paper products to make
nonfood containers.

"We come up with the scientific ideas, but we don’t make anything," he said. "If we want to have some impact,
we have to do technology transfer."

Regale already makes wine shells from newsprint and old corrugated boxes, and plans to expand into products
such as computer packaging and shoe boxes.

The company is beginning tests of mixes with rice straw, said Karl Gee, Regale’s director of real estate and
energy. The mixes with agricultural waste are promising and could go to market within nine months, he said.

"This would be a good way to give it another use before it goes back into the ground," Gee said.

Back at the Albany center, researcher Tara McHugh is working on an edible film project to make new products
out of fruits such as pear bars.

Also, edible films could help turn sliced apples into the next big snack.

Albany researcher Dominic Wong and retired colleagues Attilla Pavlath and Wayne Camirand figured out how
to make an edible film that would keep sliced fruit attractive and flavorful for up to four weeks — long enough
to sell at schools and supermarkets. They collaborated with Mantrose-Haeuser, which is already selling
NatureSeal-protected sliced apples and pears.

The calcium-based film is all-natural, with vitamins and minerals, and is applied by spraying or dipping.

"This technology makes it easy and convenient for consumers to get more daily servings of these healthful
fruits as a handy snack," ARS Acting Administrator Edward Knipling said.

The technology also could be used on avocados, carrots, onions and peppers.

In addition, similar films are being used to keep dairy cows healthy. Applying the films to a cow’s udder helps
prevent mastitis, a costly disease.

Now Wong is working on biofuel research.

With California phasing out gasoline additive MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether), demand likely will rise for
another oxygen-boosting additive, ethanol.

Wong has developed a more efficient way to produce ethanol made from corn starch.

Meanwhile, Albany researchers are contributing to studies of using other sources, such as rice straw, to make
ethanol. Eventually, factories could convert crops into food, fuel and bio-based products at one site.

"The whole idea is to create this dream concept of a biorefinery," Orts said.

Alec Rosenberg can be reached at (510) 208-6445 or [email protected].

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