Biodegradability as an Off-Ramp for the Circular Economy: Investigations into Biodegradable Polymers for Home and...

Consumer pressure for globe-conscious products is pushing brand-owners big and small to provide transparency on the origin and fate of their ingredients. One such market where sustainable product growth has outpaced market growth is in home and personal care. Products in this space clean or care for our bodies, our homes, our environments, and the materials we encounter every day. Many of these materials are used and then washed down the drain, making the fate of these products a tangible end point for the consumer. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a well-established methodology for determining potential environmental impacts of products and can be used to quantify the overall carbon footprint of the raw materials, the process to manufacture, and the transportation of the product around the globe. LCAs are calibrated to one metric, often kilograms of carbon dioxide (CO₂) equivalents, to capture the overall carbon footprint. One aspect notably absent from many LCAs is the end of life for the product. Interestingly, consumers are driving a push for biodegradable materials that would not persist in the environment, but as materials biodegrade, they release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This release of CO₂ places the benefits of biodegradation on the ultimate fate of raw materials in contradiction with carbon reduction methods such as carbon capture and carbon recycling that improve the LCA of a given product. In this Account, we describe the impact of biodegradation on the circular economy and discuss the development of natural, modified natural, and synthetic polymers to provide biodegradable alternatives to less degradable materials in the home and personal care markets. Building a chemical toolbox which can meet the functional and economical requirements of products on the market today while improving their sustainability profile is a huge challenge, which will not have a single answer. Among many current internal research initiatives, one vignette will be highlighted to showcase the research on a synthetic polymer with improved biodegradability for the dish care market. This novel polyelectrolyte, a copolymer of itaconic acid, acrylic acid, and vinyl acetate, was designed to break down into digestible daughter products in a wastewater treatment plant while demonstrating stability both on the shelf and in the dishwasher.