Source Bioplastic

What do you notice when you walk down the street? Maybe people or dogs out for a walk, the blue sky, the rumbling noise of the city, or the architecture or buildings? Until 2018, that’s what I noticed too. 

Instead of the beautiful, natural world around me, I saw polluted roadways, sewage, and waste everywhere.  Often it was woven into the fabric of the natural landscape, with seagulls consuming bottle caps as quickly as they consumed tourists’ french fries.

For two years, I spent hundreds of hours cleaning up plastics. I'm still unsure which was more heartbreaking: the state of our earth or the fact that I couldn't make a dent. Even good policies without oversight mean nothing. 

After learning everything I could about population trends, product life cycles, and recycling, I decided to start at the source.  From my research, Good Ground Innovation was developed and Source Bioplastic was born. 

Based upon fifty-two peer-reviewed studies, almost everyone on Earth is consuming a credit card’s weight in plastic every week, through our air, food, and water via microplastics

It's no secret that the oceans and wildlife are ill and dying. Only 9% of recyclable waste is being recycled. The other 91% still ends up in landfills or waterways. Our recycling measures are failing. This is not sustainable.

Meanwhile, the U.S. plastics manufacturing market is poised to grow upwards of $715 billion by 2027 ($1.75 trillion worldwide). According to a report by Markets and Markets, the biodegradable plastics market is projected to grow from $3.02 billion in 2018 to $13 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 15.1%.

Upon further study of the vertical farm and manufacturing sectors, it is clear that "the industrial sector has an enormous carbon footprint. With economic and societal pressure for change on the rise, advancing sustainability is not only a goal but a key need for manufacturing” (Fictiv 2021 Annual State of Manufacturing Report).

Along with the manufacturing sector’s readiness, the pandemic has led to a consciousness shift in the marketplace. We must keep this momentum going, but momentum focused on temporary solutions is energy poorly spent. 

To change plastic pollution we must change it at the source of the issue. We need better raw materials for the manufacturing industry. Source Bioplastic has the potential to do so. It's unlikely we will be able to stop microplastics pollution, but we can change the ingredients in it.

We have developed a durable bioplastic, that when submerged in water for six months begins breakdown, with ingredients sourced from plants capable of high yields in little time, climate-resilient, drought-resistant, need less lumen absorption, and nutrient-rich soil. These plants are not tied to deep regulatory constraints like hemp and cannabis are.

Source Bioplastic would like to explore the possibility of vertically farming these plants to reduce any possible negative impact on the environment. Source believes these plants are not only capable of creating plastics but nutritional supplements, building materials, biofuel, and pharmaceuticals. This is the way forward for plastics, vertical farming, and the planet.

In time, the objective is to empower communities lacking opportunity and resources by providing sustainable ways of creating solid employment, solid enterprise while simultaneously reducing our dependence on toxic plastics, lowering carbon emissions, and broadening agriculture in lands that were once thought unlikely for agricultural abundance.

Forty percent of all corn production, in the United States, is farmed for ethanol. In the next ten years, American corn and soybean farmers are going to be facing significant declines in demand for their crops. As transportation moves dominantly towards electricity the need for ethanol production will decline. There will be programs phased in through the USDA and "Green New Deal" that utilize carbon credits, where farmers will be paid to structure their farming practices in a way that reduces their carbon emissions, but without income, the technology and expertise needed to get to that level will never occur. 

Carbon credits are useless if farmers do not have evolving farms to attach those credits to. No crops, no farms. Of course, corn is a fantastic protein for making bioplastic, but it's extremely sensitive to climate change, needs ample water, besides "farm policy has been geared to promoting “efficiency, specialization, and industrialization,”: fewer and fewer farms churning out ever-larger amounts of a narrow set of crops—mainly corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton."  This results in "leaving the soil vulnerable to washing away under pressure from ever-fiercer storms like the ones that pounded the Midwest in the spring of 2019. As a result,  “Iowa is likely losing topsoil on average at a rate that is 16 times higher than the natural replacement rate."  

There are calls "for phasing out the current system and replacing it with something called the Whole-Farm Net Revenue Insurance program. Rather than rewarding farmers based on how much they produce, why not pay them for “ecological services”? Efforts like “building soil health, conserving water, sequestering carbon, and protecting soil microorganisms, pollinators, and other wildlife, including natural enemies of agricultural pests.” Currently, neither commodity markets nor current farm programs adequately compensate farmers for these activities, so they too often go undone." 

What if we could do all of these things and also create major profits?

The plant's Source plans to grow are climate-resilient and drought resistant. A phase-in, phase-out crop interchange, over time, could keep arable land occupied and equipment in motion. These plants are also capable of creating biofuel, but as the need for biofuel declines, material for plastic would already be in motion, the farms would not need to make a fundamentally dramatic transition, and farmers would already be versed in best practices, before a fallout. 

In locations like Latin America,  indigenous and forest-dependent communities are struggling to keep their livelihoods atop land worth billions of dollars in fossil fuels. It is essential to create an adaptive industry that has the potential to be highly profitable, creates endless resources for local communities, and is strategically in line with reducing carbon emissions, maintaining resilient ecosystems, and capable of using farming skills already culturally inherent within these populations.

It's hard to win the argument for oil extraction if another industry can be a 21st century economic and pro-environmental powerhouse, whose products can be sold through e-commerce and cryptocurrency, and shipped all over the world with Amazon and Alibaba's global positioning. An industry that protects the natural ecosystem, draws on and honors ancient skillsets, and empowers communities, against an industry that displaces people, disrupts their ancient cultures, hurts wildlife, and brings ecological destruction is challenging to ignore.

Of course, Latin America isn't the only place that would greatly benefit from these same industry practices and promises. Africa's consumer buying power will almost double in the next three years due to new cell phone ownership. 300 million new internet users, just short of the size of America's entire population. Companies are in a race to sell to these new consumers but haven't really considered how much new plastic waste will be entering the environment. What if we could balance it?

It's also important to note that like many parts of Latin America, Africa has one of the highest per capita unemployment rates in the world, much of which consists of energetic young people. Africa is making big improvements in education, but with little opportunity to use it, on top of much older skilled craftsmen having little opportunity to use their skills, apprenticeship training is rare. Add in frequent political unrest, and it becomes an endless economic downturn, which creates high crime rates and community distress.

"The pandemic has forced manufacturers to rethink their global supply chains and their resilience dramatically. For many years, China had been the virtually undisputed go-to destination for high-quality manufacturing at a low cost. And yet, 62% are pursuing a re-shoring strategy for their manufacturing operations for 2021 and beyond, especially in the medical device and robotics industries." Excerpt from Fictiv's 2021 Annual State of Manufacturing Report

Location-wise, at "home", this project would phase in well with farms predominantly growing crops for ethanol, and also along the Mexican/American border. The wall already exists, so instead of the need to build the infrastructure necessary to sustain vertical farming, the engineering design can be focused on unit adaptation to the preexisting wall. The climate is right, the Rio Grande river outlets can be utilized, solar infrastructure installed, and a pathway to citizenship through governmental partnership can be established. Money made and saved by new workers will create pro-economic pathways into America, skills could be strengthened, and ESL taught while waiting on citizenship.

This would also allow Source Bioplastic to begin working on an independent vertical design while simultaneously growing plants. Source could use the first phase, measuring growth rates, nitrogen levels, lumen rates, water consumption, and best-practice processing methods, taking what we learn while not having to redesign and rebuild.

We should start at home, though, on a small scale where everything can be tested and all failures can happen, where equipment can be procured without fear of customs entanglements. At home, where a small start-up's research, development, & patents are better protected and innovation has its opportunity to thrive without the chance of political unrest or shutdowns, allowing time for relationships with the financial sector to develop.

Then, the business model can be taught through governmental partnerships and consultancy fees to any community based on sound science, processes, and proven success rates.

Philpott, Tom. “The Latest Green New Deal for Farmers Would Restructure Everything about How They Make Money.” Mother Jones, 17 Jan. 2020, www.motherjones.com/food/2020/01/green-new-deal-for-farmers-subsidies-carbon-farming-cover-crops-soil-erosion/. 

Imagine a world where suburban farms produce food to sustain our largest most populated cities, but also grow plastics and building materials from the same nutritional sources. Source Bioplastic plans to design a new vertical farm infrastructure that can be added to current farms or act as a stand-alone, which could be constructed in urban settings.

Communities only capable of farming for food, and those who cannot farm at all due to lack of viable land, will gain an environmentally sound, profitable industry. The planet will benefit significantly as we move towards independence from harmful plastics formulated from fossil fuels.

Source Bioplastic has already been developed and tested in-house, but we are at a standstill. We do not have the equipment to test further. Visual and haptic findings are incredibly promising: there is no doubt that our formulas are different and do exactly what is claimed. Because of this, GGI met with Intertek labs (based in the U.K.), and with laboratories worldwide.

Source did try university labs, but with COVID testing overwhelming them, it wasn't possible. Intertek and I have worked through mutual NDA legalities, and we plan to test three separate strains, two of which show true potential as HDPE replacement and one as a probable packaging material. We are lacking true molecular weights, Lewis structure, precise (0.0000) chemical composition, and bulk density that must be verified by a third-party laboratory so the product can be replicated consistently without error. The testing carries a $10K price tag.

Source Bioplastic is not made from the same ingredients as other competitors. We meticulously chose our plant sources, based on criteria specifications that could be grown via a vertical farm on Mars. Why Mars? If we could formulate a plastic grown from plants capable of thriving on Mars (due to their drought and climate resiliency, along with their flexibility in terms of lumen saturation and soil necessities), Source Bioplastic could be made almost anywhere in the world. This not only disrupts the vertical farming industry and the plastics industry but has major potential to end poverty in many places in the world. 

Identifying plants that could create bioplastic and ensuring that bioplastic could exceed the current competition has been our main focus. This focus was very well spent! Our next focus is on refining the plastic, developing growth cycles in a vertical setting, and the ability to turn this same plastic into 3D print filament for manufacturing. Being able to develop construction materials, nutritional supplements, and medicine from plants capable of abundant yields is an amazing achievement.

Considering the extensive time it takes to travel between Earth and Mars, as well as the cramped cargo space onboard ships, we need to consider how to utilize that space best, how to make and reuse our resources there (instead of transporting them), and the issues associated with the waste we will create. Bioplastic can answer many of these concerns, but only the right bioplastic made from the right plants.

The worldwide biodegradable plastic market is on target to develop from $4.6 billion in 2019 to $13 billion by 2027, however; the virgin plastics market, which now employs over 1 million people in the U.S., and is expected to grow to $1.7 trillion, globally. “By the year 2050, plastic production is expected to have tripled and will account for a fifth of the planet's oil consumption”, an issue that can be settled with the decline in reliance on petroleum assets and headway in R&D, which Source is creating. 

85% of U.S.-based manufacturers are preparing to re-shore their sourcing and operations, 93% of top-level manufacturing executive management roles have turned their attention to environmentally responsible solutions, there's a gigantic income and environmental opportunity for bioplastic organizations, financial backers, farmers, manufacturers, and our planet in this space. The business, with a solid capital base and great framework is projected to embrace a forward integration methodology to lead its own value chain.

This solution, thus far, directly serves four people through employment contracts. It indirectly serves many more simply by needing subscriptions and services from others to continue to operate and grow the solution. For every person hired in the short term, a second hire has been created. Five in total over five months. Eventually, short-term contracts will turn into part-time, steady employment. This solution, already, could employ twenty people. The potential for growth isn’t an issue, it’s the founder's income that holds progress back, and will until we overcome some of the basic hurdles that align us to marketing a tangible product that can be advertised for crowdfunding or licensing.   

Our first patent-pending product, Merch-Pro!, will have been real-world tested in the markets, proving its value as a competitive retail tool. This tool was designed with the retail associate and environment in mind. Its multitool function is designed to speed the efficiency and reduce injuries for over 10 million U.S. retail workers, which is the #1 reason approximately 255,000 people miss 80 hours of work, on average, per year. Merch-Pro! is made of bioplastic and recycled metal. 

Merch-Pro! will impact retail workers directly while indirectly impacting human resource departments, management, and all those whose businesses depend on new product innovation and sales. This tool could also be used by anyone who has challenges with reaching items, including those who live much of their lives in wheelchairs and scooters.

One of the UN's Sustainable Development targets for 2020 was to "achieve the environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes … and significantly reduce their release to air, water, and soil." But now, in 2021, it’s raining plastic on mountaintops nowhere near civilization. Microplastics are in our food chain, air, and water. In countries that can afford recycling equipment, we are still only hitting the 9% mark, often due to poor consumer recycling practices. A city can have the most expensive recycling facility and still be sending over half of its waste to landfills or burning it.

The responsibility has to be put into the hands of manufacturers. There is an argument about pure bioplastic clogging recycling machinery, but our bioplastic could be processed through heavy microbe baths and composting. Bioplastic is a natural microbe magnet.  "But how will we sort them from regular plastics?" Bioplastic generally has a higher bulk density. It can be separated by weight sensors, and any regular plastics in the baths can be sifted out. 

Bioplastic has the potential to save corn and soybean farmers, disrupt vertical farming, lower carbon emissions, eventually replace the ingredients in microplastics, create a for-profit industry in communities that can grow, and reverse poverty around the world. Source will measure its impact by the amount of plastic we replace and who purchases our products. The U.N. has a second target for 2030, which involves the national recycling rate, and we will be using this as an indicator, too.

Besides myself as the founder, inventor, and CEO, we have fellow American Quin Prichard as our expert 3D modeler. Our UI/UX designer and Full Stack developer, Surajit Halder, works with us from India, while our mechanical engineer and product developer, Syed Shah, joins us in Pakistan.

During the "DeflateGate" scandal surrounding Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, I was hanging out in MENSA circles online. During one session, two veteran chemists were discussing how Tom Brady could never cheat and the ball somehow became deflated from another source. They had created a theory that they were sharing: "It's because the psi of the—the volume increased because—the temperature and pressure of the..." Classic, I'll never forget it. What both veteran chemists failed to realize is that their theory was wrong. In facilities management (an area I know well, but neither of them knew), HVAC systems are set to the same temperature for energy conservation purposes, team locker rooms included.

This conversation taught me three crucial lessons. First, brilliant people will make almost anything "true" when they have bias.  Second, when people are viewed as well-educated in their field, others will assume their theories are true. Third, it takes a wide variety of skills from unseen support staff to answer questions. Prior to the scientific method, whoever could speak more eloquently than the rest would win the argument, and thus policies were made. Humanity spent a thousand years denying the existence of the atom: some quietly believed in its existence, but the status quo remained in power.  

The point of these stories is that sometimes it takes a person with unorthodox experience and an untrained eye to try unheard-of solutions to big problems. That is exactly our position, and it’s the reason we believe in our goal.

This topic is deeply personal to me, the Founder. One thing experience has taught me is that no two people are made alike. Assumptions can lead to deep divisions. Because of this knowledge, and the various experiences I have had in employment, I want to guarantee that GGI is absolutely in line with HRC's Equality Index. I reached out to HRC for guidance on how to structure my human resource policies and procedures before I even considered writing my own. Our goal is to someday grace the Index's pages and sit side-by-side with the giants who attain 100% scores, year after year.

It's imperative that we give great accommodation to the Americans With Disabilities Act and that we hire veterans. This company believes that once a person pays their debt to society for mistakes of their past, it is the end of it. I myself am educated beyond a reasonable extent in terms of being awakened and respectful of various religious practices and calendars. Co-existence is key.

Diversity and inclusion are not only a necessity in terms of fundamental human rights and respect but the driving force behind all great teams and world-changing innovations. Perspective is everything, and a myriad of different perspectives will solve problems faster and more thoroughly in any organization.

I'm applying to MIT SOLVE to give this beautiful dream a tangible existence. Source needs an experienced and vetted academic and business advisory board, mentoring, an aligned team, field expertise, know-how (as well as know-how-not), and a strong network and support system. We need partnerships with those who understand social entrepreneurs who have large-scale visions and solid answers, but few resources and no coaching.

We need hungry entrepreneurs who care deeply for a beautifully abundant planet and its people but are humble enough to realize much has already been done. Why waste time and resources we don't have over ignorance, especially when these solutions could save and empower so many lives? MIT and its partners can help provide those connections. Without organizations like MIT, Source will remain just a dream.

This company is fledgling, but its impact could legitimately change the world. What is on the table is too important to lose, simply for lack of a strong network, or expertise in marketing, or legalities that revolve around c-corps, etc. This solution deserves an amazing academic and business advisory board.

Source would like to partner and work with the USDA, the NSF, MIT's OpenAg initiative, NFF, California Lawyers for the Arts, the ACLU, the Human Rights Campaign, as well as local, state, and federal governments. We'd like to partner with a company that's filtering water and creating cell phone power from mobile solar stations, along with AgEagle or DraganFly (drone delivery companies that only need 1,300 feet of take-off and landing space). They began their companies as social entrepreneurs, and we’d like to continue encouraging them by partnering with Source's vision. Their cargo capacities would work well for bioplastic pellets, and their vision of creating opportunities by reaching out to communities with few resources matches our company’s vision as well.

Source would be honored to partner with California Lawyers for the Arts. They provide low-cost, and pro bono services to underfunded and underrepresented communities. They have a presence all throughout California, and most importantly, on the ground at the border. They understand first-hand what is needed most by the people crossing and how to serve them in the most humanitarian ways that will promote opportunities, positive integration, and health. If Source was able to build at the border, it is they and the ACLU we’d be most interested in working with.

In my life, I have been denied opportunities in employment, education, housing, healthcare, legal, and various other rights because I am transgendered. It isn't just about being given an opportunity, but about knowing how to optimize that opportunity, and understanding this as an employer is invaluable. It takes a level of respect and dignity, without waiver, to create lasting, trusting bonds that lead to success.  

Many refugees have skill sets—inclusive of real-world knowledge and life experience—from their homeland that would cost an American company thousands of research hours and dollars to attain on its own. They possess a skill and experience set that is highly valued to a project of this nature and scale, but most will need time to adjust mentally, emotionally, and physically to a new environment that they never wanted to be in. This means we need a human approach first and a business approach second. 

To expect anyone that has been uprooted from their homes and often from their families to not feel alienated or traumatized is unreasonable. To believe they automatically will feel this way is also unreasonable. No two are the same. If we are eventually capable of hiring refugees we'd like to partner with the California Lawyers for the Arts, the ACLU, and San Francisco local asylum initiatives.  

Source knows the best investment will be its resilient people. We believe in healing the whole person, not only for refugees or those who have suffered systemic oppression but for all. Our company culture will champion the whole human, by providing robust yet culturally sensitive dietary programs, health programs for physical, mental, and spiritual needs, a quality-over-quantity work balance, and opportunities to both learn and teach. 

Source’s culture will never be based on a moving goal post or hanging carrot dynamic. Opportunities to learn, as well as to be promoted, will be based on merit, not position or tenure. We’re also going to have a “bring your pets to work whenever” policy. It’s small but makes a big impact on overall health. It will take a skilled HR department with knowledge and expertise to work as culture champions who can listen and learn. We all have two ears and one mouth for a reason. 

We believe that common ground, which can be found with persistence, an inclusive supportive community (not just lip service), and shared vision can be a strong catalyst for passion, inspired action, and great healing, no matter who you are or where you come from. We need authentic, passionate people who will help deliver our universal mission. Whether they stay with us or move on to other opportunities will be completely up to them, but we plan to make the environment worth returning to if they would like to do so. Human healing is complex, but creating a space that intentionally says “you're respected and understood” and meaning it does not have to be.

In my life, I have been denied opportunities in employment, education, housing, healthcare, legal, and various other rights because I am transgendered. It isn't just about being given an opportunity, but about knowing how to optimize that opportunity, and understanding this as an employer is invaluable. It takes a level of respect and dignity, without waiver, to create lasting, trusting bonds that lead to success.  

Many refugees have skill sets—inclusive of real-world knowledge and life experience—from their homeland that would cost an American company thousands of research hours and dollars to attain on its own. They possess a skill and experience set that is highly valued to a project of this nature and scale, but most will need time to adjust mentally, emotionally, and physically to a new environment that they never wanted to be in. This means we need a human approach first and a business approach second. 

To expect anyone that has been uprooted from their homes and often from their families to not feel alienated or traumatized is unreasonable. To believe they automatically will feel this way is also unreasonable. No two are the same. If we are eventually capable of hiring refugees we'd like to partner with the California Lawyers for the Arts, the ACLU, and San Francisco local asylum initiatives.  

Source knows the best investment will be its resilient people. We believe in healing the whole person, not only for refugees or those who have suffered systemic oppression but for all. Our company culture will champion the whole human, by providing robust yet culturally sensitive dietary programs, health programs for physical, mental, and spiritual needs, a quality-over-quantity work balance, and opportunities to both learn and teach. 

Source’s culture will never be based on a moving goal post or hanging carrot dynamic. Opportunities to learn, as well as to be promoted, will be based on merit, not position or tenure. We’re also going to have a “bring your pets to work whenever” policy. It’s small but makes big impact on overall health. It will take a skilled HR department with knowledge and expertise to work as culture champions who can listen and learn. We all have two ears and one mouth for a reason. 

We believe that common ground, which can be found with persistence, an inclusive supportive community (not just lip service), and shared vision can be a strong catalyst for passion, inspired action, and great healing, no matter who you are or where you come from. We need authentic, passionate people who will help deliver our universal mission. Whether they stay with us or move on to other opportunities will be completely up to them, but we plan to make the environment worth returning to if they would like to do so. Human healing is complex, but creating a space that intentionally says “you're respected and understood” and meaning it does not have to be.

Though Source Bioplastic does not directly deal with forced labor, illegal fishing, or fisheries monitoring, it aims to change the ingredients in microplastics that pollute our oceans, devastate our barrier reefs, and contaminate sea life.

In 2019, 73% of deep-sea fish had ingested plastics. This shocking number has since increased and will continue to rise unless we change course. Plastics are petrochemicals themselves, and the chemicals used to manufacture plastics are ingested and absorbed by marine life, traveling from the digestive tract to the circulatory system and surrounding tissues. One fish, two fish, plastic fish, bluefish.

The plastic content in the ocean is so dense that it is literally raining microplastic, and not just in urban settings. Though we may not be able to change microplastics in our environment, we can change to non-toxic, biodegradable ingredients, which is what Source Bioplastic intends to do.

Our bioplastic withstands full submersion in water that is kept at fifty degrees F., in complete darkness. It retains resiliency after six months but also shows signs of some breakdown. This is without industrialized compression of the plastic. At much colder temperatures with compression, it may take a year or more for breakdown, but it will break down, and if ingested it will not poison its host.

Chow, Lorraine. “73% Of Deep-Sea Fish Have Ingested Plastic.” EcoWatch, EcoWatch, 18 Dec. 2019, www.ecowatch.com/plastics-deep-sea-fish-2536726086.html 

Crider, Johnna. “It's Literally Raining Plastic.” CleanTechnica, 16 Apr. 2021, cleantechnica.com/2021/04/16/its-literally-raining-plastic/

To change plastic pollution we must change it at the source of the issue. We need better raw materials for the manufacturing industry. Source Bioplastic has the potential to do so. It's unlikely we will be able to stop microplastics pollution, but we can change the ingredients in it.

We have developed a durable bioplastic with ingredients sourced from plants capable of high yields in little time, climate-resilient, drought-resistant, need less lumen absorption, and nutrient-rich soil. These plants are not tied to deep regulatory constraints like hemp and cannabis are.

Source Bioplastic would like to explore the possibility of vertically farming these plants to reduce any possible negative impact on the environment, unlike vertical vegetable farms that rely heavily on high levels of LED usage. Bioplastic production can lower carbon emissions by 30% to 70% as opposed to conventional plastics. Source believes these plants are not only capable of creating plastics but nutritional supplements, building materials, biofuel, and pharmaceuticals. This is the way forward for plastics, vertical farming, and the planet.

In time, the objective is to empower communities lacking opportunity and resources by providing sustainable ways of creating solid employment, solid enterprise while simultaneously reducing our dependence on toxic plastics, lowering carbon emissions, and broadening agriculture in lands that were once thought unlikely for agricultural abundance.