Serving up plant-based plastics

ROSEMONT, ILL. — The ownership of Stillwater, Minn., mold maker and manufacturer VistaTek LLC created an independent company to manufacture plates, bowls and other items from plant-based plastics.

Called SelfEco, the company produces various food service items — plates, bowls, cups, cutlery — and other supplies that are compostable in commercial composting facilities. The company will introduce a new line of home and garden products this month at Cultivate'15, a horticulture show in Columbus, Ohio.

SelfEco was created in part to help mitigate highs and lows of mold making business, VistaTek account manager Al Mishek said at Amerimold 2015 in Rosemont. SelfEco products are injection molded in Stillwater in a shared location with VistaTek.

“One of the benefits for us, in our opinion, was to kind of be our own customer,” Danny Mishek, SelfEco president and VistaTek managing director, explained in a follow-up phone interview. “We've always been a contract manufacturer, so it's nice to build parts that we have patent pending, and that we have ownership of.”

SelfEco products are made with polylactic acid supplied by NatureWorks LLC, and PLA blends. VistaTek has experimented with using plant-based materials in the past, but “really started gaining momentum when we had our own personal interest regarding an end product that could be composted or recycled,” Mishek said.

“This was kind of newer to our industry there's not a lot of people right now that we compete with that run PLA or want to run PLA. It is unique, and right now we feel that we have a couple years experience in using this material,” he said.

Sometimes that experience produces some odd side effects. One product for the home and garden line, a plantable pot with plant nutrients blended into the PLA, gives off an odor like maple syrup in processing.

“We definitely know when we're running that material in our shop, because it has a food smell to it, a sweeter maple smell to it,” Danny Mishek said.

SelfEco will present a selection of its products to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. at its U.S. manufacturing summit this month. The company has also received interest from local organizations and other retailers, Mishek said.

“I do really see this as creating a new lifestyle for people who want to buy smarter, looking for an end game in composting,” he said. “Even if they don't compost, people do like that it's renewably sourced — all our material is plant-based — so it prevents drilling for petroleum. They like that it's local, compared to these other products being shipped over from Asia.”

The home and garden line featuring plant food incorporated into the product also reduces fertilizer runoff, he added.

In expanding the product line in the future, Mishek said the company will keep its focus on sustainable materials.

“It is nice and rewarding to produce a product that has an end of life in composting or recycling,” Mishek said. “Our goal would be to continue down that path of making a green product that can either be recycled or can be composted.”