OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) – It’s estimated that greater than 500 million single-use plastic straws are used and thrown away on daily basis simply in america alone.
With companies, cities, states, and even some international locations banning conventional straws, the race is on to search out an environmentally-friendly various.
An unlikely contender from proper right here in Oklahoma may very well be the reply to the world’s plastic straw downside.
“It’s a plant-based various to conventional petroleum,” stated Sharina Perry.
The CEO of Utopia Plastix is speaking a few patented recipe for a biodegradable, re-usable, compostable, and 100% recyclable plastic substitute.
“We actually wished to be an answer,” stated Perry.
Perry was a cable and web government when, in her free time, she was pursuing her pastime of plant-based medicines.
She was attempting to provide you with one thing to assist her nephew together with his Neurofibromatosis. That’s when she says she stumbled upon a resin however its use didn’t daybreak on her till she was utilizing a paper straw at Starbuck’s at some point. She says it began to interrupt down.
“I then begin watching the particles floating in my drink. I used to be a little bit grossed out,” stated Perry.
So she went residence and made a straw out of her plant-based resin.
“It hardened in chilly liquid and it didn’t break down. I knew I actually had one thing,” stated Perry.
That was the beginning of Utopia Plastix. Perry makes use of a secret mixture of plant fibers to make plastic straws, baggage; it might probably mainly be formed into something.
The vegetation used are cowl crops that replenish vitamins within the soil and take up carbon between conventional wheat and soy plantings.
The resin can take any coloring, similar to common plastics.
“We attempt to guarantee that it mimics the fabric that you’re used to so far as performance within the manufacturing course of,” stated Perry.
Talking of, what do the parents that truly produce the merchandise assume?
“We’ve put it into numerous thicknesses, blow up ratios and it is carried out very properly,” stated Kevin McGehee.
He makes plastic baggage for issues like bread, potatoes, and ice on the Polyfilms manufacturing unit in east Oklahoma Metropolis.
McGehee is aware of his shoppers can pay extra for the sustainability issue of Utopia Plastix however he says the similarities to common plastic when placing into his machines is the most important plus.
“Each time you’ve got a product that is available in and you’ll put it in your gear and you aren’t having to regulate all of the bells and nobs and levers and attempt to make it work. It simply drops in and it really works. It’s a sport changer,” stated McGehee.
Perry within the means of shifting her manufacturing services to her places of work in Oklahoma Metropolis then advertising her resin worldwide.
She is aware of she is a rarity being a minority feminine in a historically male-dominated area.
“I’m the one African American feminine on this house of polymers on the planet,” she stated.
Sharina tells us she would be the topic of a function on the CNBC present ”Developments with Ted Danson” subsequent month.
