Abstract
In April, Daniel Carraway, founder of the polyhydroxyalkanoate start-up RWDC Industries, found himself in an unusual forum for someone trying to sell plastic. Carraway was being interviewed by the Iron Man actor Robert Downey Jr. on the FootPrint Coalition’s YouTube channel . The FootPrint Coalition is Downey’s venture capital firm and also an RWDC investor. The FootPrint Coalition’s other investments include a bamboo toilet paper company and an outfit developing mealworm protein. Encouraged by Downey, Carraway pitched his biodegradable biopolymer as the solution to the plastic waste crisis. “We have to clean up the mess we made,” Carraway said. “But we also have to stop making the mess.” The plastic industry has been trying to establish a recycling infrastructure since the 1970s, he noted, but it “just doesn’t work.” Carraway and other proponents are hyping polyhydroxyalkanoates, known collectively as PHA, as the next big thing, but they are hardly new
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