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Cloverdale company on cutting edge of biodegradable plastics industry

CTK Bio products use waste materials that biodegrade in all environments
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Daniel Shum (left) and J.K. Park chat at CTK Bio’s new facility in Cloverdale. Park (CEO) and Shum (COO) moved the company from Port Coquitlam to Cloverdale last year and recently held their official grand opening April 6. (Photo: Malin Jordan)

CTK Bio is trying to change the world.

The high-tech, socially-conscious company is one of the only businesses around making practical and fully biodegradable plastics.

J.K. Park, CEO, and Daniel Shum, COO, recently held a grand opening for their company at its “new” Cloverdale location. CTK Bio moved to Cloverdale from PoCo about a year ago, but because of COVID, a municipal election, and other minor factors, they pushed their grand opening celebration to 2023.

The company recently welcomed Mayor Brenda Locke to their warehouse and office space on April 6 for their official grand opening. CTK is in an 11,000 square-foot facility off 176A Street and 66A Avenue.

“We are very excited to be in this facility,” notes Park.

All of CTK Bio’s products are 100 per cent biodegradable. According to Park, many biodegradable plastics are 80 or 90 per cent biodegradable, but no one is currently making a product like CTK’s that can fully biodegrade in a short period. All of CTK’s products use waste materials that biodegrade and compost in all environments. Park and Shum say their products can replace any type of plastic with a fully biodegradable product.

CTK’s products all biodegrade at different rates, depending on usage. Camping cutlery, for example, can be washed by hand, but if you put it in the dishwasher it will fall apart after a few cycles.

“Our mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable materials using waste byproducts so we can reduce all the plastic pollution,” says Park.

CTK Bio, or CTK Research & Development Canada Ltd., started up in 2018 in a “very small laboratory,” Park says, and their Cloverdale location represents their “next stage.”

“We really love Cloverdale. We’re going to be here until Surrey kicks us out,” Park says with a laugh. “Now it’s time for us to change the world.”

For Park, that change includes setting up a manufacturing plant in Cloverdale at some point. Right now, it costs them about $500,000 a year to ship their resins to Korea. Once there, a facility manufactures their prototypes before sending them back to Canada. They do this because there is no one in North America that can manufacture products from CTK Bio’s unique, biodegradable plastic resins.

“We can’t jump the gun,” cautions Shum about ideas for expansion. “If we don’t have the support or the demand that we need, we’d have to leave.”

Park envisions support that will increase demand. His vision of support would be something like government regulating plastics to be fully biodegradable, even if it was only in one area to start, such as plastic bags, or bottles, or something like that.

Shum thinks anywhere is a good start.

“Even if we see any support, with any type of product, then we’re good to go,” he says.

Park explains that in Korea, the government “tops up” a farmer’s cost for biodegradable mulch film so the farmer pays the same price as what he’d pay for the non-biodegradable version.

Park wants to engage the government here to, in turn, engage farmers in Canada to use 100 per cent biodegradable plastic in farming.

“Some farmers use big long vinyl sheets to help seeds grow,” explains Park. “They take it out, or they dump it with soil, and that plastic goes down and down and down and mixes with the soil.”

CTK already has plastic sheets that are made to have a soil degradability strength that can last as long as a farmer needs it, but after a growing season the plastic sheet will fully biodegrade and it won’t affect the food grown in it.

He says the current method leaks microplastics in the soil and some of them won’t biodegrade for hundreds of years.

In their new Cloverdale facility, CTK has built a brand new R&D facility and Shum says they continue to make significant breakthroughs with their unique R&D procedures. One particularly big breakthrough came over the Christmas holidays in 2022 when CTK managed to synthesize its own PHA, or polyhydroxy acids.

“PHA has been synthesized in the past, there’s other people doing it, but what we managed to do was to synthesize it through various feedstocks with our own methods,” explains Shum.

Those feedstocks included: biosolids, hemp, sugar, and food waste. CTK can then take that PHA and blend it with other polymers to create whatever type of biodegradable plastic product a client wants.

And when Shum and Park talk about biodegradable plastic, they mean plastics that actually biodegrade in a short period. They say there are a lot of plastic products out there whose manufacturers claim they biodegrade, but the pair say the rate could be hundreds of years.

Park says they can make any type of biodegradable plastic that could replace current plastic products. But he notes the obstacle they have right now is that the cost is higher than traditional plastic.

“A lot of companies say they focus on ESG (environmental, social, and corporate governance), but what they really care about is money,” explains Park. “So when we start talking numbers, they often shy away.”

Park says that’s why a lot of companies have started using PLA (polylactic acid), which is a thermoplastic monomer derived from organic sources such as sugar cane, mixed with plastic. He says while PLA is great, the traditional plastic it’s mixed with doesn’t solve the issue of pollution because that plastic won’t biodegrade in a sustainable timeframe.

He adds even PCR plastics (post-consumer recycled) don’t offer the sustainability it advertises. While the plastics are made from recycled products, the new products are not biodegradable, and must be mixed with traditional plastics in the manufacturing process, thus, in essence, creating new plastic waste.

“First of all, the recycle rate is very low,” explains Park of PCR products. “Secondly, they are using 70 per cent of new plastic to mix with 30 per cent of PCR to make new plastic products. That can’t be a solution. Recycling can’t be a solution. Landfill can’t be a solution. So we need to make something that goes back to nature.”

Park says if demand rises, then the cost will come down faster. So right now, CTK is trying to raise awareness about their unique product in an effort to create more demand, which in turn will, eventually, bring the cost down.

“Our product will create a cleaner planet.”

Park adds that no other company has a similar product. There are companies making biodegradable plastics, but they all use PLA.

Shum adds CTK’s manufacturing chain is fully sustainable from A to Z—from material sourcing, to product manufacturing, to fulfillment.

Park notes that while PLA is a step forward in sustainable plastics manufacturing, even if a product was 100 per cent PLA, it is biodegradable, but not compostable by itself. The PLA must be sent to an industrial composting facility, of which there are very few. So PLA items get thrown in a landfill and won’t break down in a short period.

“What differentiates us from the pack is our level of integrity,” explains Shum. “We are all about sustainability and we try to be as transparent as we can in everything we do.”

Shum says in blending, for example, across the globe, certifications only require 90 per cent biodegradability. The other 10 per cent can be PLA, which isn’t the case for CTK.

“You can still have 10 per cent PLA in it and still get a biodegradable certification,” explains Shum. “If that product ends up in a landfill, that 10 per cent won’t break down for many, many, many years.”

To talk to Shum and Park about the research CTK is doing, some of the amazing breakthroughs they’ve made, and what the future holds, is to peer into their hearts. These men are passionate about changing the world immediately and down the track—for today, for their kids, and for all future generations.

They see a day when all plastic that gets tossed into a ditch or waterway or a field or the bush, will biodegrade back into the earth.

“What could be better than a world where there is zero plastic waste?” Park asks rhetorically. “I want that now. I want that for my kids. I want that for their future.”

For more info, visit ctkbio.com.



editor@cloverdalereporter.com

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Malin Jordan

About the Author: Malin Jordan

Malin is the editor of the Cloverdale Reporter.
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