npr:

If civilizations are remembered for what they leave behind, our time might be labeled the Plastic Age. Plastic can endure for centuries. It’s everywhere, even in our clothes, from polyester leisure suits to fleece jackets.

A Silicon Valley startup is trying to get the plastic out of clothing and put something else in: biopolymers.

A polymer is a long-chain molecule made of lots of identical units. Polymers are durable and often elastic. Plastic is a polymer made from petroleum products. But biopolymers occur often in nature — cellulose in wood or silk from silkworms — and unlike plastic, they can be broken down into natural materials.

Molly Morse manufactures biopolymers that she hopes will replace some kinds of plastic. She runs a small company called Mango Materials. Mango is her favorite fruit, and she wanted her company to sound different from other tech enterprises in the San Francisco Bay Area. “We’re not your typical Silicon Valley startup company,” Morse says. “We’re manufacturing polymers at a waste-water treatment plant. We’re not a bunch of guys in a garage coding.”

How did she end up making bioplastic at a sewage treatment plant?

Read the full story here