Latest / The Manufacturing Podcast with Fexingo: Factories, Supply Chains, and Industrial Business / How a Spanish Factory Turns Olive Waste into Bioplastics
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a factory in Jaén, southern Spain, that takes the leftover pulp and crushed pits from olive oil production — called olive pomace — and turns it into bioplastic pellets that can replace petroleum-based plastics in things like food packaging and agricultural mulch film. Luna: So we're talking about something that's basically a waste problem in olive-growing regions, and they're making it into a raw material for the plastics industry. Lucas: Exactly. Spain produces about 40 percent of the world's olive oil, and with that comes roughly 400,000 tons of olive pomace every year — and that's just the solid residue after pressing. Historically, a lot of it gets spread on fields as fertilizer, but it's acidic and can actually damage soil over time. Some gets burned for energy, but that's inefficient and produces emissions. Luna: What's the process? How do you go from a wet, oily pulp to a plastic pellet? Lucas: The factory — it's run by a company called BioOlive, started by a chemical engineer named María Pilar Rodríguez — she figured out a way to dry the pomace, then separate out the cellulose and lignin fibers from the remaining oil and water. Those fibers get treated with a natural plasticizer derived from citrus peels, and then the whole mixture gets extruded into small pellets that can be injection-molded or blow-molded just like conventional plastic. Luna: And the final product is fully biodegradable? Lucas: That's the claim, and they've got certification from TÜV Austria that it breaks down in industrial composting conditions within 90 days. But — and this is a big caveat — it requires a composting facility with controlled temperature and humidity. It won't biodegrade in a landfill or in the ocean. So it's compostable, not just degradable. Luna: That's an important distinction. So it's a direct replacement for something like polylactic acid, or PLA, which also needs industrial composting. Lucas: Right. PLA is made from corn starch or sugarcane. This is made from a waste stream that otherwise has low-value uses. That's the value proposition. And the factory currently has capacity to produce about 20,000 tons of bioplastic per year — which is modest compared to the global plastics market, but it's a start. Luna: What about cost? Olive-based bioplastic must be more expensive than conventional plastic. Lucas: It is. Right now, BioOlive's pellets cost about two to three times the price of virgin PET or polypropylene. Roughly $3,000 to $4,500 per ton, versus around $1,200 for conventional plastic. Part of that is scale — they're still a relatively small operation. Part of it is the processing steps: drying the pomace is energy-intensive because it comes out of the press with about 50 percent moisture content. Luna: So they're competing on sustainability premiums, not on price. Who's buying it? Lucas: Mainly European food-packaging companies that want to market their products as compostable. Think of those clear salad boxes or single-use cutlery — made from this material, sold at a premium in organic grocery stores. Also agricultural film: biodegradable mulch that farmers can till into the soil after harvest rather than having to remove and dispose of plastic sheeting. Luna: That agricultural application is interesting. Conventional plastic mulch is a huge source of microplastic pollution in soil. If this really biodegrades in field conditions — does it? Lucas: That's the open question. The certification is for industrial composting, not soil biodegradation. María Pilar told me in an interview that they're working on a second-generation formulation that uses a different plasticizer to trigger degradation in soil. But they're not there yet. For now, the agricultural film still has to be collected and sent to a composting facility. Luna: So it solves one problem — sourcing renewable feedstock instead of fossil fuels — but doesn't solve the end of life problem unless infrastructure catches up. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the tension with a lot of bioplastics. The feedstock story is compelling, especially when it's a waste product like olive pomace. But the economics and the end of life logistics are still being worked out. Luna: You know, speaking of what's compelling and what's still being worked out — it reminds me that we're able to have these conversations in depth because we don't have sponsors or ads on this show. Lucas and I choose every topic based on what's interesting, not what a brand wants us to cover. Lucas: That's true. And we want to keep it that way. If this podcast has helped you think about manufacturing differently — or if you've ever used something you learned here in a work meeting — you can support that choice at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small thing, but it's what keeps us independent. Luna: Yeah, no pressure, just an option. Now — back to olive plastic — I want to talk about the challenge of scaling. What would it take for BioOlive to get costs down? Lucas: They need volume. At 20,000 tons, they're not capturing economies of scale in drying or extrusion. They're also dependent on the olive harvest cycle — the factory operates seasonally, roughly September through January, when the olives are pressed. That means they have to store enough pomace to run the rest of the year, which adds storage and drying costs. Luna: Could they partner with other olive oil regions — Greece, Italy, Tunisia — to get more feedstock and run year-round? Lucas: That's the plan. María Pilar has talked about licensing the technology to mills in those regions. But there's a catch: the cellulose and lignin composition varies by olive variety and terroir, so the process has to be tweaked for each region. And the transport of pomace is expensive because it's heavy and wet. You don't want to ship it far. Luna: So decentralized processing might make more sense — small-scale units at or near each mill. Lucas: Exactly. That's actually what they're piloting next year: a modular unit that fits in a shipping container, capable of processing 500 tons of pomace per season. If that works, they could deploy it to dozens of mills across the Mediterranean. Luna: What about the competition? Are there other companies doing something similar with olive waste? Lucas: There are a few. A startup in Italy called OliveTech makes a similar product but focuses on packaging film. And there's a research group at the University of Seville that's developed a method to make polyurethane foam from olive oil byproducts. But BioOlive is the only one I've seen that's actually producing pellets at tonnage scale. Luna: So first-mover advantage, but also first-mover risk. They're proving the technology, but also educating the market. Lucas: Right. And the market for bioplastics is growing — globally, about 2.2 million tons produced in 2025, projected to hit 3.5 million by 2028. But that's still less than 1 percent of total plastic production. So even if BioOlive captures a big share of that niche, it's a drop in the bucket. Luna: But it's a drop made from olive pits, which is kind of cool. Lucas: It is. And it's a model that could be replicated with other agricultural waste streams: grape pomace from wineries, almond shells, coconut husks. The technology is essentially a cellulose-lignin extraction platform. If the economics work for olives, they could work for a lot of other crops. Luna: What's the one thing you want listeners to remember from this episode? Lucas: That the biggest barrier to bioplastics isn't the science — it's the cost of processing and the lack of composting infrastructure. Olive-based plastic is technically viable right now, but it's still a premium product that requires a system that doesn't fully exist yet. Luna: And maybe the next time you see a compostable salad container, you can wonder if it came from a Spanish olive grove. Lucas: Exactly. It's a small step, but it points toward a manufacturing model where waste from one industry becomes feedstock for another. That's the kind of circular thinking we need more of.