Jax entrepreneur develops biodegradable plastics for landscaping industry

Jax entrepreneur develops biodegradable plastics for landscaping industry (Courtesy of Jax INNO) — For nearly four decades, Bob Hawkinson has sculpted suburban landscapes across Jacksonville, transforming overgrown yards into pristine outdoor oases. But as his company, Total Lawn Care, flourished, so did a problem he couldn’t ignore: the mountains of waste his industry left behind.

Determined to address the environmental toll of landscaping, Hawkinson has dedicated the last decade to innovating sustainable practices in an industry often criticized for its ecological footprint.

“We’d do these nice jobs, and then I’d see 1,500 mulch bags in the dumpster. And I’m like, this is ridiculous. There’s got to be a better way,” Hawkinson told the Business Journal. “There’s billions of plastic pots. They go to landfills. They’re blown around trucks. They end up in ponds.”

Hawkinson pulls up photos of a walk around Fleming Island to illustrate his point. Here is a plastic bag wrapped around a pole. Here are plastic food containers gathered together in a ditch. Here is a recyclable Publix plastic grocery bag floating at the surface of a retention pond.

Hawkinson’s solution is biodegradable plastics. The entrepreneur worked with a “brilliant” chemist and has since flown around the country to develop these biodegradable plastic products all while running TLC and the Fresh Mulch companies in Jacksonville.

“I’m just too dumb to give it up. I’m tenacious, and I just try to figure out how to get it done,” Hawkinson said.

After 10 years in research and development, Hawkinson now holds 11 patents on soil and marine biodegradable products. These include biodegradable weed eater trim line, plastic flags, plant pots, pot labels and mulch bags that block weeds as they degrade without poisoning the soil.

The business owner is in conversations with firms to try and get his biodegradable options — Ecoboundaries, Gutter Guppy’s, Guppy Tails, Weed Recede and Color Pockets — to market by the spring of 2025.

According to the United States International Trade Commission, people consume about 92 million plastic grocery bags a year. According to Hawkinson, the landscaping industry consumes about 3 billion mulch bags per year. And one mulch bag is equal, in plastic, to 36 grocery bags.

“If you take 3 billion times 36, that’s 108 billion grocery bags. It’s more plastic than mulch bags than there are in grocery bags. And people have no idea,” Hawkinson said.

The landscaping packaging features “non soil toxicity,” so the compost will not cause harm when consumed after gardening or agricultural applications.

Not only are Hawkinson’s bag soil and marine biodegradable, they help to block weeds rising through mulch beds or gardens before they break down. In 2018, Hawkinson laid rows of Weed Recede bags next to soil without bags. Within weeks, the unblocked mulch was filled with weeds whereas the Weed Recede rows were clear.

What this does is also reduce or eliminate the need for glyphosate herbicides.

Hawkinson’s goal now is to present the efficacy of these compostable alternatives to potential users and begin licensing for use through the nation’s largest landscaping product providers.

The challenge, though, is convincing companies to adopt Hawkinson’s product. One obstacle is that these products can be two or three times as expensive as packaging and products on the shelf at hardware stores.

“Nobody says yes because it would cost more,” Hawkinson said. “They can just keep doing what they’re doing, and there’s no downside. It doesn’t make any sense because if they go with me, I would make them heroes.”

While there has yet to be national interest, Hawkinson does have some interest from area hardware stores.

Another barrier in the market is the presence of oxo-degradable plastics. These are cheaper alternatives that mimic and can be marketed as a packaging alternative, but are neither biodegradable nor compostable.

Oxo-degradable plastics are conventional plastics that fragment into smaller and smaller microplastics, but don’t break down at the molecular level like biodegradable plastics. And the resulting microplastics are left in the environment virtually indefinitely.

“What happens is, season after season, year after year, you build this plastic contamination. Then you’re eating out on your tomatoes, on your onions and everything else. It’s all in there,” Hawkinson said.

Without buy-in from large firms, however, the entrepreneur is focused on bringing awareness to the consumer to build up demand for his biodegradable packaging.

“I almost need to pull it through retail. I think that’s the thing because consumers say, hey, give it to me,” Hawkinson said. “And the impact we could have is just staggering.”