Did you hear the latest on the ‘Clean’ Green Economy in Maine?  It’s pretty exciting! Here’s the gist: the Brookings Institution, a non-partisan research institute, found Maine created more clean jobs than the national rate. (4% compared to the nation’s 3.4%). Exactly how many since 2003? Oh, just 12,000. That’s ENORMOUS and encouraging. In my job, we are creating the next phase of green jobs in Maine. There is potential to grow green jobs in rural Maine through the production of nontoxic, petroleum-free, compostable plastic made from Maine potatoes and wood chips. We are partnering with agriculture, education and business to create the bioplastics sector and we organized a trade association called the Sustainable Bioplastics Council of Maine to help us do that.  Economic research at the University of Maine identified the market potential for bioplastics as significant and can create as many as 850 jobs. Said another way, the current percentage of bioplastics in the whole plastics industry is about 1%. The expectation however is for this percentage to grow to as much as 10% by 2020. The potential for job creation is real and we will continue to be part of it!

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