PHA offers a unique "safety net" as a material that is biocompatible, biodegradable, and non-ecotoxic. Unlike conventional plastics, PHA naturally breaks down in various environments, including marine, soil, and composting conditions—without leaving behind toxic residues or persistent microplastics. 

While we do not advocate careless disposal, whether it be tossing waste from a moving car or casting it into the ocean, PHA provides the ultimate fallback in the event of mismanagement. If lost in the environment, it degrades through natural microbial processes, returning to the ecosystem without harm. 

This is a fundamental difference that the petrochemical industry can never claim. Their materials persist indefinitely, polluting waterways, contaminating soil, and endangering wildlife. PHA, on the other hand, represents a genuine step forward in addressing plastic pollution at its source—not just through better disposal methods, but by ensuring that even when mismanaged, it does no lasting harm.

The real issue isn’t that most plastics do in fact go to landfills, where we simply collect it in masses and hope future generations will know what to do with them. The bigger concern is the cumulative and everlasting impact when they are “mismanaged” into the environment. 

If you wish to discard PHA prints in a composting bed in your own garden, ensure that you do not paint or add any coatings to the object. Break them down into the smallest pieces that you can and expect them to last 2 or 3 seasons, depending on the location and health of the composting bed, before they are fully reabsorbed. But no matter what, if you happen to find a piece of PHA in the roots of your freshly grown salad, you’ll know that it has not been shedding toxic microplastics.

PHA Filament also offers lower energy consumption per identical printed object made of PLA or PETG. Their melt temperature is lower, they do not need or use heated beds, and since it is naturally hydrophobic, no drying is required.

All the above equate to energy savings. That is not a real concern for the average printer-head, but if you happen to run a print farm, it is something to consider and monitor.