The broader impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will be (1) the reduction of traditional plastics in landfills and the environment, and (2) increased recycling of paper packaging by replacing plastics coatings in barrier paper food packaging with a biodegradable and natural material called PolyHydroxyAlkanoate (PHA). The PHA molecules are made from waste sources of methane and carbon dioxide produced by wastewater treatment plants, industrial composters, anerobic digestors, and landfills. There is an active need to create domestic PHA production capacity to match rising competition from South Korea, China, Japan, and Brazil. PHA polymers need to be produced cost competitively to traditional plastics, at similar scale and made available to processors and converters widely. The commercial applications for PHA are broad as the material can displace over 50% of all traditional plastics consumed annually. The proposed project will focus on developing the naturally occurring PHA-based coatings for barrier paper packaging used in food packaging. Current food paper packaging is functional and cost-effective, but it contains a thin layer of traditional plastics which prevent the paper packaging from being recycled, composted, or biodegraded. When leaked into the environment, these materials produce toxic microplastics. This project will use biogas-consuming microbes to produce fully biodegradable polymer coatings to replace the traditional plas