Superfast Biodegradable Plastic

Vish writes "Anyone's who ever seen the grim flotsam of plastic bags which pollute developing countries should take heart from this new bio-degradable plastic from Australia - made from cornstarch and breaks down into the air. At last, some decent technology. Even Linux isn't this cool."

Comments

slightly o/t - edible foodwrap

[larry bagina]

this reminds me of something else currently in development - edible foodwrap (made from fruit) instead of plastic.

usda.gov
freshangles.com

Re:Limited uses, unfortunately

[eugene ts wong]

I wouldn't anticipate starch-based bags replacing traditional plastic ones in the shopping bag market any time soon.

Actually, I could picture that. Shopping bags only need to be strong enough to get home. I suppose that some people will use them as liners for small trash cans [like the ones by a desk], but that could easily be solved by making them stronger.

I speculate that they could be used as ordinary shopping bags if they had a 24 hour disolve time built in. For example, a container of juice breaks open, and they get home in a couple of hours. Or perhaps wet vegetables drip a bit, and they get home in a couple of hours. When I was living on my own, I shopping for grocercies by taking transit. It was quite a long trip, and I never had problems.

As for small trash cans, they should be able to deal with the liquids, assuming that the trash is emptied once a day, or dry enough.

You bring up a good point.

Perhaps in other packaging markets...

I agree, in that the best place to start isn't the shopping bag market. The best place to start would be to use them for disposable cookie trays [or similar products] that are packed in regular plastic. To let people know that these trays are environmentaly friendlier, it would be wise to just say so at the bottom of the tray on both sides.

I can also see them being used for bags that hold instuctions and other things; you get them when you buy electronic items. Ikea would also be able to make good use of them, because they sell dry goods. A while ago, I went and bought a bag of screws from them.

On a slightly unrelated note, I'm willing to bet that they could come up with a version that doesn't break down very quickly, but when it does start to break down, then it goes real quick. For instance, the cell phone face plates are made of plastic. It may be worth while to use two types of biodegradable plastics with them. The first kind on the outer layer of plastic would be long lasting and durable, while the inside would break down quickly. Therefore, to break down the majority of the volume, you would just break the face plate in half, and wet it, or after the outer layer wears out, you would just wet the whole thing. Whatever.