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You Gonna Eat That? It Could Become Plastic

Posted by timothy on from the infinite-parkbenches dept.

Kaz Riprock writes "Jian Yu and associates at the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute have been working on a system to convert food waste into plastic polymers. There is a CNN article that gives an overview of the process. More information on the anaerobic acidogenesis and aerobic synthesis at Dr. Yu's page at HNEI. This could be a really good step in the right direction, assuming it provides a cheaper source of plastic than current methods (to be accepted and highly regarded by the plastic industry)."

4 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. Biodegradable plastic from foodstuffs. by Xner · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The first time I heard of biodegradable pastics manufactured from things usually regarded as food was in the late 1980s.
    The Italian company Montedison had developed a compound from corn that they called Mater-Bi, and you could get a watch made out of the stuff with the italian version of the mickey mouse magazine.

    The only practical applications that I have seen so far are things like this bio-degradable bag, for groceries and waste disposal.

    --
    Pathman, Free (as in GPL) 3D Pac Man
  2. Nice, but still missing something..... by RyoSaeba · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sounds nice, but they aren't addressing the main trouble: the overuse of plastic everywhere !!
    Just do a little experiment: during a full week, do your shopping as usual, and pay attention to all plastic stuff you trash immediately after purchase. Figure you really needed how much of all that plastic ?
    I'm pretty sure plastic use could be reduced drastically in certain fields, before even thinking of making it cheaper....

    --
    Tsuyoikoto ha taisetsu da ne, dakedo namida mo hitsuyousa (Strength is an important thing, but tears too are necessary)
  3. Plastic is already made of waste... by Ashurbanipal · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...since it's mostly produced from byproducts of oil refining.

    Unless you're talking about the body-panels on your Trabant, which also include agricultural waste.

    Bravo for pure research!

  4. Re:Here's a novel idea... by Kaz+Riprock · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Many restaurants and caterers do not give away their leftovers because of the liability if someone were to eat something that had been around for the day and gone bad or in any other way gotten ill from the food.

    My brother organized with a local soup kitchen to receive leftovers from a catering business he worked for, and when management found out, they stopped it. Especially with catering, you don't know who or what touched the food once it's put out.

    Good idea...and I think it's still manageable in some situations, but a lot of the food industry shies from doing this for this reason.

    --
    Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon