You Gonna Eat That? It Could Become Plastic

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)."

Comments

Biodegradable plastic from foodstuffs.

[Xner]

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.

Nice, but still missing something.....

[RyoSaeba]

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....