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Corn-Based Plastic
SolemnDragon writes "CNN.com is offering up an article about the new corn-based plastic-like product being used at Wild Oats Natural Markets. The product looks like plastic, works like plastic... and then turns into compost. Dubbed the 'corn-tainer,' it's being used to serve foods, etc. Available only in the Pacific Northwest stores (of course) or you can make your own at home. And here's more info on Bio-plastic from MSU." Our older story.
but it was corny, so nevermind
Banaaaana!
I'm a bit wary of the perceived uses for this "corn plastic". I wonder if this is just propaganda by the corn lobby to encourage or keep subsidies on corn.
Remember ethanol? It was just an excuse to keep subsidies.
will it be usefull for storing things for long periods of time, say you wish to store something in a bag (non-food) and leave it for years (lets say like pictures) will the bag decay on you? Will I need to use classic plastic to store non-food stuff?
What a corny subject.
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So the container for my food will start to decompose before the preservative-laden contents? Great!
cr0n?
I thought that pens with the barrels made of a corn-based plastic have already been on the market for a few years... I remember seeing them in a few stores...
I wish we were as forward looking on legal products from hemp, which I would also consider a good thing.
(Not a troll promoting or encouraging illegal drug use.)
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
That's a very good idea. As it is, plastic takes hundreds of years to degrade in nature. This will help a lot. Next on the list is glass, which currently takes around 1 million.
Is this our first step towards a Mr. Fusion in every house/car?
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
Just do what these guys are doing and recycle all the carbon and metal and such to make new oil and metals etc.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Finally! I'm rich! I have never owned a computer, tech stocks, etc... but I have been farming corn for the past 50 years! Finally!
Getting too much pr0n?
Nah, that was all the devious work of the egg council, as a disinformation ploy.
You think that I'm crazy, you should see this guy!
That's a-maize-ing!
That's one way to compile your kernel.
Hey, guess what I managed to cobb-le together.
Make plastic or make tequila...tough choice.
Lastly, I am Cornholio...do you have TP for my bunghole?
Bio degradable better for the environment blah blah blah.
Nobody's going to use it except in a few niche markets unless it's cheaper to mass-produce than good ol' synthetic plastic. That will take a long time to achieve.
Actually, even if it did replace plastic, I'm not sure it would be better for the environment. Now you need to mass-mass produce corn. Agricultural run-off can be pretty destructive, too, not to mention the effects of irrigation on natural waterways. TANSTAAFL.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
.
They coat it with sugar, stamp it into interesting shapes, and call it "breakfast cereal".
This seems like a dream come true in the short run. Does anyone see any possibly drastic downsides to this (within its designated temporary storing period)? Does this stuff dissolve when it gets wet or anything? Seems like that 40-50 price excess that exists now would go away with greater production considering the 50 cent per pound price difference in raw materials for manufacturing it.
He who controls the past, commands the future... He who controls the future conquers the past.
...will this stuff be edible?
The plates and embal to the food served, under the 1994 olympcs in Lillehammer, was made of potatos.
Where have this gone?
Why dont the use this at McDonnalds (a biker gang for Carl Barks fans?)
If Ronald dont care about the enviroment he must clearly see the practical
an economic advantage of this product.
"we're all out of (freedom/french/*um like whatevah*)fries, but we have some lovely fried cups"
@ who acctually shuld had posted this anonymsly, and no heading for the bed
imagine... storage you can eat! Mm......... i can see a future for it in the soccer moms category... bring snacks to practice, have the kids eat the bags. No cleanup necessary!
Do you ever find yourself humming the MacGuyver theme song? Then you my friend, are a true nerd.
tastes like.... corn!
your sandwich, tastes just like corn
your pasta, tastes just like corn
your chicken, tastes just like corn!
Condoms made of this stuff would be fun. Think of Beavis' alter ego.
---
When you come to a fork in the road, take it! --Yogi Berra--
It can't replace real plastic in long-term projects because it eventually disintegrates. But I can imagine it'll be great for disposable plastic items. Imagine something that can replace styrofoam cups, but that doesn't take centuries to degrade.
Overall, sounds like a very interesting project for using renewable resources for temporary items, if they can produce it in large quantities. And when you're done, toss it out and let it disintegrate OR send it back to be recycled.
It won't replace long-duration plastic items, but it'll sure cut down on styrofoam waste.
If we could use corn plastic in computers, could we use kernels for Linux?
Cargill and Dow have had a comercial Corn based platic for years. It enviromentally safe, degrades when when Heat, Mosture, and Darkness are applied. However, because of the way our Ag system works, petro based platic is still cheaper.
they have been making some golf tees out of this for a couple of years. I thought it was plastic until last summer. It looks just like regular plastic.
LEPP
We have natural resources like corn, tapioca (which can also be used to make plastic bags), and even banana fibre, which can't be pulped down but can be made into superstrong paper and card, yet we create still plastics which don't biodegrade and cause harm to the environment....
I'm afraid that thermal depolymerization (TDP) is only effective on organic materials, because it works (as the name implies) by breaking long-chain polymers down. It won't work on metals.
Might be an interesting way to deal with spammers... Make them contribute something back to society.
...I'm looking forward to making my own food guide pyramid! Whoo-hoo!
For years I've waited to see beer as the most important food group, and now my dream can finally come true!
Better to do this with corn-based materials than cardboard, I suppose :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I say bring on the corn-based replacements for all petroleum products. Then the US would start to rake in all those dollars that currently go to OPEC.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
I just made the at home version from con starch. It's kinda squishy while warm. So, like in the instructions I molded a ball out of it and as it is cooling it is geting bouncy-er. It looks like I made my own super ball.
I'm going to put pictures of me working with this stuf up on my site http:outofpaper.cjb.net
Disney uses a product like this at all of their theme parks. When you get "plastic" utensils at a restaraunt in the park, it's actually this stuff.
:)
Great for the environment considering how much garbage Disney generates.
Feel free to interpret that last statement any way you wish
This kind of thing was described/foretold/requested in the book "Cradle to Cradle" , by William McDonough & Michael Braungart, which after reading the /. review I bought and read. (BTW, here is
their
company)
An interesting read. Lots of propaganda, but lots of really good ideas, and a few real results, too.
Other related links
here
and
here.
Light cup, beer drink, thin so chain, neck turtle fat, man I won't say it again
Pop-plastic to put in our corn bowls. Maybe in S.R...
This is not my opinion. Actually, it's not even an opinion. And I'm nowhere to be seen near it
If the bords in our computers where made instead of whith glass and petrocemicals but with plant fibers and plant based plastics we would be able to by degade them whene they where nolonger usfule. It would simplify the extraction of the presious metals that are in them. No longer would the computer reciling firms in asia nead to us toxic cemicals but instead they could use vibrating screens and magnets .
correct, however, the first stage of the system that masticates everything removes metal from stuff you put in it. it removes everything that is not made of carbon and returns it to you at the end. so you can throw entire computers in and get clean materials out. read the article...it talks about just that.
infact thay say it can handle any human waste except toxic waste from nuclear plants.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Wasn't this stuff used in the early to mid eighties in grocery bags? If I remember it didn't work well because it wasn't very durable.
to the term "Corn Fed"
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
Reciclable golf tees! Now, that's a giant leap forward for the environment!
but Classic Plastic will be outlawed due to its effect on the environment. It will then be discovered that it can act as a halucinegen. America will declare war on plastics, and the libertarian party will be ignored for standing up for our right to buy and use plastics.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Last time I looked, Cargill makes a SHITLOAD of money off pesticides, fertilizers, animal feed chemicals, and so on- just check out their website if you don't believe me. We're supposed to believe they're working on stuff that will eliminate/reduce demand for those products?
What's Cargill going to sell, information booklets? Patent the compost process? :-)
Please help metamoderate.
AFAIK, it IS edible, as long as you use edible inks if you print anything on it (it is transparent), and is also meant to save the hassle of opening the wrapper before eating. "The easier it is to see the 'Easy opening' sign, the longer it will take fighting with the package in order to open it".
-- But, hey, will they have to print the nutritional value of the package ?
Why, Gramps used to use a good ol' corn-cob pipe. You can make all kinds of decorative and useful utensils and home decorations out of corn cobs. Don't throw them out!
couple of years now Earthshell has been making biodegradable containers for a while, McDonalds already uses them. And so does the National Park Service.
http://tinyurl.com/3t236
~~~
In case you're wondering why plastic is bad, visit the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. They have done cruises into the Pacific Ocean and found tiny pieces of plastic that outnumber zooplankton 6 to 1. Plastic "nurdles" or little unprocessed beads of plastic are the number 1 beach polluter in southern California. They sorb hydrophobic toxins (DDT, PCBs and the like) and then poison the critters that eat them.
Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?
I tried making that plastic according to the directions; it owns me! Really is rather neat. Does anyone know the chemical process(es) that allow this to occur?
>
We had something like this at my college. It was a grain based plastic-like material for disposable flatware (forks, spoons, knives). The material was billed as a replacement to plastic utensils and would fully biodegrade in landfills within 30-45 days. The material was also very bitter, overly flexy/soft, and became limp when heated to the temperature of hot food. Hopefully, this material is entirely different
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
give me all of your TP!!!!
this will spawn another shitload of anti-competetive and misguided farm subsidies.
It's funny that they're focusing on turkey guts though. From the article:
When I saw that part, I thought: Isn't that the recipie for turkey hot dog wieners? They could just squeeze it into casings and sell it for $1.49 per pack.
new type of "green" compost which tastes like plastic but turns your container into a disposal
New From the MPAA Bio-Degrading Media for your renting use. WARNING remove from player within 48 hours or face dataloss.
Ya, i'de just throw all my used cd's into the garden
I've got more IP addresses and subnets than you can shake your little sticks at.
What a loser.. You have multiple IP addresses and subnets, and you use them for the primary purpose of trolling on dotslash?
Buy stock in Iowa!
(And don't forget to sell SCO short!)
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Tweet, tweet.
It's also much better tasting than the alternative, Plastic based Corn.
It still takes shitloads of energy (read: oil) to grow corn (think farm equipment, shipping, cleaning, processing, etc), so all we're doing is moving the pollution from one place to another.
Woohoo! Ad-hominem attack!
That means you can't present a reasonable argument!
Porn-free.org: 1
Clueless troll: 0
~~~
^the subject is the funny part^
Not sure if this is entirely new information, but corn starch "shipping peanuts" have been around for a while as a bio-degradable alternative to styrofoam. If you sprinkle some salt & pepper on them they taste ok.
they started with those just because the early adopters of the tech will be argicultural producers...next will probably power generation companies who want to clean the coal they use ( I thought that was cool as well) or turn tar sand into high quality oil which will basicly double the total oil reserves int eh world!!!
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
When I was down in San Diego last week, I played at a golf course (Encinitas Ranch?) that was giving away tees made of this stuff. It's a great idea because a lot of tees break apart and then go flying off into the grass, especially with guys like me who like to tee the ball high... or the woman I golfed with who liked to use a tee everywhere but the greens.
----- sXe
It's kinda short sighted, and reflective of the fact that the market does not factor in the economic costs of petro chemicals -- but I fail to see the irony.
Those newfangled packing "peanuts" have the exact consistency of bleached cheetos, and darned if dusting them with a little salt and cheese solids doesn't make them taste just the same, too!
...and then we'll send the used shopping bags to Ethiopia. That's a much better idea than the 13 cents a day!
BOOOOOM!!
Is it fascism yet?
...to know that michael meant to say "from the orville-redenbacher dept."
Corn keeps coming up in the news, with more and more uses. There is a corn-based fuel that's gaining popularity in Minnesota, especially among street rodders. Apparently it has a little more zip than gasoline, and hey, renewable energy (plus the by-products are still useful as animal feed). Corn is the most cost-effective solar cell we'll ever have.
But you know, in a hundred years, when our great-grandkids all drive corn-powered cars and use corn-plastic products, the alternative-energy quacks will just whine about Big Corn keeping them down.
...
Henry Ford and His Magic Beanstalk
From the article:
By late 1937 Ford's research laboratory, under the direction of youthful, self-trained Robert Boyer, had developed a curved plastic sheet Ford hoped would replace steel in automobile bodies. A few weeks later the magnate called in reporters, jumped up and down on the unbending sheet and triumphantly exclaimed, "If that was steel, it would have caved in." He added "Almost all new cars will soon be made of such things as soybeans" and that the most prosperous era in American history was "just around the corner" because industry was opening up a "whole new field for agricultural by-products."
Linux is not of any use if you are growing corn to hide you hemp plants so you can pay for terrorists to kick people out of the former British Mandate of Palestine, but WHAT THE FUCK does that have to do with the topic???
My GF is allergic to corn and corn products. If she was ate deli food that was packaged in this it could cause a severe allergic reaction.
Are these things marked as a corn product?
-Chris
-- This sig is only a test. If this were a real sig it would say something witty. --
Food of the gods. Or the Kami, to be more accurate. Nature's perfect food. Eat some today!
It's rough on nutrients in the soil. Not sure how i t compares to our good friend, the mutated grass, corn. I'm sure the Ready-Gro corporation is giddy about the possibility of a plant-based economy.
Blar.
That is brilliant. I honestly would have never thought of that. When people throw out their food containers, then food residues would actually help to break down the container.
testing out my trending skills
Corn based plastics sound good, but this article certainly is a good counter hype.
regards,
Heiko
In fact, I may have heard [hemp] is the single fastest growing biomass plant in the world, though you may want to check me on that.
Having seen what Kudzu can do in the South East US, I'd have to question this. Not sure that Kudzu is the fastest, but as a vine, it can grow in many different directions and not really reach a stopping point during the growing season. Hemp just goes up and even well fertilized, I would imagine does reach some type of stopping point eventually.
Since I live in the Portland, OR metro area, I've had a chance to try out these corntainers... looks just like plastic. It looks like the only drawback is that you can't microwave'em - they've got a little sticker on them reminding you not to (I suspect they'll just melt, but I haven't tried it yet as the container is still holding salsa).
I do have to wonder, though, is corn really all that environmentally friendly? I mean it takes a good amount of fuel to run those tractors and to transport the stuff. Also lots of pesticides and herbacides are used. Then there's the GMO issue - lots of corn grown in the US is genetically modified. And of course, corn is pretty hard on the soil - I generally don't grow it in my garden because it takes a lot nutrients out of the soil and you don't get that much out of it (2 or 3 ears of corn on a stalk). Are there better alternatives?
As only one (!) poster has already pointed out, this was done decades ago. It used to be that all of our plastic grocery bags around here were made out of biodegradable plastic.
Then we started to ask questions like; "So what happens to the biodegraded bags in landfills?" and, "why do these bags suck so badly?"
Neat idea, but it's not necessarily any better for the environment, and at the time they were a pain in the ass.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
"Ever wonder why Zik Zak burgers come in plastic packs? Some of the plastic rubs off on the burger and doubles the nutritional value."
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
It's called LEFTOVER GRITS!!!
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They Are Vermin Feeding On Each Other's Feces.
I Hate \.
Peter: "Yeah?"
Lawrence: "Watch out for your corhnhole, bud."
While in college, I went to an Agriculture College Open House at the University of Illinios at Urbana/Champaign and they had this stuff there at the time. This would have been around 94 or so.
They even had packing peanuts made of the stuff that they handed out for people to eat (it was very very bland, but edible). I figure you could live off of it if you got trapped in a UPS truck or something.
Anyway, I think it's a neat idea. At the time, the packing peanuts were cost effective (and were going to roll out in a company someplace. I saw them a few years later) but the harder stuff wasn't yet. But they had examples of stuff molded out of it.
Ciao!
The Doctor What (KF6VNC)
Steel recycling is also working well. Most steel is now recycled. It's not just rebar any more; now good sheet comes out.
burp
How much energy, compared to "normal" plastic does it take to produce a comparable ammount? If it takes more, then it is no real improvement, it merely shifts the negative efects into another area.
from the linked pdf :-
:)
"Place a tablespoon of cornstarch in a plastic zip lock bag."
alrighty then...
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
A-Bomb
we're all out of (freedom/french/*um like whatevah*)fries
In a hideous twist to the tale, the French successfully lobby the WTO to protect "genuine" French fries under designated origin rules.
"Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughs the villianous Jacques Chirac, "Ze wind has changed, but now you are stuck wis zees seelly `Freedom fries' name!"
Then he mutters something about wiping his ass with silk.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
For disposable dishes, these are probably the most ecologically sound.
They are made from leaves which are pressed into the shape of dishes or bowls. Not only are they biodegradable, but they require hardly any energy for their production, unlike plastics made from corn, which require lots of energy in production.
I have actually used these plates, and they seem to work at least as well as paper plates.
Now that im awake i rememberd that the Supermarked chain Obs! in Norway was offering customers Eco-Bags. That was plastic bags made of corn....
I was supposed to eat one on my 23. birthday but we forgot all aboutit.
The reason for the eating was that i has clamed that all corn products taste good.
Maize, wheat, rye and all cereals are basically genetically modified grass. OK, the genetic modification was done the slow way :-) but it's still genetic modification.
However, I am not a biologist.
Could someone enlighten me as to a test that would distinguish between genetic modification by selective breeding and random mutation, and genetic modification carried out using modern techniques?
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
When I was a 16 year old kid my daddy gave me some (german) army rations wich were older than me. Creepy! ;-)
Sometimes biodegradable is preferable, especially in locations where water is not in abundance and where other issues take precedence, ike some cleaning agents in the water. Certainly some are not harmful, but unless you pass laws then there will still be people who buy the cheapest detergents and not the most environmentally friendly.
It's also been noted, in certain locales and for certain materials, that recycling is WORSE than biodegradable and simply disposable... sometimes the process makes a bigger mess than just leaving it. That's not to say this will always be the case, but it is now.
Unfortunately true environmentalists (like myself) have trouble convincing extreme environmentalists that sometimes they are actually working contrary to goal of having a clean planet - they have a kneejerk reaction to everything without considering the real long term effects.
There are no generic statements about recycling and reuse that apply to everything, everywhere.
I have seen this plastic corn based material before, and I think it's a GREAT approach to our disposable lifestyles. While I agree with you in principle (I really dislike disposable plastics, like pens and razors, for example, but I don't have a problem with the plastic being used for durable goods - like car dashboards or computer components), we have to take the world for what it is today and massage things in a way that people aren't inconvenienced. If things become even the least bit harder, a large number of people will not accept it. People are generally lazy, it's a sad fact. Not everyone, not all the time, but often enough.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
So now condoms come in corn flavour, cool!
Giving IE users a taste of their own medicine since 2005 - http://pods.-is-a-geek.net/
The most interesting environmental question is whether carbohydrate-based plastics are a net greenhouse gas sink. Oil-based plastics pull carbon out of the ground, and put it back into landfills.
Carbohydrate-based plastics actually pull CO2 out of the air as plants grown (good), but if they do decompose, the carbon is released as methane gas, which is actually a more powerful greenhouse warming gas than CO2 (bad).
In the future, we may move from plants to GM bacteria that have hyper-efficient photosynthesis / chemosythesis and cellulases for materials prodcution.
Does this mean that the government might stop the subsidization of corn, to keep up with increased demand?
It just irks me every single time I think that my tax dollars are paying someone good money not to grow corn/sugar, etc. Like unemployment benefits, subsidy should only last long enough to get these people out of the farming business and into another job.
--Jasin Natael
True science means that when you re-evaluate the evidence, you re-evaluate your faith.
noun The branch of chemistry concerned with the industrial use of organic raw materials, esp. materials of agricultural origin.
Could this be the end of oil for plastics? I know we, the US, uses A LOT of oil for everyday plastics. If we have a homegrown solution to our dependence, then that is one more nail in the coffin for oil. COME ON ALTERNATIVE TO OIL!!!
Eco Golf has been making corn based golf tees and balls for ages.
http://www.ecogolf.com/
About 12 years ago I ran across some pens made of 100% corn "plastic", so I bought a bunch of them for gifts.
Of course, they were a "hit" as gifts because they were so unusual.
But they were quite a bit more flexible than petrochemical based plastic pens, so writing with them was kind of weird.
And the BIG drawback with them was...
If you lived in a humid environment, they would self destruct. Like in, get gooey, and sticky, and holes melting in them.
Neat idea, but waaay too bio-degradable for an object that needs to be around until it's empty of ink.
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
I live right across the street from Nature's(a wild oats market) here in Portland, OR.
These containers started showing up in the last month or so, but only on COLD products. Anything served hot in their deli cases comes in good old fashioned plastic or lined cardboard. The containers don't seem to melt to easily in hot water so I assume that it would take a bit of time and heat to start the decomposition process. And mind you that while they are compostable, I'm not taking them out back to the heap and just tossing them in... it still goes in the garbage just like everything else.
It's a start, but we definitely could use some more progress in this arena. The day I can walk over there and buy some of their yummy roast chicken with mac&cheese, and have the container be completely eco-friendly... well, is the day i have to start figuring out what to do with all these old computer parts lying around!
Did you know that Henry Ford built a car reportedly made out of soybeans? Ford intended to replace as many items in his automobiles with plant based materials as he could.
Plant based plastic has been around for many decades, but the commercial development of them stopped around the start of WW2.
I haven't been able to find the definitive source of this Ford information, but here's an interesting photo.
Henry Ford hitting a 1941 Ford car made from soybean plastic.
http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/hf/soycar.jpg
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
Not the bio-plastic, that is a great idea.
The directions for making it:
Put the cornstarch, corn oil and water inside a plastic bag and microwave it.
So now, you are using plastic to make bio-plastic? Doesn't that defeat the point? And teaching young kids that microwaving plastic bags is ok is horrible. It's well known that doing this generates harmful dioxins.
Then the children are encouraged to play with this and form it into balls.
I see what is going on here. Some anti-earth industrialists have conspired to induce our young ones into ingesting dioxins at a young and sensitive age, harming their reproductive system, and leading to infertility, in order to reduce future populations of environmentalists. Call your congresspeople now, and get this bio-plastic learning unit banned!
The real question is when the standards will shift to include individual needs- can i walk in and get my gluten-and-chemical-additive-free (whatever food product can be made thus) in a corn-tastic plastic container, and can she walk in right after me and get the same food CORN-free, in a non-corn biodegradeable container? When that can happen, we'll have made it. I'm all for more options and more labelling. Lactose is another real problem for a lot of people, and it's used in lots of things, without putting any word on the label about it. Your GF probably knows to avoid anything labelled 'natural flavours,' right?
I"m glad folks are working towards biodegradeable materials; it's going to take some serious lawsuits before they start thinking about individual issues. (this is, after all, the states....)
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
Different ingestion methods affect different people differently. I've found that smoking marijuana hits me at the right pace, and gives me some control over the effects. Eating brownies, on the other hand, doesn't do anything. At all. For an hour or so. At which point I need to sit down while I still remember which way down is and what sitting is for. I missed the middle of a couple of Grateful Dead shows before deciding that wasn't for me. Also, smoking is much less nasty if you're smoking small quantities of high-THC buds as opposed to large quantities of low-THC leaves, and if you use something to cool the smoke instead of those little tiny pipes.
Even longer ago, an acquaintance of mine and his druggie friends decided to experiment on the effects of delivery mechanisms with another drug. Reasoning that with opium, cocaine, and cannabis, the effects of the drug are much different between ingesting the raw plant form or the chemically refined powder or smoking the refined powder, they wondered about the effects of smoking caffeine. So they crunched up some No-Doz and smoked it. Do not do this.... My friend said that all the bad things that caffeine normally does to you happened very quickly - headaches, jitters, nausea, speediness - and that it was a highly unpleasant experience.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Why make a corn substitute? I sure wouldn't want to pull out and find that half of my condom has dissolved...
I mean it, too. At the very least, don't plan on reproducing. Egalitarianism works fine 'til it gets in Darwin's way. People with strong allergies, and other genetic ailments should have the common sense to adopt. Do the species a favor, and keep her genes out of the pool.
It's not only plastic that is made from corn, so is fibre and from that fabric.
Cargill Dow is one of several companies creating a corn fibre trademarked as Ingeo. I haven't yet seen the fibre, but I'll be getting a sample in a week or so.
A similar product is Soy Silk (another trademarked term) which is a fibre created as a soy processing by-product. The hype claims that it is a silk substitute. Reality proves otherwise.
It does have a very silk-like sheen, has a pleasing natural colour, is very soft and demands to be fondled in it's fibrous form. It lacks the static nature of silk (a plus) but doesn't take colour as well (a minus). It also has a much shorter staple that silk, requiring that it be spun like cotton rather than true silk.
and the werewolves came...
and they ate him...
and they drank his beer...
I wonder what happens when you try to microwave it?