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.

Comments

How long till it decays

[mpost4]

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?

Cargill and Dow

[Kagato]

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.

Re:Economics

[Dolohov]

Like the title of your post says, it's economics, and to a greater extent, politics. Forget the environmental argument, compelling as it may be to some people. I'm more interested in reducing the country's consumption of petroleum for both economic reasons (It's largely an import-only product at this point) and political reasons (We tend to import it from people who don't particularly like us).

Those two considerations alone are, I think, enough to provoke a restructuring of our farm subsidies to make these plastics considerably cheaper in a very short period of time.

Re:Sounds Fantastic -- Now Why Not Hemp

[billstewart]

The best legal uses for hemp included smoking the flowers - that requires fixing the laws to match the US Constitution, rather than doing anything technical with the hemp :-) After all, the original copies of the Constitution seem to have stuck around long after anybody in government bothered to read the words on them. Other useful things to do are making hemp cloth, paper, rope, edible seeds, etc. However, I've found that hemp papers sometimes curl a bit too much in laser printers to work very well (or at least, they're not very useful for printing double-sided, because they don't flatten out as well for printing the back side.)

However, using hemp rolling papers won't affect the THC content of your smoke, because it's got pretty close to none in it. The paper is made from those stems you didn't need, and it's made from hemp plants that were bred for big fibrous stems, not big tasty buds or leaves. As the label for one brand of hemp-based clothing says "Sorry, but you can't smoke your shirt."

It's possible that using hemp rolling papers will make the contents burn faster or slower or hotter or less hot than dead-tree papers, but you really ought to be smoking from a bong or some other device that'll cool the smoke and reduce lung irritation. However, selling devices that improve public health by reducing the harm caused by illegal substances is illegal in many states, so you're not allowed to print out this message on hemp-based paper with soy-based ink to roll joints in.