Grow Your Own Plastic

Quetzalcoatl sent in a link to a BBC story about new genetically modified plants from Monsanto that grow biodegradable plastic. Apparently the next step is to get the plants to produce enough plastic to be worth growing commercially, which may not be possible. But hey! You never know until you try, right?

Comments

Re:Hmmmm...

[pen]

You're talking about it like it's perl. It's not perl. It's not even C. Not even ASM. It's machine code. Someone else's machine code! Without anything remotely resembling documentation!

The only way genetic engineering is possible is by taking some genes, sticking some other genes into it, and repeating until something interesting happens.

Although I like your idea, I think it's a dream for now. Maybe 10 or 20 years later...

--

There's a reason econuts have no love for Monsanto

[konstant]

Monsanto is the last company I'd want producing plastic, oil, or any other product crucial to the US economy. Greenpeace crazies and eco terrorists are certainly right about one thing - dealing with Monsanto is dangerous for your long-term independence. Their clever mechanism for ensuring repeat buyers is to build infertility into the plants they sell. Farmers buy them because they are indeed very good crops for certain purposes, namely for surviving the popular but toxic herbicide RoundUp, which Monsanto also sells. Monsanto works vigorously to bankrupt competing seed sellers, so that only their perishable brand is available, thus locking farmers into their system for life. Prior to the development of these terminator genes, Monsanto would actually maraud around the countryside burning "illicitly stocked" seed.

http://www.mat.auckland.ac.nz/~king/Preprints/book /upd/umar99/monsan/ecol1.htm#anc hor52768

A recent company tactic as been to push this "system" as a solution for hunger in third-world countries. Of course, what it would really entail would be a complete regional ownership by Monsanto of the food supply.

http://www.greenpeac e.org/~geneng/highlights/food/98_10_15.htm

Monsanto is also renowned for suing magazines and television stations when they are about to produce an article critical of the company. Most news providers can't fight them, so they buckle and the issues are never aired.


http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/fox.html

And much like certain proprietary software companies, Monsanto patents its creations. We all are familiar with the stupidity of patenting ideas, and genetic engineering, especially of plants, is quite simply that. One plant can turn into two plants with only a negligable investment of soil, water, and sun. This means they are not a zero-sum game, and hence the arguments against patenting software apply to them.

Monsanto is one of the least palatable companies out there. They are easily the Microsoft of genetic science. I think I'd rather stick to the Sheiks for my gallon of gas and pound of shrink-wrap, thank you very much.

-konstant

Re:Hail the Free Market

[Paul Johnson]

The motivation in that case, of course, isn't keeping genetic purity as much as keeping the farmers from taking some of the seed from a year's crop and just planting it next year, instead of buying more seed from the corporation.

Who cares what the motivation is? The thing about capitalism is that, basically, it works. Every other system of economics tries to appeal to altruism as the reason for doing the right thing. Capitalism appeals to greed to do approximately the right thing most of the time. This works a lot more reliably.

Coming back to the point, the GM companies have basically demonstrated that they can either produce "mule" seeds which won't reproduce or they can produce seeds which can copy themselves, at some risk of "contaminating" the local environment (whatever that means). Which would you prefer?

Paul.

Re:Hail the Free Market

[Mr. Slippery]

Now we are simply skipping the middle man and transplanting genes across genetic lines. In all honesty this is SAFER than simply promoting random mutation.

Argicultural selection does not promote mutation! It is about selective breeding.

When you cross two strains of tomotoes, or select for a specific quality from a crop, every gene in the resultant strain was already present in the tomato genome. Everything present in the new strain was present in one of the original ones. No new substances are added to the end product, and the change is incremental. These tomato genes have a proven track record for creating safe foods. There won't be anything in your new tomatoes that wasn't in tomatoes before, and the concentration of any harmful substances can only increase a limited amount. If you could eat the old tomatoes safely, you can eat the new ones.

GM foods introduce new genes (and therefore new substances) that were never present in that plant's genome - or perhaps even in that of any plant we use for food. These genes do not have a proven safety record for producing safe and healthy foods. Tell you what, I'll let you go on ahead and eat them for, say, twenty years or so, and see what happens, then maybe I'll give 'em a try. Meantime I like the old-school foods just fine, thank you very much. I just ask that a) you label 'em so I can tell the difference, and b) you contain the plants and their pollen with biohazard protocols so that their modified genomes don't contaminate the baseline.

GM is qualitatively different from agricultural selection. The argument by GM apologists that we're just "skipping the middle man" is bogosity incarnate.

bacteria can make plastic too

[apepoker]

Bacteria have been investigated as a source of biodegradable plastics for quite a while now.
The species Alcaligenes eutrophes (probably haven't remembered it properly) can convert things like molasses waste into a short chain polymer called polyhydroxybutanoate (PHB). PHB accumulates inside the bacteria as solid granules called inclusion bodies...when you want to make plastic, you burst open your bugs, collect the PHB inclusion bodies, and then mould it into plastic (i think with heat...could be wrong).
This type of plastic was used to produce some test products in Europe a few years ago...shampoo bottles, disposable containers etc etc...they found that the containers were biodegraded within a several months when placed in conditions like the bottom of a lake, or in landfill.
Last i read about this sort of plastic was that the cost of the raw materials (molasses waste, glucose, ethanol) made PHB derived plastic too expensive compared to traditional oil-produced plastic. Scientists were messing around with regulatory genes, and moving the PHB synthesis pathway genes to other bacteria, to try an improved the efficiency of the process

This isn't all that new

[babbage]

Biologically produced / biodegradable plastic has been around for at least five or ten years, if not longer. I first learned about a version grown by a bacterial strain in a petri dish several years ago -- sorry I can't cite that better, it's been a while. The problem at that point was that [a] it was of poorer quality than conventional petroleum based plastic, and [b] it was difficult to grow in any significant quantities. It's surely just a matter of time though, as the principles seem fairly solid. Who knows, maybe the organic chemists will be able to synthesize other petroleum byproducts too, like gasoline & motor oil. If they can get one derivitive, I'm not aware of why they couldn't get others as well. This could prove useful when petrol stocks start drying up in a couple decades...

...but then again, fuel cells seem more interesting to me as far as that goes: the only chemicals involved are hydrogen, oxygen, and water, and you get energy useful for electricity, propulsion, or however you care to harness it. Very clean & efficient too, at least on paper. I'm hoping someone can build a useful & affordable fuel cell system to address the fossil fuel shortage. But that's a tangent I won't pursue farther here...

Wow

[Psiren]

So its all true. Money really does grow on trees. Well, credit cards do... ;)

Re:Hail the Free Market

[Mr. Slippery]

The thing about capitalism is that, basically, it works.

It sure does! Of course, you have to remember what the purpose of capitalism is - to concentrate the wealth generated by labor into the hands of a few. Capitalism does this quite well, as any analysis of the distribution of wealth in the USA shows.

Capitalism appeals to greed to do approximately the right thing most of the time. That's more an issue of free markets for labor that of capitalism. The two are not the same. Free markets are about personal choice; capitalism is about control of others and profiting from their labor.

GM companies have basically demonstrated that they can either produce "mule" seeds which won't reproduce or they can produce seeds which can copy themselves, at some risk of "contaminating" the local environment (whatever that means). Which would you prefer?

If they're growing food crops, I'll take neither, thank you very much. GM companies should not be allowed to fsck with the food supply. (At the very minimum, they should be required to inform consumers that their products contain GM crops, so that consumers can make a free informed choice.)

If they're doing whiz-bang stuff like chemical production with GM plants, not only do I want them muled, I want them grown in sealed greenhouses with biohazard protections. Belt-and-suspenders.

Re:Hail the Free Market

[Callan]

Yeah, but a farmer sells every scrap of produce he grows anyway.

Let me climb up to my soapbox here:

2 (essentially) types of corn grown on the US side of the sea:

1. Corn grown to feed the varmits (cattle, horses, swine, etc). This is the majority of where the grain produced on US farms goes -- livestock, either domestically or internationally.

2. 'Sweet' corn. Not grown for the above, but actually used for human consumption. That's your canned cream corn, etc.

Now -- here's the part that is generally misconcieved:
Very few (under 1 percent) of farmers store grain for next years crop from what they planted. That hasn't really been done since the turn of the century. Why? They have bins with propane dryers on them to keep the seeds from getting moist (and going bad, or sprouting in storage). It costs too much to run that year round.

Essentially: If a farmer keeps grain he's guaranteeing that he's going to loose money on it.
Better to leave that to the people who are in the business of supplying seed yearly. They do it more efficiently (and cheaply) than any one farming corp could (unless its a very BIG farming corporation).

Also -- Monsanto IS satan in the agriculture business. Farmers have been bitching about that company for years (why, for instance, do they sell their product to Argentinan farmers for a third what they sell here? Nothing against Argentina, but the descrepency is annoying). It is essentially a monopoly (they are more or less the MS of agriculture).

hmmmmm

[shaldannon]

So when do they start growing your dinner in its plastic packaging? ;)


Who am I?
Why am here?
Where is the chocolate?

Hail the Free Market

[KingJawa]

I'm probably going to come off sounding like a big time Socialist-sniper, but whatever. It happens. It's amazing that people (read: Sierra Clubbers, Greenpeace, et all) always assume that government will lead the way to more economically happy ideas and products.

Bzzt.

Look at this thing. A plastic making plant. Why? Because fossil fuels (which plastic is made from) is in finite supply--sooner or later, we are going to run out, and as supply gets lower, prices get higher. Also, having biodegradable plastic products means that there is no special dumping fees needed, and thereby lesser costs. Sure, I don't expect us to be using plant plastic anytime soon, nor do I expect the plastic to biodegrade overnight, but it's a step in the right direction.

And it's not because some politician said "make it so" (gratuitious Picard reference), but rather because it will sell. Let's just hope it works.

oh, yeah, first post (I think).

Re:Hail the Free Market

[hobbit]

Some of the seeds that are now supplied to farmers have been modified to not be able to breed at all.

Some of the dinosaurs that were supplied to Jurassic Park were modified not to be able to breed at all.

I know that was fiction, but Monsanto have made promises in the past which have turned out to be less than the whole truth.

Hamish

Re:Hail the Free Market

[JDevers]

Have you ever eaten a tomato? How about corn (or any corn product)? Do you know what true wild type corn and tomatoes look like? Comparing what we call corn and tomatoes to what these vegetables are like in the natural world is (pardon the pun ;) like comparing apples to oranges. The next time you are in South America take a look at what the local market calls corn, then drive seventy miles down the road and look at what their market calls corn. The two types of corn may be different COLOR (and I don't mean sickly whitish yellow versus bold yellow...I mean like BLUE or GREY...). Oh, and those aren't the actual wild types either, they have just been cultivated less severely.

Since the dawn of the agricultural age (and actually before if you consider breeding of dogs and such), man has been tampering with the genetics of other organisms. Up until recently we were using nature to slice and dice the genetic material and we acted as an artificial selection mechanism (we picked what we liked, not what was most adapted to a certain place...). Now we are simply skipping the middle man and transplanting genes across genetic lines. In all honesty this is SAFER than simply promoting random mutation. When we transplant genetic material, we usually go after VERY specific things(hopefully, or you never know what you would get...and it costs too mcuh to generate mass quantities of GM things just to see what happens :). Take the transfer of the human insulin gene into E. coli. We knew we would have to wait a LONG time for random mutation to produce a strain of E. coli which naturally generated insulin. Even assuming it did come about, it probably wouldn't produce too much of it (it doesn't need it, so where is any pressure to produce it...). So the simple step of copying the gene into the E. coli genome was taken (actually, a lot of copies where put in...but you get the picture), now that strain of E. coli produces insulin that MILLIONS of people need to live.

I know I went off on a little rant there (and it may not be completely cohesive...I'm pretty much running off of Mountain Dew and ephedrine right now...I may re-post after a few hours of sleep ;) but the point should be clear. We aren't doing anything we weren't doing before, we are just skipping the middle man. With the plastic producing plant, all that happened was they took genes that coded for something that they wanted (that occur NATURALLY...these aren't artificial genes coding for purely man made proteins or something like that ) and copied them into somethign easy to grow big so that the stuff they code far is easy to gather. Humans aren't too far from being able to hand code genes to produce what we want (actually we can kinda do it now, but the whole secondary structure of proteins thing still has us kinda at a standstill...), but as of right now we are limited to either copying what has already been made in nature or mildly altering it by only a few base sequences (or a handful of amino acids if you wanna take the protein view...).

Re:Hail the Free Market

[Paul Johnson]

I had a look at the "True Ideals of Socialism" link. Interesting. Its the best summary of anarchist thought I've seen so far, and worth reading.

However I can't agree with it. Most of the text (I've sampled it, but not read it completely yet) is an explanation of why Capitalism=slavery, basically because your boss is able to tell you what to do on pain of sacking, and your only choice is to find a different boss.

First, this ignores the possibility of becoming self-employed. The section I read mentions this, but dismisses it because only 10% of people are self employed. However the author fails to explain how this low proportion prevents it being a legitimate choice. Indeed, I could become self employed tomorrow if I wanted, and I know people who have done so. I choose not to do so for a number of reasons which I won't go into here.

Secondly, the threat of withdrawal of labour is a major one. In this country in the 70s the unions effectively appropriated the means of production from the capitalists by exactly this means. The result was a major economic downturn in my country which was only reversed when Mrs Thatcher put the capitalists back in charge. And today any sensible organisation worries about high staff turnover. New workers are surprisingly expensive, and getting more so. Even a Macdonalds burger-flipper needs to be recruited and trained.

Thirdly, the author seems to ignore (unless I failed to notice it) the possibility that anyone has of gaining control of the "means of production" themselves. It is actually fairly easy to set up your own business with your own employees, or for a group of people to form exactly the kind of workers federation that the article proposes. Come up with a sensible plan and the capitalists happily lend you control of the means of production. Prove it effective and you get to keep control. On the other hand if you fail to make best use of the resources you are consuming then control will be taken off you and given to someone who can do better.

Then we go onto the proposed alternative, in which democratic federations of workers own the "means of production".

Considering this system from the point of view of the individual, I can't see any difference. Unless I want to be self-employed (with the same tradeoffs as today) I have to join one of these federations. Once in, I have to do what the currently appointed "managers" tell me to do. As an individual my vote will count for little, and if I am female a member of a minority then there is no reason to suppose that the other members of the collective will be any less bigoted towards me than a capitalist manager.

Paul.

How biodegradable & more ways to create plastic?

[mOdQuArK!]

Do we really need more ways to create plastic? Exactly how biodegradable is this stuff? (I'm assuming that it has a different molecular structure than the "usual" stuff produced by refining oil, since that isn't very biodegradable at all.)

Is it edible? :) Actually, it would be interesting if an INSECT found that it was edible, and then acquired a "taste" for regular plastic - would our civilization collapse?

Is IS pretty cool that the plant is actually using carbon from the atmosphere to create the plastic. Could a plant be created which would create "fuel" (like ethanol or methanol or other hydrocarbon) in liquid form (rather than having to harvest the plant & go through some kind of refining process)? That would be cool - little "fuel bulbs" hanging from a tree like fruit. Just imagine what would happen if the tree caught fire though...

What would also be cool is if somebody came up with a plant which ATE plastic and turned it into some other useful form, or maybe back into a tree. You could plant a forest on top of each landfill, and harvest it on a regular basis.

Re:How biodegradable & more ways to create plastic

[Matchstick]

I believe "plastic" was used in the physical sense of the word, as in "not elastic". What you get is similar in physical properties to petro-plastic (capable of being molded and formed) , but is not based on hydrocarbons.

Presumably, the latter is what allows it to be biodegradable. Doesn't sound like we'll have petrochemical-producing plants any time soon; but if all you want is fuel, let's just make more booze!

Hmmmm...

[Millennium]

It's flexible enough, to be sure. But how durable is this stuff? Could it be used for all the purposes which any given type of plastic is used for today?

That's the thing: if this can't be used in many areas, then it will only delay the inevitable, rather than stopping it. Still, it's certainly a good start.

One thing, though. If the plastic can somehow be "extracted" from the plants, then I'm assuming it's in liquid form. If that is the case, why not skip cress and genetically engineer a tree? The plastic would probably have to be secreted into the sap. Then the tree could be tapped like maple trees are for syrup. You could gather the plastic without doing significant harm to the tree, thereby enabling you to get more plastic from it later.

That would certainly increase yields at least somewhat, since you wouldn't have to kill the plant to get the plastic.

Monsanto U-turn in Britain?

[hobbit]

"Monsanto, the US biotech corporation, has indicated that it is considering a major climbdown over genetically modified food in Britain. It has offered to use its vast gene databases to help plant breeders create new varieties of crops using traditional cross-breeding techniques."
The Guardian, Sunday September 26th 1999

"The Soil Association yesterday described as "hugely significant" indications from the US biotech company Monsanto that it might be prepared to rethink its commitment to genetically modified food in Britain."
The Guardian, Monday 27th September 1999

Now... what's going on here? I suspect that Monsanto is trying to regain shareholder confidence (after the Deutschbank recommended against investment in GM foods), or trying to bolster PR and associate their name with benevolence before they hit us with GM food again five or ten years from now. The less cynical side of me, however, is rather hoping that they've actually rethought the direction of their business due to public pressure. Power to the people!

Hamish

And go FWOOOOSH!!!! at the first spark

[Rene S. Hollan]

subject says it all.

In the Navy...

[drox]

A similar story appeared in, IIRC, the Des Moines Register (the plastic in question was to be made from corn, and Des Moines is in corn country). It indicated that, while the biodegradability of the plant-derived plastic would make it a poor choice for some products (you don't want your vinyl siding to crumble and dissolve after a few seasons) it's an excellent choice for others.

The (U.S.) Navy, in particular, is interested in biodegradable food containers that can be safely tossed overboard rather than stored up (smelly, esp. on long voyages) and hauled ashore for disposal. Not that they do that now - they throw their waste overboard anyway. But biodegradable plastics would make it more acceptable.

Grow Your Own Plastic

[unitron]

Visa or Mastercard?

Still a cheap hack...

[delmoi]

This is kind of interesting, not for the fact that it works, but *how* it was discovered. It seems like these people just took some random DNA known to produce plastics and stuck it in some plants.

One of the most interesting things about 'current' (I hesitate to say modern) Genetic engineering is the almost haphazard way in witch it is done. Were pretty lucky that Genetic structure is pretty forgiving, and we aren't just completely breaking the genetic code for these plants

If this kind of thing can be done with our current level of genetic-e knowledge, imagine what we will be able to do when we understand it all Also, I think the real benefit from work like this isn't producing plastics, but producing fuels Currently plastic waist can be broken down into the smaller polymers octane and pentane and be used for gasoline. If the same process could be used for this stuff, we could have a limitless supply of "fossil" fuels!
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"