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

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