You Gonna Eat That? It Could Become Plastic 30
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)."
Nice, but... (Score:2, Funny)
Biodegradable plastic from foodstuffs. (Score:4, Interesting)
The Italian company Montedison [montedison.it] had developed a compound from corn that they called Mater-Bi [novamont.com], and you could get a watch made out of the stuff with the italian version of the mickey mouse magazine [topolino.it].
The only practical applications that I have seen so far are things like this bio-degradable bag [edie.net], for groceries and waste disposal.
Margarine is a kind of plastic (Score:2)
The first time I heard of biodegradable pastics manufactured from things usually regarded as food was in the late 1980s.
Things like margarine...
The way my old chemistry professor put it - loosely quoted - "If you hydrogenate a petroleum oil, you call it plastic. If you hydrogenate corn or soy oil, you call it margarine."
Think about it.
I think I'll stick with butter. MmmMmmm... toast deep-fried in butter.
Nice, but still missing something..... (Score:4, Interesting)
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....
Stage 2 : (Score:1)
Re:Nice, but still missing something..... (Score:2)
The problem is, in you r own words "plastic stuff you trash immediately after purchase"
I would say that having all that plastic is fine -- even needed. In fact, if done properly, plastic is the ideal material for most of the products we use. This helps solve a major problem on the horizon: Most of the plastics we use are based on oil, which we are burning as fuel, rather than a more productive use for it. Oil has many useful compounds in it that are either difficult or expensive to obtain from any other source. So being able to create plastic from a renewable source is a boon.
This is the real waste; plastic is easily and cheaply recycleable. It can be re-used nearly ad-infinitum. The problem is that while plastic is cheap to recycle, it isn't profitable enough. (Blame this one on cheap oil; this will change in due time).
Nope -- we use too much plastic (Score:4, Informative)
Furthermore, plastic is only "easily and cheaply recycleable" if you leave a bunch of things out of the numbers:
Plastic recycling is a sham. I do it, because it might someday evolve into something real, and because twice through is better than once through. But mostly I try to buy less plastic packaging.
Re:Nice, but still missing something..... (Score:2, Informative)
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 ?
Yes. Almost all of it is needed. Without the plastic, a lot more of the even more expensive stuff the plastic was covering would be wasted by spoiling, being damaged during shipping, etc.
Even more importantly, plastic can be recycled. It's effectively impossible to recycle paper used to wrap food because it is hard to disinfect without ruining the material. You also have to use really toxic chemicals, specifically bleach. Plastic is relatively easy and cheap to recycle.
The other thing that gets me about this stuff is biodegradeability. Do you think stuff really degrades in a landfill? Landfills are locked out of the water system and stuff doesn't degrade like it does sitting in your compost heap. It doesn't really matter whether it's made out of corn or oil. It's still going to be there in 100 years. I think the most interesting aspect of food-based plastics is that they could become more economical or allow plastic to be used in new situations where biodegradeability really matters.
Finally, I just wanted to say that I love styrofoam. Ever see how much plastic actually goes into a styrofoam cup? They're almost all air. (Of course, I still prefer paper cups since my hot coffee will cool off faster so I'm less apt to burn myself.)
save some time (Score:4, Funny)
Re:save some time (Score:2)
macabre? (Score:2)
That plastic grocery bag was made from Soylent Green...
Couple this plastic source with Legos... (Score:2)
Plastic is already made of waste... (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless you're talking about the body-panels on your Trabant, which also include agricultural waste.
Bravo for pure research!
So remember, kids... (Score:3, Funny)
Perhaps... (Score:1)
Re:Perhaps... (Score:1)
Better than plastic recycling? (Score:1)
I was always suspicious... (Score:2)
useful possibilities (Score:1)
Here's a novel idea... (Score:3, Informative)
Instead of turning leftover food into plastic, how about using it to feed people?
Organizations like Second Harvest [secondharvest.org] already exist. They need not only food but also donations of time and talent or money. Check them out!
Re:Here's a novel idea... (Score:3, Interesting)
My brother organized with a local soup kitchen to receive leftovers from a catering business he worked for, and when management found out, they stopped it. Especially with catering, you don't know who or what touched the food once it's put out.
Good idea...and I think it's still manageable in some situations, but a lot of the food industry shies from doing this for this reason.
Sounds Yummy (Score:1)
I'll bet the smell would gag a maggot.
Since when is plastic a problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
often used in cheap (and sometimes, unneccesary) products.
Simply put: Plastic has low status and appeal.
And that's why it is an ideal target as an environmental problem.
Now I'm not denying that plastic *is* a problem, especially in landfills, where it degrades slowly.
However, if you burn it, that is a different matter.
Burning plastic gives you somewhere around 80-90% of the energy that burning the oil that it
took to make plastic, in the meanwhile the plastic has had an entire lifetime of practical use.
Somewhere around 1% of the worlds oil is used to make plastic, the rest?
It just gets burned up.
As I said, it is a problem, but it is NOT a major concern,
not when we still have oil power plants. (and SUV:s!)
(And if you ask me, this bad understanding of priority is one of
the enviromentalists' big problems)
Re:Since when is plastic a problem? (Score:2)
I disagree, I think Plastic [plastic.com] has a lot of appeal. I now waste much more time there than on SlashDot.
As to status, Plastic having a lower membership would seem to make it somewhat more exclusive and therefore higher status. Plus regular members get to participate in the high status job of rating the submit Q.
Of course YMMV.
Great. (Score:1)