Startup Replaces 6 Million Plastic Bags with Prototype Made from Corn Waste That Decomposes in 180 Days - Good News Network
Startup Replaces 6 Million Plastic Bags with Prototype Made from Corn Waste That Decomposes in 180 Days - Good News Network
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31 comments
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I’m sorry for the naivety, maybe there is something cool I’m not catching.
Haven’t we had biodegradable, compostable “plastic” shopping bags for like 20 years now? What’s the news here?
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Probably that it's based on corn-waste. Most I've seen are sugar-cane based. US grows a lot more corn than sugar cane.
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Decomposes in 180 days under what circumstances? 'cause if it requires high-temperature municipal compost, the vast majority of bags produced aren't gonna decompose.
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Paper and canvas bags already do this. What an engineering marvel.
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To be fair, corn is much faster to regrow than trees if we're talking about this vs. paper.
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Hemp as well. I'm certain we could make some sort of plastics with hemp, we can make practically everything from hemp. The added benefit of hemp is that it stores 85% of the excessive amount of carbon it consumes in its roots, so we can do whatever we want with the rest of the plant, harvest the roots, compress them into a cube much denser than water, drop them into the Mariana Trench, and not worry about that carbon for a few hundred million years.
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It also takes a whole lot more energy and water to manufacture paper bags rather than plastic. I personally use synthetic reusable bags that will probably outlive me whenever possible.
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Yeah, maybe. The paper industry is a farming industry like any other, so growth is a consideration but not necessarily the only one.
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Whilst paper and canvas is biodegradable, plastic as a material has certain useful traits compared to paper and canvas, hence why making/developing similar biologically based and degradable materials helps reduce our reliance on it.
Examples of such traits: Liquid resistance, non-permeable to water, see-through.
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We have some in Cambodia made from cassava.
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An Indian entrepreneur is using sugar, cellulose, and corn fibers to make a plastic-like carrier bag for small Indian businesses.
His company Bio Reform has already replaced 6 million plastic bags in the checkout counters of stores all over India.
Based in Hyderabad, Mohammed Azhar Mohiuddin first got the idea during the general mayhem that arose during the pandemic. Mohiuddin was looking at global environmental issues with the hope of finding one his entrepreneurial spirit had the capacity to tackle.
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Corn has plenty of drawbacks even if it offers a few of the benefits of plastic.
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Nice! With the best will in the world I always forget my standard shopping bags and I feel that the “bags for life” just replace one thin and crap lump of plastic for an overly engineered one.
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How are they over-engineered? They last much longer. Canvas ones forever, pretty much.
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31 comments