From: Steven B. Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: PRODUCING PLASTICS FROM PLANTS
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 22:21:24 GMT

In article <3a9e70bc.4046158478@Newshost.comnet.co.nz>,
	B.Hamilton@irl.cri.nz (Bruce Hamilton) wrote:

>address.below.or@web.site www.mantra.com/jyotish (Dr. Jai Maharaj)
wrote:
>
>>Producing plastics from plants
>.....
>>But crop plants such as corn or soybeans hold the
>>potential to create plants that provide the starting
>>materials to make the plastics we already have and to
>>make new plastics with never- before-seen properties,
>>Chapple says.
>
>Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. A search
>on Henry Ford and Soy Plastic should identify references
>to one of his most expensive failures. In the 1930s and
>1940s he attempted to capture the potential market for soy
>plastics in cars. IIRC, he even made a car out of it, and
>mandated that soy plastic should be used in all his cars,
>on items like handles and knobs.
>
>Naturally, his competitors soon had superior products at
>cheaper prices, and his attempt to capture a dying market
>was a major economic failure and loss of focus that gave
>competitors more opportunities.
>
>Up until a few years ago in NZ, casein plastics ( usually
>cross-linked using formaldehye - a technique that dates back
>to the 1890s ) were used as buttons on clothes. Even though
>residual formaldehyde levels were low, the increasing concerns
>about formaldehyde destroyed the market.
>
>        Bruce Hamilton



At this point I can comment again on an amusing article in Scientific
American last year in which they seriously suggested having plants
produce polymers which wouldn't biodegrade, so that their carbon
could go back into landfill and wouldn't exacerbate the CO2
greenhouse effect.

But plants already produce polymers that don't degrade in landfills:
cellulose. If you make your newspapers from hemp (to save the trees)
that problem is SOLVED automatically. 4 or 5 times more carbon goes
into landfill in newspapers than all the petroleum plastics combined.

I don't know if we'll ever be able to use hemp-cellulose to make
plastics as easily as petroleum plastics. I do know that the issue of
the carbon cycle is a non-starter. We can fix this by simply doing
nothing but make newspapers out of hemp, and them doing what we
already do with them. The petroleum plastic stuff is pissing in the
ocean compared with what we do with the rest of petroleum. So let it
alone until we've solved our other problems. Making non-biodegradable
plastics in corn to replace the carbon we didn't bury because we
started recycling newspapers is so funny it's painful.

And by the way, if non-greenhouse bio energy is what you're looking
for, nuclear is what you want. If you must have biomass, hemp biomass
is THE biomass.

SBH

From: Steven B. Harris <sbharris@ix.netcom.com@ix.netcom.com>
Newsgroups: sci.med
Subject: Re: PRODUCING PLASTICS FROM PLANTS
Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2001 03:52:45 GMT

In article <3a9e70bc.4046158478@Newshost.comnet.co.nz>,
	B.Hamilton@irl.cri.nz (Bruce Hamilton) wrote:
>>Up until a few years ago in NZ, casein plastics ( usually
>cross-linked using formaldehye - a technique that dates back
>to the 1890s ) were used as buttons on clothes. Even though
>residual formaldehyde levels were low, the increasing concerns
>about formaldehyde destroyed the market.
>
>        Bruce Hamilton


Mortician/embalmers have been looked at closely for formaldehyde
effects, and they don't have more cancers. They practically bathe in
the stuff. I'm sure you get more formaldehyde drinking a glass of
tomato juice (several mg) than sniffing your casein-buttons all day.
New Zealanders must either have some pretty weird perversions, or
just be scientifically stoooopid.