Currently, bioplastics remain a fraction of the $130 billion global plastics business and account for an estimated 5% or less of total annual plastics output. Much of that output is still used for short-use purposes, such as food packaging and disposable utensils.Hall...
First, they're made from a renewable resource. As long as farmers grow the crops these plastics are made out of, production can continue indefinitely. Second, food-based plastics are widely considered to be easier on the environment. For instance, they require much less energy to produce than...
Plastics are mainly produced from hydrocarbon-based feedstocks. While the production of bioplastics – which instead use feedstocks such as crops and biowaste – is growing, it still only accounts for about 1% of the global plastics market.2 The most obvious solution to the plastic...
Some bioplastics, such as PLA, are made from genetically modified corn. Some environmentalists consider GM (genetically modified) crops to be inherently harmful to the environment, though others disagree. Bioplastics and biodegradable plastics cannot be easily recycled. To most people, PLA looks very...
The development of new plastic products, produced from soybeans and other agricultural crops, is ongoing. Soy-based adhesives can reduce the use of formaldehyde, which is a cancer-causing pollutant. Products that use soy proteins or soy flour are an expanding market. While some products like soy...
Given their cheap cost and functional properties, plastics are deeply intertwined with UPFs, enabling these highly profitable business models, from farm to fork. On the farm, they support industrial agriculture to produce a handful of low-cost crops and animal-sourced ingredients such as maize, ...
Bacteria and fungi can produce plastics, as well as their constituent monomers, from renewable biomass, such as crops, agricultural residues, wood and organic waste. Bacteria and fungi can also degrade plastics. We review state-of-the-art microbial technologies for sustainable production and ...
It was a similar story at the time of Europe’s 1848 revolutions too, which followed the failure of potato crops in the 1840s and the associated severe famine in much of Europe. And the 1917 overthrow of the Tsarist regime in Russia took place in the context of food shortages as well....
例7. Insects would make it impossible for us to live in the world; they would devour all our crops and kill our flocks and herds, if it were not for the protection we get from insect-eating animals. 假如没有那些以昆虫为食的动物保护我们, 昆虫将吞噬我们所有的庄稼, 害死我们的牛羊家畜, ...
a bio-based plastic that is more expensive but also more versatile than PLA. The microbeads the two companies are developing are made by fermenting cornstarch, though they could also be made from non-food crops such as switchgrass. PHA microbeads will degrade into carbon dioxide and water in ...