[abelardlindsay]

BLAIR, Neb. — He operates 90,000 feet of hissing pipes and dozens of enormous churning vats — an industrial jungle with a single, remarkable purpose: "Essentially," plant manager Bill Suehr says, "we've got corn coming in at one end and plastic coming out the other."
...
The end products — which include T-shirts, forks and coffins — look, feel and perform like traditional polyester and plastic made from a petroleum base. But the manufacturing process consumes 50% less fossil fuel, even after accounting for the fuel needed to plant and harvest the corn.


Article Link

[UIUCstudent01]

Also in the article...
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')ven if it takes off, biomanufacturing will never wean the nation entirely from oil.

Roughly 7% to 10% of the fossil fuel consumed in the U.S. is used to manufacture plastics and fibers, according to the
Department of Energy. If corn replaced petroleum in every factory, the nation would cut oil consumption by hundreds of millions of barrels a year — but would still require billions more for heat, power and fuel.

[Raxozanne]

They are doing this with hemp aswell. I remember I had an advertisement e-mail come through about it a few days back but I must have deleted it because it can't find it anymore.

[Doly]

I've seen this corn plastic in the shops. They were advertising some pens made with it.

[Dingbat]

My beef with all this is that you're basically using a food crop to make plastics, when peak oil hits and yields drop (no fertilizers or herbecides anymore right?), it'll be a choice between feeding people or making plastics. Not a good choice.

What I don't understand though is why we haven't started mining landfills yet.
We have literally megatons of plastics sitting in our landfills doing nothing (except watching the biodegradables sitting next to them rot).

- Yves

[Roop]

What I find amazing is how little of the plastic we use gets recycled. I know there are different grades of plastic but can't it all be recycled one way or another? Sure, we recycle things like plastic soda bottles, etc. But what about food packaging, cellophane, plastic bags, etc.? It seems like this may help to save some oil.

I've always been into recycling but I've become a recycling nut since finding out about Peak Oil.