plastic

In China, returning to greener preplastic shopping tech

Chinese authorities in January announced they would ban ultrathin plastic bags, and make customers pay for reusable canvas grocery bags, in an effort to reduce waste.

A Beijing Review article quotes a Hangzhou supermarket manager on the old days, when shopping didn't produce billions of bags worth of waste that will biodegrade only after 200 years, if at all.

"When I was a child, my mother always took me to the vegetable market with a bamboo basket. She put a bowl in the basket for holding bean curd. When we bought sugar powder or salt, the sellers would … Read more

Killing the oyster pack

It took about two decades for the packaging creature known as the "oyster" or "clamshell" to conquer the world of consumer electronics. But the hard-to-open casings of plastic considered by many to be toxic could start to disappear soon, according to some experts in packaging and design.

Although clamshells remain widespread, a small but growing number of companies are housing products in packages that are not only easier to open, but manufactured more efficiently with recycled or recyclable ingredients.

Oyster packaging forms what may seem like a hermetic seal around a wide array of goods, including … Read more

No tech cure for oceans 'damned' by plastic

Plastic contamination in the world's oceans is worse than previously imagined and no amount of technology can clean it up, according to Charles Moore. The oceanographer returned February 23 from a five-week odyssey in the Pacific Ocean with samples showing 48 parts plastic for every part of plankton.

"We are damned to a future of pollution by plastic," said Moore, who has spent more than a decade investigating Pacific plastic pollution. "There's no evidence it will end in a millennium."

A plastic "graveyard" double the size of Texas swirls in the Pacific … Read more

Plastic bags built to be yesterday's news

The Gray Lady may someday arrive at your doorstep inside a "green" plastic bag.

A company that makes delivery bags for The New York Times and other major newspapers has designed a plastic bag to biodegrade within three months.

GP Plastics' PolyGreen bags are made with fossil fuels, as are their traditional polyethylene counterparts.

However, a chemical added during manufacturing enables the plastic to be digested by microorganisms. The bags are supposed to disintegrate within a few months outdoors or three years in a landfill when exposed to oxygen and ultraviolet light, leaving behind little but water, carbon … Read more

HP mixes plastic bottles, other materials into ink cartridges

Hewlett-Packard says it has begun to manufacture ink cartridges with some of the stuff in your home recycling bin.

The multi-resin process, devised by HP and chemistry specialists Lavergne Group and Butler-McDonald, essentially allows HP to mix in plastic from discarded printer cartridges with lower-grade plastics used in objects like Mountain Dew bottles or Night Ranger CD cases. Broadening the type of plastics that can be used increases the amount of recycled materials HP ultimately puts into new products. (The metals inside printer cartridges, meanwhile, get recycled too.)

So far, HP has manufactured more than 200 million cartridges with plastic … Read more

Can 'Budclicks' become the next 'Jibbitz'?

At first glance these "Budclicks" might just seem like the latest gimmick to customize your earbuds, an accessory to an accessory. But lest you write them off, consider the history of the "Jibbitz," the wildly popular doodads that kids love to stick on their Crocs.

That idea was started by a stay-at-home mom, who created the decorations with her three children in the basement of their Colorado house--before selling her business to Crocs Inc. for $10 million. Budclicks, as far as we can tell, is essentially the same thing for earphones, at $10 to $15 a … Read more

China: You would not like a bag with that

It's a fact of life in China that just about anything comes in a little plastic bag. That's all about to change: In what all reports are calling a surprise move, the central government has banned (translated) ultra-thin plastic bags and will require regular bags to be sold with a clearly marked price starting June 1.

This demonstrates the way the government can simply declare an end to a technology for environmental reasons, even a 1950s technology like plastic bags. Whether enforcement will actually end plastic bags is not something I care to guess about.

The key here … Read more

Start-up Novomer uses CO2 to make biodegradable plastics

Update: the headline was changed to reflect that Novomer's process does not start with plant material and so does not produce a bioplastic.

Novomer, a Cornell University spin-off, has devised a method for making biodegradable plastics from the common gases carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide.

The company on Wednesday announced that Physic Ventures and Flagship Ventures have invested $6.6 million, which Novomer will use to commercialize its technology.

The plastics it intends to make could be used in a wide range of applications, including supermarket packaging, computer cases, plastic bottles, or foam to insulate buildings, said Novomer president … Read more

Garbage turned into backyard fencing by FiberTech

DAVIS, Calif.--It's like the Sanford and Son of green tech companies.

FiberTech Polymers takes old corrugated cardboard, plastic and other materials that don't make it to the recycler and turns it all into outdoor fencing, CEO Steven Mortensen told the audience at the GoingGreen conference taking place here this week. You can make other stuff out of it, too.

"We take this rejected material and turn it into a product," he said. "Our products will not rot, splinter or fade to gray...That's why you don't want it in landfills."

The … Read more