October 29, 2004

False Ideas and Thoughtless Activists

From Back40 comes this example of a "Great Shiny New Thing" that will fix one aspect of the current environmental woes -- only it ain't so... bq. Ersatz Green Here's an example of the false ideas coming from thoughtless activists.
For those who haven't already heard of PLA, it is basically a replacement for polyester that's made from corn. It means compostable plastic packaging, and is also used to make "Ingeo" cloth, but is not structurally sound enough to make "durable goods" with. One downside is that it's made from corn kernels, not husk or stalk, so growing for plastic competes with growing for food instead of taking a waste stream. However, it's a great material, a huge step in the right direction, and hopefully its success will continue to grow.
bq. There is no such thing as maize waste. Every bit of it is food for some creature. Farmers chop the whole plant up for silage; seed, cob, leaves and stems are all livestock feed. bq. Even worse, it's a net cost to the environment to use maize as an industrial packaging and the cost would reflect that if not for massive subsidies. It takes so much energy to cultivate, fertilize, harvest and transport maize that it uses more fossil fuel to make than it produces in alternatives. When the environmental costs of soil degradation, erosion and water use are factored in it doesn't make any environmental sense at all. bq. The only way it makes sense to use plant materials for industrial materials is if they come from perennial plants that don't need annual cultivation and are inedible except by fungi. That means woody material high in lignin that even ruminants can't digest; even termites need fungi to digest lignin for them. Also his comments on Buddy Cat are worth reading. Life is hard but a good friend can make it a lot better... Critters is friends too... Posted by DaveH at October 29, 2004 9:05 PM