Bioplastics Aren't the Stretch They Once Seemed.(Brief Article)

Chemical Market Reporter, August, 2001 by Boswell, Clay

DuPont, Cargill Dow and Metabolix bring sustainability to plastics manufacture.

Plastics, like the petrochemicals used to make them, present two growing problems: dependence on a finite natural resource (crude oil) and persistence in the environment. As the American Plastics Council would point out, though, plastics are essential to our way of life. We therefore make do. But a compromise may not always be necessary. Bio-based plastics from DuPont, Cargill Dow, and Metabolix are addressing the problems of sustainability and pollution while maintaining and even improving our standard of living. Drawing on the latest tools of biotechnology, they are breathing new life into an older production model, whereby the chemical industry drew its raw materials from...

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