Growing Better Plastics
Cargill and Dow Chemical have jointly developed a new plastic from the carbon stored in plant sugars that is environmentally sustainable and competitive with conventional hydrocarbon-based polymers in terms of cost and performance. A new facility is scheduled to begin production of the material, called polylactide (PLA), by late 2001.
Corn is the current source of the polymer feedstock, and researchers are working to convert the process so that plant ...