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Soy plastics?

Is more soy and less petroleum a good thing?

By Culinate staff

December 4, 2009

Ever heard of Renuva? Probably not, since it’s brand-new. As Allison Arieff pointed out last month in the New York Times, the stuff is an alternative to polyurethane, made from soy instead of petroleum. OK, it’s made by Dow, the chemicals megacorporation, but still, the idea to replace a fossil-fuel product with a food-derived substance is interesting — and raises issues of its own, as commenters on Arieff’s piece were quick to point out. Given the planet’s problems with hunger, deforestation (in part due to soybean farms), and the unknowns circling around GMO crops, is using food to make non-food really such a good idea?

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Tags

chemicals,
global,
plastics,
soy,
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1. by OpusOne on Dec 4, 2009 at 10:19 AM PST

Fascinating... yet another attempt to grow food that is not to be use to feed people. It has always seemed to me the right answer always should start with how to consume less, not consumer more via shifting the resource issue. Have people already forgotten the bio-fuel results?

2. by Laura Parisi on Dec 4, 2009 at 10:55 AM PST

Agreed -- sounds like biofuels all over again.

3. by OpusOne on Dec 4, 2009 at 11:12 AM PST

Don’t get me wrong, I do think that there is a very small segment of biofuels that might make sense — bi-product biofuels perhaps — but, growing the primary crop as fuel seems just nuts!

4. by Heather Christensen on Dec 4, 2009 at 12:12 PM PST

Recently Anchorage discontinued glass recycling. After a few months of wincing every time I threw out a jar, it occurred to me that these jars were “free” storage containers. We all need to learn (or re-learn) the skills of using what we already have.

5. by Deborah Madison on Dec 7, 2009 at 10:13 AM PST

Just a bit of perspective, when I was about 10, which was way too long ago, I was in a movie that was intended to demonstrate the many uses of soy. My part was to paint a chair with soy-based paint. I don’t believe that soy was once mentioned as a possible source of food. I’m not saying it’s good or bad, but it is possible that plants can have more than one use and that not all varieties of soy are suitable for food. Aren’t we happy about soy-based inks?
Corn for bio-fuel, though, is something else again

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