All those billions of plastic bottles you're drinking your designer water and energy drinks out of could be recycled into a biodegradable plastic that could replace the cellophane in food packaging, Science News reports. The trick is to heat the plastic so it breaks down into constituent parts, including an acid. Feed the acid to the right kind of microbes and they turn it into a new, biodegradable plastic.
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
By Catherine Richert, CQ Staff
Some call it a partisan re-branding, others call it genuine eco-friendliness. But no matter how you parse it, the Republican Party's efforts to host a "green" convention this week indicates the party has been doing some soul-searching when it comes to the environment.
"The Republican Party is the party of Theodore Roosevelt, who was the first to push conservation," said Melissa Subbotin, a spokeswoman for the organization that planned the 2008 Republican National Convention. "Republicans have a long history of environmental stewardship."
Democrats had been boasting that the Denver convention would be the "most sustainable" in the history of conventions, and in some ways they may have accomplished their goal. CNET News says there were certainly separate trash containers for recycling waste, including biodegradable drinking straws. On the other hand, there were plenty of SUVs idling while waiting to ferry delegates around, and recycling all those signs is going to take energy.
Web pick posted by Neil Savage, Xconomy.com
Click on the image to see a slideshow about the "Green" convention
If the biodegradable coffin business ever takes off, its executives can point to this year's Democratic convention as the brea kout moment.
The convention organizers' goal of making the gathering the greenest political hobnob in history has unleashed a wave of pitches and promotions surrounding organic foods, renewable fuels, carbon offsets and consumer goods made from recyclable materials.
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