Hello BESTers,
Thanks to fellow BESTer, Kathleen Pagan, for passing this article
along. It's a nice tie-in to the article I sent a couple weeks ago in
which UW-Osh Kosh is researching biodegradable plastics in anaerobic
digesters. In this article, researchers in the USDA Agricultural
Research Service, in partnership with Washington State University, are
studying the potential of using sugar beet pulp, leftover from
processing sugar beets, for manufacturing bioplastics. Although
bioplastics, typically made from polylactic acid (PLA), are derived from
plant based feedstocks, such as corn or sugarcane, they are not
typically made from waste products. These researchers have been able to
produce analogous bioplastics using waste beet pulp both with and
without PLA. If partnered with the research at UW-Osh Kosh, we could
one day see food waste sent to anaerobic digesters collected in
bioplastic bags produced from food waste.
Have a great weekend,
Ryan
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/jan13/pulp0113.htm
New Uses for Sugar Beet Pulp
USDA Agricultural Research Service News
Rosarie Marion Bliss
January 8, 2013
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