Plastics You Could Eat - Recyling

Now some scientists are trying to do the same thing in potatoes so it's easier to harvest the PHB. It's quite a nice thought, plastic coming from fields of potatoes instead of from oil refineries. But scientists really are not yet sure about how easy it is to confine genetically modified plants in one area, or about the impact so much PHB would have on the environment. It's too early yet to risk growing PHB on a large scale outdoors.

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The future for PHB

There's a real need for biodegradable plastics. PHB has a myriad of potential uses and scientific interest has been steadily growing since it became easily available in the early eighties. Despite this, it seems its future is very uncertain.

In 1996 Monsanto bought all patents for making PHB from ICI/Zeneca. But Monsanto's fermenters producing PHB from bacteria were closed down at the start of last year. That doesn't mean that Monsanto had given up on PHB, quite the opposite -instead they had high hopes for producing PHB from plants instead of bacteria. But now with so much media attention on GM crops, there has been little news of Monsanto's plans for PHB.

All the scientists who've been working on PHB are hoping that Monsanto will keep producing the PHB that they need for their research. Whatever the future for PHB, I'm pretty sure this intriguing plastic will hit the news again in the not too distant future.

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