I *think* there have been "plastic" grocery bags made of/with cornstarch
for years.... 
Umbra might disabuse me, but Industry has been working on making plastics
more degradable (no easy thing in the anaerobic setting of the landfill,
where even newspaper won't break down for generations) for a Long Time
Now.

The HEB grocery here takes back plastic bags for recycling (now to pack
'em up and take 'em there) tygress

On Wed, 18 Jun 2003 18:27:59 -0600 "Kestrel"
 writes:
> CONTAINMENT STRATEGY
> If you live in the Pacific Northwest and shop at one of the 11 Wild
> Oats grocery stores in the region, you may be buying your food in
> corntainers.  No, that's not a typo:  This month, Wild Oats Markets
> became the first food store chain in the country to use
> environmentally friendly packaging made of corn.  Most traditional
> food packaging is made from petroleum products; the corntainer is
> fossil-fuel-free (except for shipping and production processes, of
> course) and can be thrown in the compost right along with the
> leftovers of your portabello-and-sundried-tomato sandwich.
> Alternatively, consumers can return the packaging to Wild Oats
> stores, where they are subsequently recycled into organic soil by 
> an
> Oregon company.  The company says people love the corntainer, and 
> it
> plans to begin using them at 77 stores nationwide by the fall.
> 
> straight to the source:  CNN.com, Reuters, 13 Jun 2003
> http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=1252>
> 
> only in Grist:  Foaming at the mouth -- sage advice on Styrofoam in 
> Ask
> Umbra
> http://www.gristmagazine.com/ask/ask020603.asp#styrofoam>
> 
> 
> 
> 


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"Is it true that drinking coffee will make you look old?"
"Maybe… if you drink it long enough …like until you're about ninety."
--Bud Blake

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