Author: seabreeze
Date: 2018-02-20 00:15
Plastics derived from plant rather than petroleum sources are sure to be an intrinsic part of any future society dedicated to environmental health and rational approaches to sustainability. Henry Ford was on the right track when he made his car from soybean-based polymers (though his motivations may not parallel those of ecologists today). But the overriding concern in the "green chemistry" field of plant-derived plastics is to put the polymers back into the cycles of decomposition provided by nature. Now, when plastic are discarded, they wind up lasting for geologic time spans in landfills and oceans and other places where they either do no good or create much pollution mischief. Plant plastics would behave more like plants themselves and simply decompose back into their constituent elements when buried in the soil, just as paper, cardboard, grass clippings, watermelon rinds, chipped tree bark and branches, and other plant refuse does.
Plant plastics would be susceptible to change by bacterial action, natural weathering, oxidation and other natural forces of decomposition. But who wants to compost their clarinet to provide nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous for their garden? We want musical instruments to last, to be somewhat immutable rather than mutable in resisting the forces of nature.
Considering how diverse the plastics industry is--some plastics even have thermal properties that can resist very high temperatures, certainly some niche could be found that uses plant input to make a long lasting "natural" plastic for musical instruments. But then the question arises, "look, we've derived this plastic entirely from benign plant sources, but since we made it long-lasting, will it not become the same non-decomposing environmental hazard as traditional plastic when it is time to discard it?
Quite a nice challenge for just the right chemists and chemical engineers to work on-- not exactly child's play.
Post Edited (2018-02-20 03:04)
|
|
The Clarinet BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
