What materials are used to make biodegradable packaging?
SC: Bio-plastics are made from the high-energy starch portion of the plant. This is the food source. For these items, the food source issue is real and debatable. The crux of this debate should be started with food crops for energy, as I’ve been told that over 90 percent of the non-food grown corn in the world is currently going to Ethanol production—leaving less than 10 percent for packaging and every other non-food use combined. Our [company’s] sugarcane products are made from an agricultural by-product. The primary product of sugarcane is the production of sugar. At the sugar refinery that supplies our fibre, the refinery takes raw sugarcane and produces sugar, ethanol, molasses and cane fibre in a process termed “industrial symbiosis.” Once the sugar is extracted, the mulched cane fibre is dried and bundled like hay and shipped to the local paper mill. At the paper mill (which used to mill only trees and now has a section dedicated only to sugarcane), the fibre is cleaned and bleac
