Pepsi Moving To Bottles Made of Plant Material

Master Moose writes "Pepsi unveiled a new bottle yesterday made entirely of plant material. The bottle is made from switch grass, pine bark, corn husks and other materials. Ultimately, Pepsi plans to also use orange peels, oat hulls, potato scraps and other leftovers from its food business. 'This is the beginning of the end of petroleum-based plastics,' said Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defence Council and director of its waste management project. 'When you have a company of this size making a commitment to a plant-based plastic, the market is going to respond.'"

Re:Disposal

[RapmasterT]

Same as before. Yes. No.

The plastic is the same as it always was, the source material is all that's different. This is better marketing through sounds/feels good science, not through environmentalism. Hell, these bottles are going to use an order of magnitude more energy and other resources to produce than the old fashioned kind, so...yay?

Re:Will they be tossed everywhere now?

[proverbialcow]

Biodegradable since when? They're just weaning themselves off petroleum; the end product is exactly the same.

Its as disposable as PET?

[perpenso]

How do we dispose of them? Are they as recyclable as petroleum-based plastics? Also, are they biodegradable?

According to the article: "Pepsi says it is the world's first bottle of a common type of plastic called PET made entirely of plant materials." PET, Polyethylene terephthalate [wikipedia.org], made from petroleum or from food waste is still the same molecule. It should perform the same regardless of what it is made from.

Re:Just one problem...

[mattack2]

Are you old enough to remember the styrofoam clam-shells McDonalds sandwiches were served in? Those were just "evil" according to environmentalists. Except they kept you food warmer and could be recycled into all kinds of things.

[citation needed]

Styrofoam (which actually is AFAIK not technically what these were, and I don't mean brand-name-wise, but it's what people call that kind of foam) seems to be one of the HARDER things to recycle.. and food contaminated products (except for bottles & cans) seems to not be recyclable either.

While it's not foam, even pizza boxes for example can't be recycled because they're food contaminated.

(I've largely stopped buying TV dinners since I can't recycle the plastic trays.)