Panasonic To Develop Green Home Appliances Made From Plants (nikkei.com) 48
AmiMoJo writes: Panasonic will adopt a plant-derived plastic for refrigerators, vacuum cleaners and other home appliances within a few years. The Japanese electronics maker has developed a plastic that is comprised of 55% cellulose fibers and is durable enough to be used for its products. Cellulose is an insoluble substance obtained from the bark, wood or leaves of plants, or from other plant-based material. Panasonic says resin material with more than 50% of plant content is rarely used for commercial purposes. Because plant fibers are soft, molding the material into appliance parts had been a challenge. Panasonic tapped its expertise in battery development to increase plant content without compromising its strength.
Wow! (Score:3, Funny)
Doesn't get any more hipster than having a coffee maker made of coffee!
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"Doesn't get any more hipster than having a coffee maker made of coffee!"
Now imagine a coffee table book about coffee tables that is itself also a small coffee table with your coffee maker made of coffee on it.
Too bad I only drink tea.
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Will I need to water them? (Score:3)
Difference in material, difference in design (Score:3)
So you make the internals of the product stronger, as you make the exterior weaker. Obviously it wasn't an issue for Ford's prototype car with a composite body because vehicles were all full-frame back then, and the body wasn't load-bearing. It sucks when the good parts of something are made out of plastic anyway. I've got a Poulan Pro string trimmer with a clutch... built into the plastic housing. It's a great machine with great parts availability, but one day that front housing will warp, or offgas to brittleness and crack, and then I'll have to chuck the whole thing in the bin because that part will almost certainly be discontinued by then.
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Yep, I'm using gasohol, although my 2-stroke oil is supposed to have fuel stabilizer in it that's supposed to mitigate the ethanol problems. The trimmer doesn't idle well this year, although I over-revved it for almost a second (I'm usually quicker than that to let off the throttle) and now it tries harder. I could adjust it, but I haven't been able to find my magical poulan spline screwdriver. So I'd have to take it apart and dremel a slot in the ass end of the needle.
The one cheapass thing about this trim
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It's a great machine with great parts availability, but one day that front housing will warp, or offgas to brittleness and crack, and then I'll have to chuck the whole thing in the bin because that part will almost certainly be discontinued by then.
Why don't you buy one while they're still available and store it until it's needed? I've stockpiled parts for things in the past. If not, they get expensive once they are no longer made. I couldn't tell you how many times I've learned the hard way that the replacement for an entire piece of equipment is inferior to what it replaces.
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That's great if it warps or breaks, but if it off-gasses its plasticizers or becomes brittle due to some other reaction, the spare part may develop the same problem on the shelf. That could happen even if the poster is able to buy the replacement at the time it's needed.
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I own a outdoor power dealership and service that and many other brands. I've never seen the mode of failure you describe on a trimmer. On chain saws you can get the clutch red hot if you go bananas, and people do. That will melt the surrounding plastic. But not on a trimmer... at least not on the hundreds I've repaired.
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"It's a great machine with great parts availability, but one day that front housing will warp, or offgas to brittleness and crack, and then I'll have to chuck the whole thing in the bin because that part will almost certainly be discontinued by then."
That is the idea and the secret behind why so many products for the rich are of antiquated design. Rich people buy assets, things that provide value while you own them. Poor people buy liabilities which is anything that costs you money/value while you own them.
I hope it's not tasty (Score:3)
Reading this made me wonder if it could have unwanted side effects, like soy-based wire insulation:
https://www.caranddriver.com/n... [caranddriver.com]
https://www.thedrive.com/news/... [thedrive.com]
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Nope, no unintended side-effects. No Panasonic device will be decompose in the user's hands ... because they will have been thrown onto a scrap heap for breaking in other ways before they get to their first birthday.
It's sad to see a once quality company like this. But these days I can't hold them in any higher regard than a noname Chinese company. Not everything from Japan comes with the sweet smell of quality.
Cellulose is also film! (Score:2)
And burns really nicely. I think inglorius bastards made this a plot point.
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Stupid - wrong target (Score:5, Insightful)
This is misguided at best. We don't need to worry about durable goods made from oil-based plastics. How often do people buy a new fridge or vacuum cleaner? Maybe several in a lifetime? The real problem is all the temporary plastic packaging or other plastics that gets thrown away, and in some cases, washed down the drain, ending up in the oceans.
This is the same thing that's leading the Lego corp to waste millions looking for alternatives when no one throws Lego bricks away in the first place. They'd do far, far more good trying to figure out how to make plant-based packaging that bio-degraded nicely instead of lasting so long in our landfills.
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This is misguided at best. We don't need to worry about durable goods...
Well, now we do. If automotive sector is of any indication - this will lead to material failures within 2-3 years of heavy use.
Maybe several in a lifetime?
Making existing appliances last much longer is the right approach to reducing environmental impact. For example, legislate 10 year warranty on all appliances sold after 2025.
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We don't need to worry about durable goods made from oil-based plastics.
We're not talking about durable goods from oil-based plastics. We're talking about Panasonic products.
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You're right. Unfortunately, Japanese companies have lost their edge when it comes to innovation. This is a prime example of a very safe and conservative incremental improvement to a problem that doesn't exist. It plays into the concept of ECO (pronounced "echo" in Japanese) that is seen as a reasonable marketing justification in Japan for almost anything in consumer electronics. I grew up with companies like Sony and others coming out with leading consumer electronics tech in the 80s and I went to work in
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They'd do far, far more good trying to figure out how to make plant-based packaging that bio-degraded nicely instead of lasting so long in our landfills
I've seen a lot of companies over the years that seemed to have solved those issues :
https://www.weforum.org/agenda... [weforum.org]
"A company in Indonesia has created a plastic bag so eco-friendly you can eat it. It’s made out of cassava, the vegetable root which is a staple in the diets of many in Africa, Latin America and Asia, but which can also be used in manufacturing."
Soo... (Score:2)
Presumably this is being done because plastic doesn't decompose and this will? How long will it take my appliances to rot? Hopefully something like 50 years?
Old news (Score:2)
" plant-derived plastic for refrigerators"
My favorite bar still has one of these, a 100-year-old Frigidaire with a compressor in the next room, the 'plastic' is called 'wood' and it's 100% plant not only 50%.
when there is nothing to eat in the refrigerator (Score:2)
Better Still... (Score:2)
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Most of this stuff CAN be fixed, even substituting a part is usually just a matter of making up some new lines, splicing connectors, etc. But it's cheaper to just buy a new one, and there's little that can be done to change that when it comes to refrigeration systems or the like. People often do fix vacuum cleaners, because they're easy.
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And, how much (environmental) "cost" was involved in the new one's manufacture that is NOT reflected in the price--I have not seen this discussion settled anywhere.
Lastly, things are being made cheaper/more poorly over the decades; this makes sense for a market's perspecti
We're already there. (Score:2)
The great majority of plastic materials are made from hydrocarbons, which were (mostly) plants.
WOOD! (Score:2)
It is the newest High Tech Thing WOOD!
IT EVEN GROWS ON TREES!
Or . . . metal? (Score:2)
Here's a crazy idea: METAL! Yes! METAL! I know this sounds crazy, but you can make things out of metal. It's sturdy and recyclable! You can even use recycled metal over and over! It's like a glass bottle! Wow!!!