Italian company makes plastic from sugar beet waste

A by-product of sugar beet production could prove a boon to the environment while reducing the world’s dependence on oil-based plastics. A small Italian company represents one of the newest advances in bio-plastics.

An enormous factory for Co.Pro.B, Italy’s largest sugar producer, sits on the outskirts of the small northern town Minerbio. But it’s not the sugar that Bio-on, a small company with its offices near the factory, is interested in – it’s the sugar beet molasses that leaves the plant as trash.

… Full text: www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15438369,00.html

Keywords: polyethylene, polystyrene, polypropylene, bacteria, lactid acid, biodegradable plastics