Coming Soon: Plastic Made of Animals.

This one has me scratching my head. 

Researchers at Clemson University have developed a new type of partially biodegradable plastic made from a mixture of polythene and the pulverized bones and meat from the factory farm industry.  

Although not quite as durable as 100% petroleum based plastics, bone meal plastic would be more environmentally friendly and save room in landfills. The animal industry currently produces 9 million pounds of leftover animal parts, much of which are ground up and sold to fertilizer companies.  The parts that aren’t sold are put into landfills.  By turning these parts into plastic, we could prevent them from being thrown away and make them into useful items like snowboards!

Bone meal is vessel that transmits mad-cow disease so some are a little fearful of idea of a bone meal water bottle.  That’s why the first products made from the stuff will most likely be snowboards and other non-food related items. Researchers say the process of sterilization the remains go through kills diseases and makes the plastic sanitary and safe but I doubt anyone wants to eat off it.

The whole idea of animal bone plastic is a little unsettling. I can’t imagine anyone getting too excited about a bone meal spork, iPad, or even snowboard for that matter.