Plastics: 20th-Century Detour?

And we thought it was only good for July picnic grills and cooking derivatives:

The world's first environment-friendly optical discs made from corn will hit the market from December this year, a Japanese manufacturer has announced.

Officials of Sanyo Mavic Media Co., a subsidiary of electronics giant Sanyo Electric Co., said they have found a way to manufacture 10 high quality compact discs from a single corncob.

Named "MildDisc" by Sanyo Mavic, it is equal to conventional plastic optical discs in quality and produces no dioxin or other hazardous material when it is burnt. Moreover, MildDiscs can be degraded into the [soil harmlessly] by micro-organisms.


If this technique is adopted industry-wide, consider the benefits: farmers are given access to another market while the relative abundance of corn knocks record prices down even further than the latest Universal attempt at making nice with consumers. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, The Magic of CornTM could put to rest archaic subsidies and illegal file sharing in one agrarian-space-age stroke!

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