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- Monsanto makes
genetic engineering 'breakthrough' in
search for the ultimate
disposable and biodegradable substance of the future
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- It sounds like a classic April
fool joke: the prospect
of fields of plants growing plastic leaves and
seeds to turn into credit
cards, nappy liners or compact discs.
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- And the inventors of
this extraordinary new technology
are the company that
environmentalists love to hate - Monsanto.
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- The US-based multinational
yesterday claimed it could
all come true and that their genetically
modified plants could produce
the ultimate green product for the
throwaway society - a plastic that harmlessly
rots into the
ground.
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- The drawback is that it currently costs more than the
traditional oil-based plastic and it would take at least 10 years to put
it on the market.
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- The potential revolution in plant plastic was revealed
in a
research paper published by a team of 13 scientists working at Monsanto's
laboratories in St Louis, Missouri. They have successfully genetically
engineered oil seed rape and cress so that plants produce polymers which
can be turned into plastic.
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- Watching and waiting
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- The revelation in the
scientific journal Nature Biotechnology
sparked accusations from
critics of genetic modification that Monsanto
was trying to generate
positive spin for the controversial technology,
but the company itself
seems to have been caught on the hop. It says the
research is currently
"on the back burner" and no work is being
done while the
financial and commercial implications are considered.
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- The journal says that before
plastic was produced from
oil, many products were made from plants like
cotton and flax which have
similar properties but not the same
flexibility or durability. The Monsanto
scientists made the
breakthrough after developing earlier successes of
ICI, which 15 years
ago used bacteria in a fermentation process to make
plastic.
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- The problem was that
it was too expensive - about three
times as much per kilo as oil-based
plastic. It did have the advantage
of rotting on contact with soil but
at the time ICI decided the market
was "not ready".
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- The Monsanto
scientists hit on the idea of introducing
the gene that naturally
produced polymers in bacteria into plants to get
the plant to produce
the raw materialfor plastic in the same way.
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- Professor Yves Poitier from
Lausanne university in Switzerland
reviewed their work. "With the
growing awareness that petroleum is
a finite resource and that the
indestructibility of plastics can be, in
many cases, more of a nuisance
than a benefit, there has been growing interest
in producing
biodegradable plastics from renewable resources," he
said.
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- Disposable
solution
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- Although the plastic produced from plants was currently
too brittle, he regarded the genetically engineered technique as "a
breakthrough".
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- Dr Ken Gruys, leader of the Monsanto team, said:
"All
this is still at a very early stage. It may be a decade or
more to see
whether something like this does work out in the end. We
can do it but
there are many things that have to happen to really reach
the levels at
which this is meaningful from a commercial
standpoint."
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- He admitted he could not yet picture how the polymers
would be
extracted but said the process developed by ICI had indicated
products
plastics for cups and plates, golf tees, bottles, nappies, razor
blades
and credit cards could be made. "Basically we are talking about
disposables that could actually go into the compost and be biodegraded
within a year."
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- Monsanto's UK spokesman, Tony Combes, said the company
would be talking to "as many interested parties as possible"
but made clear no decisions had been reached on the future of the
work.
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- Next
week Robert Shapiro, Monsanto's chief executive,
will attend the
Greenpeace business conference in London. The company has
met
increasing resistance to its flagship product, genetically engineered
soya, which many supermarkets have refused to stock.
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- Greenpeace's Blake Lee Harwood
said: "If Monsanto
had started with plant plastic and GM sugar
beet that made you thin, witty
and attractive then they would not be in
such a difficult position. The
fact is their main GM products have no
consumer benefits and this looks
very like a PR exercise to hoodwink
the public in advance of Mr Shapiro's
visit."
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- Greenpeace's own non-GM, PVC
plastic credit card with
the Cooperative Bank is produced from a
Monsanto-owned process that uses
sugar syrup, minerals and organic
acids.
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- The by-product that became the century's most
versatile
material
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- Plastic is a by-product of oil and natural gas
production
worth £18bn a year to British industry
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- Plastic is produced
in oil from naphtha, a substance
which smells like old-fashioned
mothballs and which is put through a "steam
cracker" machine
to break it down into the basic atoms which form
plastic
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- Natural gas is
broken down in the same way to produce
ethylene and propylene
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- In 1909 Bakelite
became the first patented plastic.
Its potential was not immediately
recognised but poured into moulds it
could become any shape. In the
1920s it became fashionable and was widely
used for clock cases,
telephones and radios, toilet cisterns and seats
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- It was closely followed by
Cellophane, first patented
in 1910, which revolutionised the food
packaging industry. It was followed
by polythene in 1933
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- By the 1960s plastic
was a by-word for cheap and second
rate but the technology took off and
now around 5,000 companies make and
use plastics, especially hi-tech
industries
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- Simple, flexible plastics like polyethylene are used
for
supermarket plastic bags and harder ones like polypropylene for car
bumpers.
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Complex plastics have added chemicals for hardness,
are scratch
resistant and can be expensive to use - to make CDs for example
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- Plastic can be
lighter and stronger than steel. Some
cars are now 25% plastic and
nearly all dashboards and many engine parts
are hard engineered
plastic.
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