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Cork is displacing plastics and creating a billion-dollar industry
- hbarka 3y agoCurious if rubber trees have faced a similar arc of farming challenges.
- andrewl 3y agoNow cork is experiencing a revival as more industries look for sustainable alternatives to plastic and other materials derived from fossil fuels. ... The cork oak’s thick bark adapted to defend the tree from fire, making it a powerful insulating material that’s been used to shield fuel tanks on NASA spacecraft and electric car batteries. ... Several studies found that cork is carbon negative, meaning it can store more carbon than what is required to produce it.
- etskinner 3y agoCarbon negative seems like a misnomer, since all of the carbon that a tree absorbs literally becomes a part of its mass. Since mass is conserved (mass can't come from nowhere, and it can't be destroyed), how is it possible for the trees to store more carbon than what is required to produce them?
- klysm 3y agoAtmospheric carbon negative
- kylehotchkiss 3y agoDo Birkenstocks get credit for this? Cork makes such comfortable and durable shoes.
- _giorgio_ 3y agoSmelly, horrible, oily. I look away each time I see someone wearing them.
- yulker 3y agoGood, avert your eyes. We must only behold beautiful things.
- _giorgio_ 3y ago[flagged]
- laeri 3y agoThe shoes are none of that. They are great :)
- iancmceachern 3y agoYou're missing out on meeting a lot of great people. Some of the most iconic thinkers of our collective history have seemingly offended you with their footwear. What else have you been missing out on in life due to undue judgement?
- _giorgio_ 3y agoLOL, are you crazy? You're unable to discuss this, so you just move to topic to another level, without giving any reference. You just keep it vague.
- iancmceachern 3y agoWhat would you like to discuss about it?
- _giorgio_ 3y agoYou're out of your mind. I talk about shoes, you talk about your attitude.
- WithinReason 3y agoYou mean carbon credits?
- ominous_prime 3y agoCork has always been used is lots of shoe footbeds, Birkenstock just makes it visible.
- Ekaros 3y agoDoes anyone else remember there being stories in past about increased cork production being unsustainable as in not enough availability and quality was getting lower? Or am I remembering wrong.
- collegeburner 3y agovery similar arc to "plastic bags are bad, save the trees!" -> "plastic is bad, paper is renewable!"
- neltnerb 3y ago> very similar arc to "plastic bags are bad, save the trees!" -> "plastic is bad, paper is renewable!" Over four decades, environmentalists have simply won the discussion. 99% of paper products made in the US are made using farmed wood. Now paper is renewable enough that I don't worry about putting it in the trash (since I know we have an incinerator). Still uses petrochemicals for harvesting and processing, there's definitely a risk that certain kinds of tree farms are counterproductive. I don't think that's ever really broadly been the case though, it sounds like a whitepaper released by a thinktank funded by a plastic company to me. Those often get repackaged into low effort local news, it's not surprising that people get so confused.
- h0l0cube 3y agoBut also environmentalists aren't the ones pushing for paper straws, it's mostly greenwashing by large corps and governments. Though from a conservation perspective, less plastic waste is probably a good thing for waterways and the life that depends on them (including us).
- neltnerb 3y agoI suppose they are, in the sense that I would wave a magic wand that replaced plastic in all applications where it was not being used as a critical material with a more expensive but more sustainable alternative. Straws I guess get wrapped up in that, though I'd sooner just not use a straw and don't see why that's not the default. Seems strange to me that adult humans want a goofy plastic tube in order to make drinking liquid enjoyable enough. To me the bigger issues are single use plastic cups and bottles, to which I say elimination and alternatives like water bottles and aluminum cans, paper cups, aluminum cups (did you know you can buy aluminum solo cups?), and glassware can really meet almost every need. It's a matter of volume and pollution versus real net utility versus the technology they replace. There's some advanced plastics and things for packaging that are cool, but they don't need to be on every single thing.
- _giorgio_ 3y agohttps://archive.is/C5nPn https://archive.is/C5nPn
- neonate 3y agohttp://web.archive.org/web/20240203182221/https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/02/03/cork-sustainable-material/ http://web.archive.org/web/20240203182221/https://www.washin...
- Nifty3929 3y agoThere are always niche alternatives to anything, here and there. But unless we're talking about a new technology or some other fundamental change in circumstances, they are alternatives rather than the primary choice for a reason. Cork has a little overlap with a few plastic use-cases, but only slightly. It requires far more effort to produce than a plastic equivalent, and is simply not suited to most use cases. I do look forward to some cork alternatives to plastic where it makes sense. But I hardly expect it to make any meaningful difference to overall plastic use.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoIf you start outlawing plastics due to their harm, the alternative becomes the primary choice. I don’t think we need to argue plastic incurred harm, it should be obvious.
- morpheos137 3y agoIf the harm of outlawing a useful product exceeds the harm done by that product then even greater harm is done through the prohibition. Plastics are ESSENTIAL for everything from medical devices, electrical insulation, to pipes. There are simply no alternatives. We are not going to replace PE or PVC jacketing for wires with cork.
- toomuchtodo 3y agoAnd yet, the EPA is working towards restricting the use of or potentially outlawing vinyl chloride, a key ingredient in PVC. Nothing is impossible, and essential might be relative, depending on use case. Of course, cork isn’t the solution to all plastic use cases, just a potential replacement in some use cases. Like phasing out combustion vehicles, you have to signal that you’re forcing the sunset of the material so alternatives are identified and supply chains can reconfigure accordingly. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2023/12/14/epa-begins-process-to-potentially-ban-vinyl-chloride-used-in-pvc/71923363007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2023/12/1...
- scythe 3y agoThe article is heavy on cork production, light on use cases. >“Compared with materials like polyurethane foam [used for thermal insulation], products made with cork require less energy and produce less CO2 emissions.” Polyurethane foam is used for thermal insulation in a few places. But fiberglass is still the champion of that sector, and it's older than plastic and more durable and abundant than cork. More often, polyurethane is used for couch cushions, cheap mattresses, and shoes, which are difficult use-cases for cork — Birkenstocks have a cult following but poor water resistance. >used to shield fuel tanks on NASA spacecraft and electric car batteries. And this about wraps it up. There are probably some good use cases for cork, but the major advantage of plastic is the ability to do so much with so little. An LDPE bag of the sort now banned in California weighs about six grams. I can't think of many things you could do with six grams of cork that don't involve grapes.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lh7777 3y agoI wouldn't write off cork as insulation so easily -- fluffy insulation (fiberglass and cellulose) doesn't cover every scenario. For example, Washington State's energy code now requires continuous exterior insulation. Putting a continuous layer of rigid insulation on the outside of the building reduces heat loss due to thermal bridging (conduction through the studs). The most common material for this purpose, in the US anyway, is foam (polystyrene or polyisocyanurate). Other options are mineral wool, fiberboard, and cork. Mineral wool and fiberboard are pretty expensive compared to foam and I imagine that cork would be similar or even more expensive. But a cool thing about cork is that it can double as both insulation and cladding. I don't know if that makes it an economical choice, but someone's marketing cork for this purpose right here in Washington [1]. [1] https://www.smallplanetsupply.com/thermacork https://www.smallplanetsupply.com/thermacork Edit: fixed a typo
- Log_out_ 3y agoStupid question : trees are effectively corals, pumping sugar from air with light and getting water + trace minerals from the ground. Wood/cork is basically the dead mmtisdue extruded by the living outer layer. What would it take to "unfold" something like a tree into a continously harvest able square with leaves and hydroponic roots still attached?
- iancmceachern 3y agoFruit, nut and cork trees are all perfect examples of what you are looking for
- zemvpferreira 3y agoI once commented that HN is the most wonderfully diverse ecosystem and here's my chance to prove myself right! I'm a cork 'farmer' in Coruche, right where this article is situated. I wasn't expecting to read a puff piece about it today. I just did my novennial harvest last year. For anyone not in the know, cork is the cork trees' bark, and it's stripped from the tree without harming it every nine years. Undressing the tree is properly medieval work and you need to be very skilled with a hatchet to do it. Do a poor job and you'll ruin the cork and scar the tree for decades. The harvest is tough work but it's the only well-paid trade left in agriculture. I doubt it has much future beyond fodder for high peasant magazine articles. Trees are dying left and right from multiple climate-related problems no one has a handle on. Divestment from the traditional montado like mine into intensive production units with better water management and automated extraction is the likely future. The billion-dollar outfits have started experiments with high-density groves, inspired by the olive oil industry's success. It's a finicky tree though, so conclusive results are taking a few decades more than you'd expect to materialise. They're stuck having to buy cork from thousands of traditionalist family farms for now. But that's assuming the industry even grows enough to justify the investment into better plantations. Legitimate uses for the stuff apart from wine corks are scarce. We're all hoping that our phenomenal ecological footprint will see us grow as an industry into everything from insulation and roofing to shopping bags and umbrellas (hence said puff piece I imagine). We'll see, it really is a phenomenal material and the carbon math makes sense at the source. You can almost see the tree sucking out stuff from the air and soil to build thicker layers of bark. I joke that we've been doing regenerative farming for generations, we just didn't know it until someone told us. If anyone on HN is ever in Portugal and wants to visit a montado, happy to take y'all on the most boring tour of your life. But we can have a nice picnic! It's lovely country.
- hedora 3y ago> Legitimate uses for the stuff apart from wine corks are scarce What about cork flooring?
- zemvpferreira 3y agoIf you mean the old-school cork flooring made up of glue-on squares, it's great stuff. I have it and love it to bits. I don't think more than a dozen people per year worldwide install it at this point :) I hope it comes back into fashion. The newer multi-layer flooring is indistinguishable from plastic flooring. No point to it.
- ourmandave 3y agoThe global plastic market was $609B in 2022 and only growing. https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/global-plastics-market https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/global-p... Gotta start somewhere I guess.
- tortoise_in 3y agoSo another way to do deforestation! Can't there be something made by recycling or leafs?
- oh_sigh 3y agoYou don't kill the tree when you harvest cork. You come back later and harvest more cork from the same tree.
- Proven 3y ago[dead]
- seanhunter 3y agoWeirdly I was talking to a building surveyor recently about how there are new building insulation products coming out made out of cork[1] and some made out of mycelium (fungus)[2]. So instead of insulating your walls using something like polystyrene which is pretty gross to work with (produces a lot of nasty polystyrene dust when you sand it down etc) you can have a lovely natural product that is sustainable and also has similar thermal and (istr better) flame-retardant properties. [1] https://www.corkstore24.co.uk/shop/11-thermal-and-sound-insulation-expanded-cork-boards/ https://www.corkstore24.co.uk/shop/11-thermal-and-sound-insu... is the sort of thing I guess he was talking about [2] https://ukgbc.org/resources/mycelium-insulation/ https://ukgbc.org/resources/mycelium-insulation/ website seems to lean into the idea that this is basically mushrooms which seems a bit weird but whatever
- jkmcf 3y agoI was wondering how frequently cork can be harvested from a tree: 9 years Also, it sounds like the CO2 extraction is increased in order to regrow the bark. https://corkhouse.com/blogs/blog/the-cork-bark-lifecycle https://corkhouse.com/blogs/blog/the-cork-bark-lifecycle