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Grapevine canes can be converted into plastic-like material that will decompose
- AfterHIA 1y agoThis is why I'm constantly asking: why aren't we planting vineyards in the Wasatch Front? Silicon Slopes didn't work out but can we at least farm some effing grapes?
- kulahan 1y agoDespite there being many great breweries in that region, most people shy away (initially) from a state run by a prohibition-style religion. Probably illogical, but definitely real in my experience.
- wyre 1y agoI don’t know SLC very well but I’d guess it’s a combination of water consumption, and a bad value:land ratio because the wine won’t be good.
- AfterHIA 1y agoIt was a rhetorical question.
- PaulHoule 1y agoI don't think there are good or bad wine growing regions as much as there are places where people have figured out how to make good wines. The Finger Lakes had a bad reputation once but people figured out Rieslings and some more affordable whites that reputation changed. More recently it was famous for soda-pop sweet wines like Red Cat but I've had some dry reds lately that weren't as bad as what I had 20 years ago. People are making progress in Utah too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_wine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_wine
- Modified3019 1y agoHere in Oregon, vineyards and especially hop yards are being taken out, demand for alcohol overall is down, and same goes for the related tourism.
- quotemstr 1y ago> grapevine The headline is practically a demonic summoning ritual for the naturalistic fallacy. The article is talking about cellulose. We've had cellulose forever. Cellulose is dirt cheap. We are a post-cellulose-scarcity civilization. Extracting it from grapevines ought to be mocked as our century's version of bringing coal to Newcastle. There's a reason we don't use cellulose packaging for everything and it has nothing to do with grapes. Hint: moisture exists in the world. Biodegrading in 17 days usually means that it breaks down a lot sooner in conditions we care about. > Funding for this research was provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the National Science Foundation. What useful research could we have funded instead?
- foota 1y agoSo... what's the reason? :)
- quotemstr 1y agoWe don't have a good mechanism for waterproofing cellulose without various complicated industrial processes. Finding a way to do that would be interesting research. But anything involving grapeviles is just ecomasturbation. Actually, no, it's worse, because it robs attention and funding from real problems. Plastic pollution isn't predominately plastic bags or (plastic straws for that matter) that seem important because the sort of person who writes articles on a laptop for online publication encounters them daily and doesn't see the stream of untreated industrial waste mostly from the big rivers in Asia. IMHO, the best investment in mitigation of plastic pollution would be automatic cleanup mechanisms, especially for microplastics in the ocean.
- hedora 1y agoIn fairness, those industrial waste streams are mostly produced by “recycling” facilities for consumer waste. The whole plastic straw thing is nuts. The old waxed paper straws were fine. The new “paper” straws are coated in PFAS and way worse for your health and the environment than most alternatives. This article reminds me of that. Cellulose isn’t a new technology, but, like wax paper straws, it’s apparently forgotten arcane knowledge.
- cmrdporcupine 1y agoVitis riparia (wild grapevine endemic to the whole eastern side of North America, grows like a weed all over extremely disease resistant and cold hardy) and hybrids with it also produce gum arabic from their spring pruning wounds: https://agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov/2015/dec/grape/ https://agresearchmag.ars.usda.gov/2015/dec/grape/ Combined with the high sugars in the fruit and this cellulose things, overall an extremely useful plant.
- johnofthesea 1y agoIt is also used as grafted rootstock for Vitis vinifera in majority of vineyards (at least in Europe). BEcause of Phylloxera [0] [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylloxera#Fighting_the_%22phylloxera_plague%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phylloxera#Fighting_the_%22phy...
- exabrial 1y agoYeah that’s the problem. Plastic solves a logistics problem, not a structural problem. Are your Twinkies stuck in a hot truck in Texas for a week? No problem!
- loktarogar 1y agoIt doesn't _only_ solve long-term logistical problems. Plastics are used for things like takeout containers, drink cups and straws, amongst others - things that are only needed for a short time.
- PunchyHamster 1y agoAll of those need to hold hot and wet things for long enough without contaminating them.
- loktarogar 1y agoAgree, but I don't see any mention of that in the article, so I don't have enough information to argue for that. I'm sure we can agree though that having 17-day decomposing plastics that don't contaminate with heat and water is a good thing, so I hope it is that.
- kleton 1y agoThe major innovation of this paper seems to be a rayon process that uses less harsh chemicals than the current viscose and lyocell processes.
- AngryData 1y agoThat is neat, but not breaking down quickly is why we use it so often and why we find it so useful. We already have and use a ton of cellophane, but stores and producers avoid it in favor of plastic because plastic doesn't meaningfully degrade in the store or warehouse even if climate control conditions are shitty.
- rlue 1y agoI'm skeptical that new materials like this will meaningfully drive down the demand for virgin plastic packaging. The problem is not just the absence of good alternatives; it's the fact that plastic is the fossil fuel industry's backup plan for the global transition to cleaner energy sources. That is: in preparation for a decrease in global demand for energy from fossil fuels, the industry is ramping up production of plastic to compensate so that it can maintain profitability (instead of, you know, just slowing down the extractive capitalism). Plastic production is set to triple over the next few decades as new facilities are built to support this transition. (Source: Paraphrasing from my vague recollection of A Poison Like No Other by Matt Simon, and also articles like this one https://www.ecowatch.com/plastic-production-pollution-forecast.html https://www.ecowatch.com/plastic-production-pollution-foreca...)
- mrmincent 1y agoI would kill for this for when I’m buying fresh produce at the shops. Right now I just raw dog the produce into my basket as putting 4 apples into a plastic bag to ease the weighing and transport home seems like a selfish thing to do to the environment, but something that starts to break down soon after that sounds great.
- hedora 1y agoI’d guess paper would work fine for that purpose, except that it’s harder for the checkout person.
- weaksauce 1y agothe places around here are using compostable plastic bags. not sure what it's made of but it can be composted in municipal facilities according to the bag. one downside is they are green tinted and harder to see what is in there but if it removes some of the plastic killing the ocean then i'm for it... assuming it's not a plastic that degrades into microplastics.
- ars 1y ago> but if it removes some of the plastic killing the ocean then i'm for it It doesn't. The plastics in the ocean don't come from your grocery store. They come from fishing gear and from places without municipal trash service. Honestly? It's basically greenwashing, it doesn't actually do anything at all. No one ever composts this things, and landfilling or incinerating a bag does not harm the environment.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoI just threw one of those into my compost pile last month and it’s still there. No clue how long it’s supposed to take.
- vkou 1y agoCompostable plastics don't compost if you just throw them in a compost heap, you need to compost them in high-temperature conditions.
- gerdesj 1y agoThis is a novel material with a set of properties and a production "story" that looks rather cool - recycled vines. If those parameters meet the requirements for a material that you need to use then cool. Use it. I don't see any attributes in this article, which is fine but "stronger than ..." is a bit weak. The biodegradeable thing is probably going to be key if this stuff can hold hot liquids without poisoning the imbiber or can make plackey bags without falling to bits within seconds.
- weaksauce 1y agothey linked to the study... https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2025/fb/d5fb00211g https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2025/fb/d5fb0... > These films exhibit a transparency of 83.70–84.30% mm−1 and a tensile strength of 15.42–18.20 MPa. They biodegrade within 17 days in soil at 24% moisture content. These films demonstrate outstanding potential for food packaging applications. Our research approach of repurposing agricultural byproducts to create high-value products helps reduce plastic waste, conserve the environment, and provide economic benefits to farmers. on the lower end of plastics but might be fine for this application: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/3-Tensile-strength-and-impact-strength-of-different-plastics_tbl4_324680536 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/3-Tensile-strength-and-i... seems comparable to LDPE which i think the common bags are made from.
- wiredpancake 1y ago[dead]
- userbinator 1y agoGreat, just what we needed as companies are pushing even more aggressively for planned obsolescence. "Biodegradable" just means "self-destructs automatically so we can keep selling you more".
- zrobotics 1y agoFor plastic packaging that you immediately throw away? They aren't pitching making tools or car parts out of this plastic.
- userbinator 1y agoGive it enough time and lack of opposition, and they'll... find a way.
- Havoc 1y agoNow just ship it before oil industry wakes up and lobbies this to death
- SubiculumCode 1y agoBiodegrades into what? Microplastics?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- danpalmer 1y agoI already use cellulose based bags for my compost waste, and they only stay reliable for about 3 days of usage after something is put in them. This makes them a huge pain to use. I think they also degrade quite a bit (i.e. shorter lifespan in use) after just a few months because each new roll of bags seems better at the beginning.
- dml2135 1y agoI found that using bags for compost isn’t really necessary at all. I just dump the container out each night and clean it along with my dishes. It’s nice this way because then nothing is ever actually rotting in my indoor trash. Having a stainless steel compost container helps with this, as it’s easier to clean and doesn’t retain odors like the plastic bins.
- jpalawaga 1y agoI put my bags + compost in the fridge freezer, which prevents smell and also prevents the bag from biodegrading before I can take it out. I recommend this approach in general.
- goodpoint 1y ago3 days are more than enough
- yardstick 1y agoWhat about paper bags? In the UK retailers have to charge for single use plastic bags. Clothes retailers hand out strong paper bags for free, and charge for plastic. Supermarkets charge for plastic bags. Paper bags for fruit and veg work well. They also provide quality reusable bags that cost a small amount (£1 or so), and people actually reuse them.
- odie5533 1y agoIt's a miraculous thing corporations have done convincing us that we're the ones polluting the environment.
- polalavik 1y agoI grapple with this all the time. my wife is very eco-conscious and will scrub out a deeply moldy glass jar just to recycle it (whether the recycling system works is a separate issue here). On one hand there is some truth to the fact that if we all just work together to do the right thing the world is a much better place to live in. Sometimes i don't want to do this (scrub gross shit out) because i'm lazy, other times it feels futile. or maybe its just that the latter is a good excuse to be lazy. I'd argue that even thinking about the idea of recycling and eco-conscious behavior is something only the already wealthy (with respect to the rest of the world) can do. There are plenty of developing nations where consumption and pollution run rampant and unchecked and unregulated which do tons more damage than me throwing 1 glass jar into a semi well managed landfill. I mean theres just so many facets to this - does recycle work, does collective action work, or are corporations the real devils here doing much more bad than the collective at large? i feel that the only way to change anything is through government level policy (which also feels futile), but individual actions do little without policy+propoganda to disseminate the right message and change collective behavior.
- hedgehog 1y agoIf you have a dishwasher that will get the jar plenty clean to be recycled and not smell up your house while it's waiting to be taken out.
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoDeveloping nations generally leapfrog by adopting the latest generation of developed world tech. Imagine people saying they didn't want to adopt mobile phones because developing nations didn't have traditional telephones yet. This applies to both green tech and to green regulations. They'll look to the EU and China for that as the US is going this one alone again. China recycles 30% of its plastic compared with 12% in the US. Presumably they look at it as an engineering problem to solve and not a fake culture war to protect the oil industry. Slightly older data here but the trend and the major outlier of the US visible here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-plastic-waste-recycled https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-plastic-waste-recyc...
- user1999919 1y agoyou could innovate to zero emissions but if the culture is hostile to it or angrily doesn't give a crap because 'culture' - then its worthless
- 55555 1y agoIf I’m not mistaken this is ecologically basically a paper bag that looks like a plastic bag. Remember when we all switched from paper bags to plastic bags to save the environment? The environmental issue isn’t plastic bags, it’s that you don’t reuse them.
- IAmBroom 1y agoNope, and I'm 60. AFAICT we switched because plastic bags were far stronger, and didn't fail immediately if they got damp.
- 55555 1y agoRight. Plastic bags could be re-used, even after getting damp and because they wouldn't rip. So industry switched to them to be more environmentally friendly, and then after a while, no one actually re-used the bags, making them perhaps better in theory but ultimately worse in practice. I don't have the life experience you have but ChatGPT tells me this was a major reason.
- radium3d 1y agoAs an owner of 30 trees, mainly oak trees, why the heck don't we do this with leaves...? I throw away 3 bins FULL of leaves every week and I can't even keep up. They drop leaves year round.
- instagraham 1y agoWhy is it that we read about so many inventions like this - once - and then never hear of them again? Most countries have to import plastic along with their oil. Surely the economics of this gets worse every time oil or shipping prices rise. And more so if you account the cost of waste disposal. There are economic incentives to scaling up these biodegradable alternatives. Are they not big enough to result in a push?
- refulgentis 1y agoPer TFA, this is a highly manual one off process with a not-well-scaled resource - a specific type of vine cutting that can only be harvested every other year without affecting the overall vibe health. So Id wager it's the brutal road from proof of concept to scaled production.
- IAmBroom 1y agoThat's a kind way to put it. I'd call it a shit idea that produced a paper for someone's CV. Do the same with bamboo, HFCS waste, or something similar in availability? Now you're talking!
- brudgers 1y agoGoogle says global oil production is 90 to 95 million barrels per day. That is a lot of grapevines, grapevines grow slowly, and growing grapes is the best way to use grapevines. We read about technologies like this because science grad students have to do something, grad schools have low standards for useful work, and universities employ a lot of press release writers.
- qwerty_clicks 1y agoI’ve worked for two refining companies. They aren’t about to rebuild their global infrastructure to make this happen…it doesn’t matter what possible, it’s what corporations can buy out politicians and the rich building a society that benefits them.
- taminka 1y agowhen you're inside the machine, it's hard to see how it could work differently
- samrus 1y agoYou could have said that about motor cars. That the horse industry wasnt going to give up that easy. Its all about incentives Having said that, deep sustainability initiatives like this require some forward thinking, and i dont see the public buying into preserving their own future when the reaction to climate protesters is eye rolling and the west and east keep throwing the hot potato of blame to each other rather than trying ti solve the problem. Ideally, the government would introduce regulations to incentivize this for entities for whome the value proposition would, in the short term, be negative. But i dont know if they'll get their act together to do that. So you might be right
- IAmBroom 1y agoThere never existed a "refinery" that produced whatever the equivalent of "50 million barrels of crude oil a day" in horses is. "Big Horse" never existed; it was massively decentralized, even when sold at large annual livestock events.
- insane_dreamer 1y agoWhen you start to look at a lot of technological solutions to problems like environmental pollution, climate change, low-cost energy, healthy food production and distribution, you realize that most of the challenges are not technological in nature, but social and political -- basically human nature (fear and greed). (This is another reason why the idea that's been floated that "AI" or the near-mythical "AGI" will "solve the world's problems" is fallacy -- unless of course by "solve" it means "make a few companies extremely wealthy at the expense of everyone else".)
- vmurthy 1y agoThe 20 year old me would have been so excited about something like this. The 39-year old (ok 40 next month) is more reserved. It is not that I don't think this will be adapted but more like : What needs to happen (government, civic groups whatever economic forces) for companies to adapt this? It's going to be a slow burn for sure if this needs to work at a global scale but the impetus should begin with incentives, sadly.
- user3939382 1y agoI couldn’t just leave an upvote because rather than read and agree, I immediately had the identical reaction and then saw your post. I may as well still be reading the order section in the back of my comic books or the gadgets in Popular Science. I’m grateful the work is being done because it’s essential but no longer have faith in these things being solved in 5, 10, or 20 years.
- ms-menardi 1y agoI think that's beautiful. you've realized that the problems are not impossible, and it's just a matter of getting people to think about them in the right way. that's easy. Humans have been getting other humans to think the ways they want since the written word. Nothing is more practiced as a discipline, except perhaps prostitution.
- alexchamberlain 1y agoThe UK banned single use plastic bags at major supermarkets. We all moaned about it for a few minutes, forgot our reusable bags a couple of times and then got on with it. Even the small plastic bags you put fruit or pastries in are now gone in a few super markets - initially, they replaced them with transparent paper-based windowed bags, but then I think people realised you really don't need to see inside the bag, and brown paper bags are back.
- samrus 1y agoThese days, you never hear about reduce, reuse, recycle, and how its supposed to be in that priority order. When i was a kid thats what we were taught. Now its just recycle, recycle, recycle My conspiracy theory is corporate propaganda changed it because reduce and reuse decreases demand, while recycle potentially only lowers production cost
- fiatpandas 1y agoI highly recommend the documentary Plastic Wars (Frontline). It’s about how the plastics industry made a major marketing push for recycling starting in the 80s, in order to avoid plastic bans and ensure production continued to increase. It shifted the burden of plastic waste from producers to consumers, and we are essentially still in that conceptual space (at least in the US).
- adastra22 1y agoFor sure. Plastic packaging keeps the product fresh and hermetically sealed from the clean factory / production depot to your store and eventual home. Get rid of plastic and there will be a LOT more spoilage. Maybe that's an acceptable tradeoff, but most people don't even realize there is a tradeoff being made...
- timeon 1y agoThe goal of green-washing is to keep 'unlimited' growth.
- mcv 1y agoYeah, I still don't understand why brown paper bags aren't more standard for everything. I do see some manufacturers reducing plastic, fortunately. For example, my box of tea bags used to come wrapped in plastic, and now it suddenly doesn't, and I'm wondering why it ever needed plastic. But there's still so much stuff that comes wrapped in plastic, and often multiple layers of it. Just ban it. There are excellent alternatives.
- nguyenmanh 1y agoA very good article
- lastdong 1y agoIt will require someone like LEGO (others) to fully adopt it and prove its effectiveness, and for the governments to mandate its usage while providing incentives for adoption. However, the plastics industry will likely resist this change strongly. There’s also the issue of monoculture, the ideal is reduction (such as re-use durable cotton bags) — I wonder if plastics bags disappeared overnight wouldn’t people adapt? Probably a few extra trips to the supermarket at the start but shortly after a reusable container wouldn’t be forgotten. There’s more to plastics pollution than plastic bags though, water bottles, fast fashion and synthetic fibers, etc.
- hsolatges 1y agoAlternatives to oil based plastics have been developed for decades, sometimes with oil industries support. But astonishingly enough, we still burn oil for making unhealthy and unsustainable containers. I wonder what is that force that is pushing us backwards every time we try to tame oil industries. Oh I got it: corruption!
- killerstorm 1y agoDid they reinvent cellophane? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellophane https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellophane
- mfld 1y agoNo chemist, but the outcome - a cellulose film - seems to be about the same even though the production process is different.
- Caelus9 1y agoSome people are skeptical about biodegradable materials, but honestly, ten years ago nobody believed paper straws would catch on either. I think if we can turn leftover plant waste like grapevines into something useful, there's a real chance to start phasing out throwaway plastics in the kinds of products we only use once and forget.
- bn-usd-mistake 1y agoPaper straws are horrible, I don't think they should be chosen as a counterexample to skepticism about biodegradable materials.
- mschild 1y agoAgree. Give me a metal one or design the cups so that I don't need one at all.
- yesfitz 1y agoYou can buy reusable metal straws online or from a variety of retailers today, and you can remove (or refuse) the lid to a cup, at which point it can be used without a straw. Another option would be to buy canned beverages rather than fountain drinks.
- account42 1y agoCanned beverages also include a plastic lining.
- yesfitz 1y agoThat's true, and as far as my quick research has gone, the plastic is burned off during the smelting process of aluminum recycling. Because of the small amount of plastic in each can, and the high heat of the smelting process, odds are good the thin plastic liner will be almost fully combusted, which should greatly reduce the amount of microplastics.[1] 1: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304389420314187 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03043...
- i-e-b 1y agoSo, celluloid?
- petesergeant 1y agoIsn’t most plastic waste incinerated these days? Is this material much better for that?
- trallnag 1y agoI think it highly depends on your city, county, and country. Aren't landfills still super common in the US? The city I live in Germany indeed incinerates most trash including plastic.
- Daisywh 1y agoEver since energy conservation and environmental protection became a focus, supermarkets have started charging for plastic bags. But I think relying on this kind of approach to reduce usage does not really solve the root problem. Instead of using penalties, we should be thinking of practical and eco friendly alternatives that make people genuinely want to change their habits.
- CalRobert 1y agoPenalties are a key part of the picture though. They help cover the otherwise unpriced negative externalities.
- meindnoch 1y agoAmazing! They discovered cellophane!
- dmboyd 1y agoIsn’t this cellophane?
- bamboozled 1y agoIt's some tough stuff, I had to cut up a bunch once for my smoker, very strange type of wood, extremely stringy.
- jtc-hn 1y agoHow flammable are cellulose products? Would that be a concern for this sort of packaging?
- IAmBroom 1y agoWell, given that almost all products are (currently) ultimately containerized in cardboard, I'd say not much changes. From bags of apples in fruit boxes to your hamburger in plasticized paper, inside a pure paper bag, it's all flammable.
- account42 1y agoThe problem with biodegradable plastic is that we use plastic so much precisely because it does not degrade that quickly.
- hulitu 1y agoUV light (sun light) makes wonders at breaking plastic. Nobody wants plastic that breaks because this will lead to more trash.
- mbrochh 1y agoDo we have enough grapevines to replace all plastic in the world? If we need to destroy ecosystems to plant more grapevines, forget about it.