A biodegradable, environmentally-friendly plastic bottle made in Israel from corn could be hitting the market soon.Instead of oil-based plastic, Kibbutz Ashdot Yakov’s Log plastics manufacturing company discovered a production method using a corn starch polymer to make the transparent disintegrating bottles. While there are several companies in the world currently producing disintegrating bottles, the Israeli version is believed to be the world’s first to also include a disintegrating label made from corn.
Only the bottle’s cap is made from regular plastic.
The bottles were produced by a joint venture between Eco Joe, an environmentally friendly disposable items distributor, the Log company, and the Mei Bat water company. The first 5,000 bottles are scheduled to be distributed to guests of next week’s Plasto Ispak plastics exhibition at the Israel Trade Fairs and Convention Center in Tel Aviv.
Despite being of slightly harder consistency, the company says it is difficult to tell the difference between the corn bottles and their regular plastic counterparts. Following consumer use of the bottle, the corn bottles disintegrate without a trace within 90 days if placed in compost (organic fertilizer). The bottle’s only drawback is that only a small percentage of Israelis currently take appropriate household waste to a composting facility.
As a result, marketing will begin on a small scale. "There’s no point in flooding the market when anyway it won’t decompose since most Israelis still don’t compost their waste in the house or yard,” said Eco Joe Chairman Avner Inbar.
"We hope that Israel will start pushing advanced waste treatment methods which are more environmentally safe. Then we will be able to widely market the bottle,” Inbar said, promising that the biodegradable water bottles would only be slightly more expensive than regular bottles.
Source: Israel National News
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