Womble and cerberus used our news submit to share some interesting news they spotted at the Inquirer this morning . It seems electronics giant Pioneer has created a process to produce an environmentally friendly disc from cornstarch. It is debateable as to whether these discs would decompose in landfills due the lack of oxygen, but we cannot deny that this is better than present materials in this aspect. Ironically, the Pioneer name is used by another company Dupont, in the midwest of the United States, for a popular corn hybrid. Based in Des Moines Iowa, they are also a science company with worlwide offices, maybe the two shall meet.
| BOFFINS AT Japanese tech company Pioneer have made a next-generation optical disk out of corn starch.We are not sure how this breakthrough came about, probably a bizarre accident involving a CD player left in a kitchen during the mixing of a good sweet and sour.However, Pioneer is sure that corn starch disks will be jolly good for the environment as it is totally biodegradable when buried underground and is loved by bacteria everywhere, particularly with a liberal coating of butter. |
I suppose we can all think of some funny lines like Blu-Ray whiskey or whatever, seems the Inquirer finds it amusing as well. However, it is not so funny really, not only are the discs biodegradable, they are cheaper than present materials. So Pioneer thinks they can pass this on. In addition, an interesting fact detailed in the article is that one ear of corn can produce as many as 10 discs. In addition, something that occors to me is this material is made from a renewable resource and therefore can also be a boon to stuggling farmers around the world. Not to mention diverting demand away from petroleum based products which is a dead end.
I would like to take this opportunity for what it's worth, to give thanks to the talented engineers at Pioneer for investing effort in such important research. We here at CD Freaks have always had an awareness of the environmental impact of the discs and products we all use so often. Maybe this will be a serve as an incentive to other industries in consumer eelectronics to provide the earth with biodegradeable products where possible. To spawn a desire for responsible engineering at least, maybe they should make a nice logo visible to the public, so they can choose which products they would like to buy. After all, each new exciting generation of consumer electronics, creates another generation destined for the landfills.
Source: The Inquirer
