The question we need to ask ourselves is how much corn do we really need? Due to subsidizing of the corn based industry (including plastics), I guess we need more. In 5 short years the corn industry has clear cut millions of acres of land. The reason for this is simple, companies like Cargill who purchase insurance for their corn crop make money whether they sell the PLA material or not, subsidized by your hard earned money.
When PLA first entered the market it was almost 2.5 times as expensive as it is now. With the lobbying efforts of the corn base industry and Cargill, we have turned corn into products on the store shelf. Maybe in the near future we will be making houses out of straw, regardless of the old fairy tale.
South Dakota State University have studied the rates of which big corn is taking over the US and have compared it to rates of deforestation in Brazil and other countries, you can read the report here. With little risk of loss companies are investing in this crop for their next big money making opportunity, and why not? The cost is only clean air and clean water. In our prior article we addressed the issues of Nitrous Oxide which is 310 times more potent than CO2 found here.
Our question, why make things so difficult? A simple solution or one that costs billions of dollars in tax payers money. What does corn based plastic really cost? The price more tax, more corn fields creating nitrous oxide and billions of dollars spent on new waste management.
Corn based plastic, is it really worth the high cost of the environment?
