Foreword
More often than not, people
think about feedstocks for the bioeconomy and think about land-based crops such
as wood and rapeseed or recycled and waste materials. The sea also holds a vast
wealth of resources – the exploitation of which perhaps is less commonly
featured in these news reviews. This month, there are several examples of
materials using other interesting biobased feedstocks originating from the
deep. Fish waste that is destined for landfill has been used as the base
feedstock for a biobased plastic called MarinaTex, ideal for single-use
packaging as it’s translucent, flexible and biodegrades after four to six weeks
and is suitable for home composting. Algae too, has been considered a valuable
crop for both fuel and products. While it has perhaps struggled to gain the
commercial success it promises on paper, it still has potential as a feedstock
and one company Vollebak has been using it to make T Shirts. Finally, within
the pharmaceutical market, seaweed has been employed as a raw material for the
production of Oligomannate, a new Alzheimer’s disease treatment recently
approved for use in China. Back on land, sugarcane is a crop used often for..........
Other News this Month Includes:
Policy
- Recyclers want action over plastics in
compost
- Netherlands may drop use of 'double
counting' for used cooking oil
- French MP's fail to curb tax breaks for Palm
Oil
- Dutch voting on tax on imported RDF
Markets
- Coke and can manufacturers in war of words
- UK oilseed prospects not looking bright
Research & Development
- Sugarcane bioenergy pros and cons
- Pathway to succinic acid
- Catalysis of lignin breakdown
- Seaweed derived drug to treat Alzheimers
- Biotechnology to help plants grow in saline
conditions
Wood & Crop
- 10,000 acres of hemp
- Eucalyptus firewood plantation in UK
- Danish Asnaes biomass plant starts
generation
Other Feedstocks
- Soy based motor oil
- Water disposal costly for oil industry
- Plastic from fish waste
- Unilever to secure recycled plastic
- CO2 to
protein with Drax support
- Plant and Algae T Shirt
- US grocery chains have not addressed waste
reduction
Events
Feedstock Prices