Saturday, August 13, 2011

Making Plastic From Beef?

The University of Alberta, aka those big brick buildings I'll be returning to in a few short weeks, is making plastic from my favorite protein source.

Beef to plastic? Images from here and here.
Dr.Bressler from the Faculty of Agriculture, Life, and Environmental Sciences and his team have come one step closer to utilizing every piece of the beef carcass, adding value for producers and recycling rather than disposing of waste materials.

Watch the video below for the full scoop:


Creating Plastic From Beef: Dr. David Bressler
You can also read the article here.

"If we can get more fundamental value back into the rendering process, it will help the 
livestock industry more than any government policy" Bressler says.

The Bressler method takes Specified Risk Materials (brain, spinal cord, and other parts of the beef animal discarded due to BSE risk) and in some science-y process that is far beyond the mental reach of a first year such as myself, grinds them up and makes plastic out of them.

Pretty cool, huh?

I'm always a fan of new developments that add value for producers, reduce waste, and prove just how green and sustainable the livestock industry is working to be.

What do you think about beef plastic?

1 comment:

  1. Interesting stuff, Rosie. Thanks for sharing. I work for MRAC in Manitoba and we fund a lot of ag projects that focus on adding value for producers. Speaking of plastic, we funded a project that took potato waste and made it into biodegradable plastic products.

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