[SustainableTompkins] Elephant Grass used to make biodegradeable materials

[Thomas Shelley]

Dear Friends--Perhaps this material could be grown locally to provide the 
basis for compostable, locally manufactured products  to replace items made 
in China?  "Paper" bags, plates, etc.??  I have no Ithaca Hours to invest 
in such a venture, but I wish I did..... Tom

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/03/010306072852.htm

P.S.:  Another article from the same source describes the efforts of 
Cornell Engineering Professor Emmanuel P Giannelis to make another type of 
biodegradable plastic.  I am a little leary of the rush to nano 
particle-based materials, but we'll see....

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/03/010306072852.htm

Tom Shelley
118 E. Court St.
Ithaca, NY 14850
607 342-0864
tjs1 at cornell.edu
http://www.myspace.com/99319958
P I thank you for printing this e-mail only if it is necessary

"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present 
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own 
needs."

The World Commission on Environment and Development,
Gro Harlem Brundtland
Our Common Future, Oxford University Press, 1987

MY NOTE:  Sustainable development does not mean "sustainable growth" as 
growth per se is not sustainable.  And the term "sustainable" has to mean 
"for a very long time" (A. Bartlett).

"The frog does not drink up the pond in which he lives."        Sioux proverb