Pig piss plastic

A Danish company called Agroplast has figured out how to turn pig-piss into plastic and into a cigarette "flavor enhancer":

Transforming farm waste into plastic precursors is potentially attractive over other bioplastic ideas because the feedstock effectively has no value. In fact, it has negative value because animal waste must be disposed, which costs money. Some other bioplastic companies make their resins out of corn starch.
Tøttrup claims that the process could, conceivably, result in plastics that cost a third less than conventional plastics made from fossil fuels. That's a big conceivably. Traditionally, bioplastics made of vegetable matter have cost more than fossil fuel plastics. Evaluation of the pricing will have to wait until large volumes of this stuff are made. Agroplast is going into a pilot study now, Tøttrup said.

Link (via Gizmodo)

(Image: URINE: a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike photo from Salvez's Flickr stream)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Blog Mosaic, what Takuan said. We don’t do that here. Put your URL in your personal profile.

I’ve removed your URL from your comments in other threads, too.
Oren Beck

The basic Urea as feedstock concept is old news.
Diverting hog urine poses some source redesign issues. As most hog confinement operations tend to be designed with zero solid/liquid isolation methods. I suspect getting clean urine not contaminated by other materials will be a non-trivial affair. And thence we go on to the antibiotic levels in factory farmed animals excreta.
Ah, then perhaps we may have unexpected – Dare I say it- end results . Plastics being anti-microbial from several Mg/Kg of antibiotics in their feedstocks.
Antinous

We should start interviewing for a triplet.
Takuan

isn’t it great? It’s like being evil twins!
Argon

Can’t imagine why anyone would object.

As long as no additional horses get diverted from beer production.
hellhead

I alwasy associated ‘flavor country’ with being kinda farm related, cowboys and all that. No reason to think pig piss doesn’t jibe with that.
bloggersmosaic

that’s really kool
Antinous

Bloggersmosaic,

Stop including your web address in posts please.
Takuan

having quit, yeah, pig piss WOULD enhance cigarette flavour
martha_macarthur

I have concerns about the collection process. A lot of people were really excited about Premarin (a drug made up of conjugated estrogens obtained from the urine of pregnant mares) until they found out the cruel way it was procured.

Perhaps they could put the animals up on grated floors with collection channels. I think the real focus should be what to do with the poop.

Theres a good article about hog production in Rolling Stone by JEFF TIETZ from Dec 2006 called Boss Hog.
Jack

Well, would it be Kosher? Or would toy companies now have to come up with pig plastic and non-pig plastic toys?
Robbo

mmm – bacon cigarettes

piggie ciggies

mmmmm
Riblets

natural flavoring just got a new ingredient under it’s wonderful all encompassing reach.
Takuan

I loves the little piggy
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l143/thepinupgirl/girandpig.jpg
noen

Definately not a “wonderful thing”.

Urea is urea isn’t it? Why not human urine too? Then the cigarette companies could list all the pharmaceuticals as an added feature.

Imagine, we could build our cities out of our own shit and piss. What a wonderful world that would be.
stickinsecthunter

When I was a kid my dad told me that when he learned at Siemens in Germany they had to drill holes in circuit boards and cut them to size. Whenever they would be doing that it would smell really bad and strongly like urine. Apparently those circuit boards were made out of cow’s urine.
Takuan

“It was the first organic compound to be artificially synthesized from inorganic starting materials, thus dispelling the concept of vitalism”

figures
flyingdutchman

#9:
Weird. I’ve been drilling holes in circuit boards (and cutting and grinding them too) for nearly thirty years, and I never came across any type of board material that would smell like urine.
Belac

Jack,
AFAIK the cigarettes wouldn’t be kosher, but there’s nothing wrong with pig-derived non-food products. Strict orthodox people wouldn’t carry food in pig-derived plastic bags, or store it in pig-derived containers, though, I’d imagine.
Antinous

Good lord, she can’t even tell us apart anymore.