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Data Storage Biotech Technology

Sanyo Develops Corn-Based Biodegradeable CD 321

Posted by timothy from the for-your-temporary-backup-needs dept.
Recoil_42 writes "PC World has an intriguing article about one way to help ease a growing problem: computer waste. Sanyo, with the help of Dow, has created a biodegradeable disc made of corn. The discs take 50-100 years to degrade, well within acceptable limits, and should come to market by the end of this year. The speedbump, of course, is the projected price: 3 times that of a normal plastic disc, but that cost is expected to be reduced to 1.2 times as (if?) the discs become more popular."
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Sanyo Develops Corn-Based Biodegradeable CD More

Sanyo Develops Corn-Based Biodegradeable CD

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  • Great news (Score:2, Funny)

    by KingRamsis ( 595828 )
    Great!!! now I can eat all the old Linux distors...

    • Re:Great news (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Glonoinha ( 587375 )
      Oh man, talk about a scam!

      1. Convince people that 'oh yea, these will decompose a hundred years after I am dead' and sell CDs for 3x normal cost.
      2. ???
      3. Profit!
    • You know, in "Buck Rogers in the 25th Century," they find out about our culture through archaeology. This, of course, is after the nuclear World War III.

      If we keep making things biodegradable, who'll know who we were? I'm starting a new campaign: "Biodegradable harms future history."

      "We would like to place this in a time capsule, but it'll be gone in 100 years."

  • Juuuuust wonderful - (Score:5, Funny)

    by NeuroManson ( 214835 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @07:03AM (#7268797) Homepage
    Now every time I go to the local electronics shop and ask for the corn discs, they're going to assume Korn discs, and everyone who goes in looking for Korn discs will have the same problem.

  • Let the companies use them (Score:3, Insightful)

    by TheFairElf ( 669537 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @07:03AM (#7268798)
    The average consumer is never going to buy a bio-degradable disc if its three times the price of a regular one. The only way to make them popular in the market is have the software and music companies use them and eventually it will trickle down to everybody.

    • Re:Let the companies use them (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If they are three times the package price of a CD, noone will use them. But if they are merely three times the price of a blank CD, thats a different story. The actual physical medium is very cheap.
      • I disagree. If you can buy a pack of 50 for $10, or a pack of 50 for $20, people are going to cheap out. Now if it's $30, it's just crazy to think that more than a small minority will buy them.

        If people were buying ONE disc, they might be inclined to pay $0.60 or $0.40 over $0.20 if they know it's environmentally friendly.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • There are plenty of short term uses for CDs. Software might be one of them (I don't expect to be using anything on my shelf 20 years from now), although I wouldn't want to pay for a commercial software package, or music, on media specially formulated to degrade over time.

        Here's a good example - it's how I go through the majority of my discs. I use my digital camera, take about 70 or 80 pictures, download them to the PC. I remove the bad ones, leave the good ones alone, and fix the marginal ones (reframe
    • That may be true but I wonder what the price difference is if they make the lactic acid directly from oil (like the plastic normal CD's are made of). That may be a bit less environmentally friendly but still better than non-degradable plastic.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I'll buy them. They're perfect for the discs I use in my car's changer. I don't listen to them for more than half a year before I tire of the mixes. They're also perfect for doing daily, weekly, monthly backups.

      I wouldn't use them on anything I wanted to be able to use again in 10 years, but that occasion is rare.

      Hopefully AOL will start using them for the discs they send out.

      Of course, maybe I'm one of the few responsible people on the planet...
      • You know, I've seen a lot of AOL comments. Let's look at the facts. If AOL sends out a million CDs a month, at $0.10 each, that's $100,000 dollars.

        Now let's say the price of the corn discs magically drops to 1.2 without a company like AOL using them. That's an extra $20,000/month for an already faltering company. That's almost 1000 subscribers worth of revenue! Not going to happen.

        In fact, someone could make a lot of money by coming up with a less environmentally friendly disc if they could sell it t
        • Since AOL feels free to ruin the environment by doing so, then we should fine them to make up for the burden put upon us to clean it up. When I say we, I mean we the people -- as in our government should do this.

          Maybe that would make them reconsider.
    • If they can truly get the cost down to a mere 20% premium by achieving widespread use, then that gets into the realm where it might make sense to legislate a requirement that these be used for general commercial use. At that point, the 20% extra cost may well be outweighed by the benefits...

  • Future (Score:2, Funny)

    by pubjames ( 468013 )

    Now we know what we will be doing with all those AOL discs in the future - five minutes under the grill with a knob of butter. Yum!

  • Makes sense for un-tech inclined consumers (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hyperherod ( 574576 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @07:05AM (#7268809)
    Taken from Microfilm.com [microfilm.com]: "Under less-than-optimal storage conditions, digital tapes and disks, including CD-ROMs and optical drives, might deteriorate about as fast as newsprint - in 5 to 10 years. Tests by the National Media Lab, a St. Paul (Minn.)-based government and industry consortium, show that tapes might preserve data for a decade, depending on storage conditions. Disks -whether CD-ROMs used for games or the type used by some companies to store pension plans - may become unreadable in five years."
    How many times have you seen CD's left to reflect the sun onto the ceiling? Long after the data is lost due to lack of care, the plastic will still be hanging about. I think CDs that have a physical life span are a great idea for the environment. Companies which do look after their CDs can still get their longer lasting ones.
  • So Sony has added an improvement to their degradable media... they don't only become unreadable after a year (The Sony CD-Rs I burned last year are full of read errors), now they even disintegrate after 50 years.

    Why can't they come up with a disc that retains its data for at least 50-100 years instead of one that disintegrates?!?!?!
  • but it seems like it would make more sense to just make recyclable disks instead. I wonder what the environment required is for the disks to start breaking down is... it couldn't possibly be heat. Maybe sunlight and/or water? I'd hate to leave a disk out in my car and forget about it for a few days, then come back and find it degraded just enough that I can't access the data on it anymore.

    I do thing this is a really cool idea. Those bloody AOL disks were the first good use that came to mind. Since they're
    • A few years ago-- maybe ten by now, I'm not sure-- my aunt brought back some kind of candy from Japan that had an edible wrapper-- maybe made out of rice-paper or something. Well, being 13, I spat it out because it was orange-flavored (recall that physical age is not proportional to emotional maturity in the teenage male-- and besides, I really don't like oranges). But now I think that maybe if I found some non-orange-flavored type of that candy, I might have a greater appreciation or, nay, enjoyment of i
    • Maybe sunlight and/or water? I'd hate to leave a disk out in my car and forget about it for a few days, then come back and find it degraded just enough that I can't access the data on it anymore.

      So beter don't leave them, because this is about what happens. I've already seen disks left by a window or heater that looked like from Salvadore Dali's images, enough sunlight may damage data permanently, some more will melt the plastic.

  • Sanity check please (Score:4, Interesting)

    by xyote ( 598794 ) on Tuesday October 21, 2003 @07:08AM (#7268825)
    Biodegradability is nice but will somebody please check to see what percentage of our landfills are CDs (and CD cases). I've heard that in that category, yard and lawn waste is one of the leading contenders. Which I might note is biodegradable but won't because nothing biodegrades in an anaerobic landfill environment.
    • It's quite possible to recycle polycarbonate CDs back into like-new monomer. All it takes is an anaerobic environment and microwave energy. All sorts of plastics can be almost completely recycled in this way. The catch is obviously the cost. But on a large scale, there's no way it would add the kinds of costs they're talking about with these corn discs.
      So, all this plan does is attempt to shift costs to the consumer. It's not like you can't recycle polycarbonate, it's just nobody wants to pick up that
    • I've heard that in that category, yard and lawn waste is one of the leading contenders. Which I might note is biodegradable but won't because nothing biodegrades in an anaerobic landfill environment.

      That's where being a lazy geek pays off. I use a mulching mower and just let the grass clippings lay there on my lawn, acting as fertilizer. I have this vision of a tiny grass stalk yelling at his neighbors "Soylent green is grass! Aaaahhhh!!!!!"

      And no, my lawn isn't as perfect as some of my neighbors. And
    • ...will somebody please check to see what percentage of our landfills are CDs

      Have you heard of AOL?

    • Last time I saw a landfill-biodegradability analysis, the clear winner was newspaper: in fact, 90% of the non-degraded material was newspaper, some still quite readable from as much as 50 years previous!!

      Goes to show that if we want our CDRs to last, they should be made of newsprint stock. ;)

  • Landfills (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Highlordexecutioner ( 203297 )
    Only problem is that once something "biodegradeable" is buried in a landfill it never goes away. There was a show on a Nova like program about it. In 1000 years you will be able to show the history of makind with garbage.
    Sort of like looking at the layers of rock now and seeing fosils from prehistoric times. Instead of animals it will be cartons of milk and boxes of Hungry Man dinners.
    • That's because "biodegradable" is a catch-all term. Some plastics (like grocery bags) would be better termed "photodegradable" because they will break down in sunlight, but not in a landfill.
      • Well it's also because most landfills are extremely dry, anoxic environments. Newsprint from 50+ years ago has been recovered from many landfills, not much will ever be MORE biodegradable than newspaper.
    • Here's a good question... is there a difference between old fashion dirt/rock/organic and Landfill?

      Besides it's mineral qualities, what are the differences to US when it comes to space and land surface area usage?

      As long as the landfills are segregated between odorous and toxic materials and other... there really isn't a difference. With the new advent of biological agents for enhanced degradation of plastics, etc. I'm thinking that there will soon be even fewer reasons to avoid landfill creation.

      Just d
  • With ideas being thrown around for single-use, self-degrading DVD rentals this thing could make that horrible idea at least a bit more acceptable.

  • If they make one that degrades after a certain number of playbacks instead. Or maybe one that degrades within a year or some other ridiculous timeframe.
    I'd be totally against it, of course, as I am with all their other DRM/IP related moves. But it's not *that* far off to imagine them seeing this as an option to prolong their current parasitic business model, instead of embracing the online world.

  • Does it stay crispy in milk? And which side do you prefer -- the frosted or unfrosted side?
  • This is great - make a new DRM tool and shroud it in Enviro Friendly rhetoric.

    You're not against the ENVIRONMENT, are you???????
  • Assuming of course they are stored in optimal conditions..

    I honestly can believe that anyone will have a device capable of reading a cd in 100 years so yay for corn.
  • The easiest way to assist the uptake of these things would be a carefully-worked out system of taxation and subsidy. If they want to live by the bankbook, let them die by the bankbook.
    • Tax mineral extraction where there are recycled or biological alternatives available.
    • Force waste handlers to pay a rebate on all recyclable goods whether or not they are actually recycled.
    • Introduce these measures gradually but firmly. Announce a schedule and stick to it. Borrow against taxes on polluting practices to su
  • They should probably just concentrate on the DVD-R market for now, so that their price does not make them be ignored. Then as they (and DVD-R) gets more popular, they can also make CD-Rs. But probably by that time, everyone will be using DVD-Rs instead anyways.
  • The natives call it maize :)
  • IBM did this in a hard disk with the GXP75 ;-)
  • I'm sure the record companies would LOVE to use these, particularly if they can get the self-destruction time down to 1 or 2 years.

    "Hey guys, look! We can make consumers buy the same music over and over again without having to keep changing the format!"
  • Let's see, you can get CD-Rs free most anywhere after rebate, so, let's do the math:

    $0 x 3 = $0
    $0 x 1.2 = $0

    Obviously we don't need to wait for the price to drop, if they are already 3 times the cost of free CDs.
  • I'll buy them, if only because i've been saying that i wish they'd come up with alternatives to plastic, and now that they are, i want to convince them that it's a good idea to keep trying. and if i don't, i should be poked with sharp sticks and branded as a hypocrite, because i said i didn't care if they would cost more. i might rethink this with other industries/products in the future. But i feel that this is a good start, and i'm willing to backup my data every few years, since regular writable discs degrade over time, too, becoming unusable.

    I've been saying right along how i'll buy from indie music groups and movie groups, just to support them. And that i'll pay more for higher fuel efficiency, and that i'm willing to try to only bring home glass and cardboard food containers, so that the glass and exterior cardboard can be recycled. And that i'll buy recyclable/renewable products. *sighing and getting out the wallet* But i'll admit that you who told me that it made more sense to demand approximate equivalency in products have a VERY valid point!

    But now it's a chance for me tocheer for the idea, again, and i will. Nobody's going to change ANYthing about waste management until it's a crisis, or because the market insists upon it. This is not the answer, no- this is just a start. But there are lots of things that can be done with trash other than bury it, and it has to start in my home where i decide what kinds of trash i'm going to buy in the first place. (especially since i'm one of the ones who whines about it.)

    i realise that other consumers may not feel the same way, and that there's really no reason why you should have to- having the larger part of the populace hold out for a more cost-effective products is important- that steers the market, too.

    Now, all i can say is- they better not package this stuff in a regular plastic case with a regular plastic spindle, or i'm going to be so bloody ticked off!!

  • I'm seeing more and more studies which indicate that CDROMs often start to decompose after 5-10 years. There's serious doubt about the longevity of the medium once proclaimed as "perfect audio forever."

    So now they have these biodegradable disks which last twice as long. Bizarre.
  • What a terrible thing, planned obsolescence of our information. Maybe that is what happened to Atlantis.

    History records that the burning of the library at Alexandria was a horrible crime against the future of mankind.

    Oh the horror of it.

    We have been reduced to digging in ancient toilettes to scavange for information.
  • Now if you can convert your old backups to good backwoods hooch.. well then you've got a good system with controlled obsolescence.

    maybe with proper genenetic engineering we can just store the codes in the kernels directly. Just look at Indian Corn. You have a higher base than binary right off the bat.

    You could re-use old typewritters as readers like all our old favorite Cartoons showed was possible (prior art here SCO and Microsoft, sorry)
  • Enderle is only a couple of active insults away from being Scott McCollum, perhaps the king of FUD. A few years ago Scott wrote a screed about how the open source movement is ideologically equivalent to Al-Qaeda. A bit like the Scientologists asserting that their critics are ideologically equivalent to child molesters.
    These guys exist, I think, to whip up the fears of conservative IT managers with their ties on too tight, and thus generate page views. Linux is a new and largely unknown phenomenon to busines
  • I'm waiting for the day they announce CD's made of Soylent Green :]
  • Oh, great. Now we not only have to put up with the RIAA, we'll have Archer Daniels Midland in our face as well :-) ADM is the politically-connected giant agribusiness conglomerate.
  • Are they edible?

    Any other starving college students remember the biodegradable corn-based packing material? Just add salt!

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