For all of you who ship packages with those Styrofoam peanuts on a regular basis, listen up. A Styrofoam substitute made from milk proteins and clay has been created by scientists at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. This milk and clay concoction is easy to produce, lightweight and completely biodegradable.
The recipe was a happy accident by some of the students at the university who freeze-dried clay and created a substance that received interest from the scientists there. When milk protein casein was mixed into this substance, it created a a fluffy, foam-like material that resembled Styrofoam.
Megan Treacy from EcoGeek.org writes,
"The final recipe is pretty darn simple: clay, water, casein powder and a tiny bit of a glycerol-based material all mixed in a kitchen blender. The dirt smoothie is then put into molds and freeze-dried and there you go: biodegradable packaging foam.
The material has all the same properties as Styrofoam, keeping its integrity up to 392 degrees Fahrenheit. Where it differs is of course in its ability to break down. In tests conducted by the USDA, a third of the material broke down in 45 days."
This article appears in Oct 28 – Nov 3, 2010.