Compact Discs out of Corn! Evidently they take 50-100 years to decompose so it is a legitimate storage medium.

October 21, 2003

Hi Gang,

Check this out. Sanyo and Dow came up with a compact disc out of corn! Having

personally used corn-based plastic silverware I can honestly say that this is

not fiction. The result is something like soft plastic. While there are

certain things I might want to last more than 50 years I'm sure there are many

things I wouldn't care about not having 50 years from now. For example a CD

with a service pack on it or the " latest " version of MS Office. One can only

hope that 50 years from now Office will be better. Although, that may very well

not be the case, because added power and features, invariably come at the

expense of simplicity. The obvious problem with these discs is their short

lifespan and possible fragile nature (provided they are like the silverware I

used). However, I don't believe this to be terribly different in life span to

magnetic disks (Floppy's and the like) or magnetic tape storage mediums.

Ironically though the greatest strength of these disks: biodegradability, is

also its greatest weakness.

Sanyo Develops Corn-Based Biodegradable CD

Posted by timothy on Tuesday October 21, @06:58AM

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. "

Cheers,

Christian Blackburn

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