Bio-Based Plastics Aim to Capture Carbon. But at What Cost? – Wired Magazine
![Packaging peanuts made from thermoplastic starch (by Christian Gahle, nova-Institut GmbH, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia).](https://coastalcare.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/1024px-Starke-Packstoff_Pompel_CG-798x602.jpeg)
Growing crops to make plastic may theoretically reduce reliance on fossil fuels, but at an enormous environmental cost…bio-based plastics are problematic for a variety of reasons. It would take an astounding amount of land and water to grow enough plants to replace traditional plastics — plus energy is needed to produce and ship it all…But let’s say there was a large-scale shift to bioplastics — what would that mean for future emissions? That’s what a new paper in the journal Nature set out to estimate…