We currently have plastics that dissolve in water, plastics that
shrink when exposed to moderate heat, and plastics which degrade into
fertilizer.

So -- why not a plastic bag into which you could put a present, hit it
with a hair dryer to seal it, and after the holidays you could cut the
wrapping into strips and use them for dishwashing and/or laundry
detergent?

Does this fall into:

A) Impossible.

B) Too expensive to consider.

C) Someone already has the basic patents and are refining the
manufacturing process and developing a marketing strategy.
--

Wildepad schrieb:

> So -- why not a plastic bag into which you could put a present, hit it
> with a hair dryer to seal it, and after the holidays you could cut the
> wrapping into strips and use them for dishwashing and/or laundry
> detergent?

The first part is readily available, common applications are selfsealing
duct tapes or film wrappings with electrostatic cling. You don't even
need the hair dryer.

The second part would require lots of stuff needed for water treatment
to be embedded into the plastic. This would affect the properties of the
base material in nondesired ways, weaking the bonding between molecules,
making them more prone to breaking, making the brand new product similar
to a rubber band that has been exposed to ozone or UV for to long and
now is decomposing.

Apart from that: how much gift wrappings do you get? Lots of trouble to
safe a few bucks on cleaning supplies; standard recycling or
incineration is much more efficient and safes you the hassles of all the
ingredients not needed for washing away from the stuff to be cleaned.

On Mon, 31 Dec 2007 06:17:30 +0100, Robert Martinu
<invalid@invlid.invalid> wrote:

>Wildepad schrieb:
>
>> So -- why not a plastic bag into which you could put a present, hit it
>> with a hair dryer to seal it, and after the holidays you could cut the
>> wrapping into strips and use them for dishwashing and/or laundry
>> detergent?
>
>The first part is readily available, common applications are selfsealing
>duct tapes or film wrappings with electrostatic cling. You don't even
>need the hair dryer.

Using such products, you still need a certain amount of dexterity if
you don't want it looking like it was wrapped by a blind monkey on
acid.


>The second part would require lots of stuff needed for water treatment
>to be embedded into the plastic. This would affect the properties of the
>base material in nondesired ways, weaking the bonding between molecules,
>making them more prone to breaking, making the brand new product similar
>to a rubber band that has been exposed to ozone or UV for to long and
>now is decomposing.

That's what I was afraid of.

Adding minerals to plastics (to make seed tapes, etc.) seems like it
would strengthen them, but I thought that maybe the surfactants (is
that the right word?) would want to destroy the structure.


>Apart from that: how much gift wrappings do you get? Lots of trouble to
>safe a few bucks on cleaning supplies; standard recycling or
>incineration is much more efficient and safes you the hassles of all the
> ingredients not needed for washing away from the stuff to be cleaned.

The main appeal, for me, other than the ease of wrapping, would be the
marketing. It could be touted as green (nothing incinerated or dumped
into a landfill), and a jar of the strips would add a festive touch to
a kitchen or laundry room.

Thanks!!
--