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Cyberpac, a UK packaging company that describes themselves as “a science-driven, design-led” packaging company, has come up with a biodegradable, compostable, water soluble polymer for clear bags like those used to deliver magazines through the mail. Not only will the bag dissolve in water, it is “up to 3 times stronger than polythene.”

Creative Review posted photos of the entire process, from opening the bag to disposal. It all melts away except for the ink printed on the bag.

How It Works

Many traditional, fossil fuel plastics like polythene can be made degradable by including a special additive in the mix. However, when discarded this mix will still be environmentally damaging.

“Harmless Packaging” from Cyberpac is derived from corn or potato starch – a renewable resource that absorbs carbon dioxide as it grows. Once the products reach the end of their useful life, they can be industrially composted to allow them to re-enter the life cycle.

To be classed ‘compostable’, a material must meet the stringent standards. The testing process involves mixing the material with organic waste and leaving it for 12 weeks under commercial composting conditions.

After this time the material must show evidence of being biodegraded due to microbial action. This means breaking down into water, carbon dioxide and biomass, rather than just breaking up into pieces, as degradable oil-based plastics do. To meet the standard, less than 10% of the remaining fragments are allowed to be larger than two millimeters.

The composted material is then tested for toxicity, to make sure it’s suitable to grow food crops. Finally, it’s sown with summer barley to check that it will support plant life.

Why have plastic bags that last millions of years when all they have to do is protect a product until we get it home? Cyberpac is on the right path.

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Books… they’ve been around in their current form for hundreds of years, and we’ve been reasonably happy with them. But now there is an entire alphabet of book formats available:

• p-book – printed (or paper) book
• a-book – audio book
• e-book – digital/electronic book
• v-book – video-text-image hybrid book

I’ve been an avid reader since I was about 5 years old. Put a book in my hands and I’m gone from this world into somewhere/somewhen else. P-books (paper books) have been part of my life for over 50 years augmented with the earliest version of a-books (audio books: Mom reading to me).

More than 20 years ago, I thoroughly enjoyed a P.D. James mystery while traveling on Interstate 90 for hours. It was the dozen or so audio cassettes that made a very long drive manageable.

While I haven’t yet bought an e-book reader like the Kindle, I’ve read books on my smart phone since DaVinci’s Code appeared. The little screen on my Palm Treo was just the thing to read that story in “gulps!”

I admit it, I bought the Lost Symbol to see if Brown’s latest book was just as effective on my iPhone. Alas, while the reading process was the same – gulps, again – the story just didn’t hold its own.

The Washington Post today presented me with yet another choice! A v-book! Simon & Shuster’s Atria Books is offering the Vook, a video/book hybrid available as an iPhone app, where you’ll find videos and hyperlinks that supplement the narrative interspersed throughout the usual text and graphics.

The book is changing indeed!

As discourse moves from printed pages to network screens, the dominant mode will be things that are multi-modal and multilayered, says Bob Stein, founder of the Institute for the Future of the Book. The age of pure linear content is going to pass with the rise of digital network content.

But what about reading? Will young people enjoy it as much as I did? Will all the slick production eliminate imagination altogether? All we can say is… “to be continued.”

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