Paints from potatoes
ICI, a UK-based company, is developing an environmentally-sound paint for households that replaces up to 25 per cent of the petroleum-based chemicals now used in paints. The paint will use starch derived from crops including potatoes, wheat and maize. At present, interior paints use vinyl and acrylic derived from petroleum-derived chemicals that solidify when exposed to air as they form long, chained molecules. The new paints are just as hard and feel the same as standard paints as the starch component is bound into the polymerised molecules. ICI's new paint is part of a long-standing drive to develop products with "biosustainability' that are made from renewable resources rather than fossil fuels. One advantage of starch-based paints would be that they can be composted. This is expected attract consumers who are aware of the environmental degradation caused by products that biodegradable. Millions of gallons of unused or dried-up vinyl paints have to be disposed of in public dumps, where they are resistant to decay.