Cargill Dow Developes Corn-based Fibre to Make Clothes, Blankets

Corn may become another fabric of our lives, now that companies are using it to make blankets and clothes.

Cargill Dow LLC, based in Minnetonka, Minn., developed a fibre called Ingeo, from corn-based plastic. Clothing and textile companies are knitting, weaving and threading Ingeo into fabrics and household materials to sell to consumers.

Michael O'Brien, a Cargill Dow spokesman, said the product is so versatile that it's possible to furnish an entire house with it.

"You could go to bed at night with pyjamas made from it, and your sheets and your pillow and your bedding. Put your feet down on carpet made from it in the morning," he said.

"You'd have to open your drapes, of course, that are made" from polylactic acid, a biotech plastic that is the raw material for making Ingeo.

The company's plant in Blair, Neb., makes the acid by milling corn into starch and then sugar. The sugar is fermented using enzymes to create lactic acid, which is then purified.

In the end, what used to be yellow corn is transformed into small, opaque and white plastic pellets of polylactic acid with the potential to be moulded into plastic cups, wrappers or spun into the Ingeo fibre.

In January, Cargill Dow announced that 85 companies worldwide - from clothing makers such as Diesel to blanket maker Faribault Woolen Mills - were forming a business partnership to develop new products with the patented Ingeo fibre.

Patrick Gruber, vice-president of technology at Cargill Dow, promotes Ingeo as a biodegradable fibre, meaning it can be composted without emitting pollutants into the environment. Unlike many synthetic materials, petroleum-based chemicals are not needed to complete the recipe for Ingeo, which is another plus, Gruber said.

Gruber said partners using Ingeo agreed they wouldn't blend it with harmful chemicals. For example, he said they cannot use chemicals that will form dioxin, a toxic substance that can harm people's health, pollute the environment and potentially lead to cancer.

If a company is caught violating the Ingeo agreement, "we'd say stop it," Gruber said. "And if you didn't, then you'd be cut off."

Other than goods made from biotech cotton, consumers have not seen biotech products in retail stores. Companies are still experimenting with the technology, said Brent Erickson, a vice-president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization in Washington.

"I think what we're just seeing is we're at the leading edge of this trend," Erickson said.

Environmental and consumer groups have been critical of biotechnology, concerned that genes from genetically engineered plants will cross with food crops and taint the food supply.

While Cargill Dow uses genetically engineered corn to create the plastic pellets, it also could use other types, such as organic corn, spokesman O'Brien said.

The Nebraska plant now processes about 140,000 tonnes annually. Half of that volume will be used to make Ingeo and other fibres; the other half will be devoted to making packaging materials.

Ingeo is viewed as a biotech product because the fermentation process for making its plastic base is considered a form of biotechnology. It does not appear that Ingeo has any opponents, said Michael Rodemeyer, executive director for the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology, a Washington research group.

"Clearly there's increasing interest not only in the United States but around the world in using biological processes to reduce environmental harm," Rodemeyer said. "This is a case where there can be some very strong claims that can be made about environmental benefits."

Michael Harris, chief executive of Faribault Woolen Mills in Minnesota, said the company is weaving Ingeo, sometimes with wool, to make blankets because it is safer for the environment and because corn is a locally grown commodity.

"When we looked at all those things, we thought that just seems to fit with our made-in-America type of products," he said.

Faribault's Ingeo blankets but could be on the market this summer