Photos: Baking plastic from plants

Cereplast's factory is packed with boxes of powdery plant starches ready to be mixed into batches to make bioplastic resin, as well as finished goods.

The baking process begins with massive blenders like this one churning together some 10 ingredients including starches and polymers. Most of the blending occurs in a small room with the door shut, since the material thickens the air. It smells sort of like Elmer's glue, thick and pasty, but without the nauseating aroma found in factories that wrangle toxic chemicals. The process is similar to that of making nylon.