How cool is this?

Super eco-friendly Prius-maker, Toyota Motor Corp, has come up with a number of new plant-based resins that they can use to make automotive interior materials such as scuff plates, seat cushions, and so on. The new resins will be used in their new hybrid cars released in 2009.

Toyota aims to make 60% of the surface area in the interior of cars with parts made from these resins. Automotive interior parts are required to be higher in heat resistance and collision resistance than other resin products. Toyota also improved production technologies so mass productivity equivalent to those of petroleum-based resins can be achieved.

Toyota first adopted 100% plant-based plastic, Eco-Plastic, in 2003 for the spare tire cover and floor mat of the “Raum.”

Wow! A car you can grow in your back yard. Well, at least it’s a start.

Toyama prefecture is located in northern Japan. It gets cold there in the winter, but not really cold enough to freeze a lake or a pond. Not to worry, Japan has an answer to those who still want to go skating. There’s a skating made out of resin, plastic. It’s 300-square-meters square and  billed as environmentally friendly.

The two reasons are – 1. The rink doesn’t use water to make ice and 2. the rink can be operated at half the cost of conventional ice rinks. There is no need for a cooling system. So, why only half the cost, I wonder?

The rink uses some 80 pieces of plastic glued together and skaters can frolic about as if they were on ice. Speed is slower because of greater friction and I don’t suppose your hands get cold when you fall down. Ah, and no worrying about going through the ice and into the drink either.