The Humble Cow,

the giver of milk, butter, cheese, beef, leather and plastic!

Galalith (“Milk Stone”) 1920s sample book, milk protein, formaldehyde, and pigments in Galalith (The Getty Research Institute), amazingly in the early decades of the 20th century, milk was commonly used to make many plastic ornaments, including jewellery, gemstones, buttons, decorative buckles, fountain pens, fancy comb and brush sets and even piano keys,

Milk buttons: White galalith RAAF pre-1953 buttons, this horn-like plastic material was marketed as Galalith or ‘milk stone’ and first exhibited at the Paris Universal Exhibition in 1900. Galalith was in essence, a cheap sheet and tubular material derived from skimmed milk, in 1897, the Hanover, Germany mass printing press owner Wilhelm Krische was commissioned to develop an alternative to blackboards. The resultant horn-like plastic made from the milk protein casein was developed in cooperation with the Austrian chemist (Friedrich) Adolph Spitteler (1846–1940). The final result was unsuitable for the original purpose. In 1893, French chemist Auguste Trillat discovered the means to insolubilize casein by immersion in formaldehyde, producing material marketed as galalith,

early 20th century Galalith Objects, aka Casein, a protein from cow’s milk (source),

Art Nouveau Galalith, Enamel and Pearl Pendant Necklace, René Lalique. Sold for 110,000 euros at Christie’s,

“Milk turned into wool by revolutionary new process (Pathé Newsreel, 1937)” although milk plastics have largely faded into obscurity with the advent of more advanced materials, Galalith is still in produced today, although in small quantities and almost solely for buttons. Casein glue is still also used to apply paper labels on glass bottles (it’s cheap and effective and easy to remove during recycling of the glass), but could this product be making a comeback? 

photograph © Lactips, the detergent tablets for dishwashers are usually packed in soluble plastic packaging, and that is thanks to Lactips, this PVA-based soluble film which dissolves but doesn’t biodegrade in water or in soil can be replaced with Ecolabel and Ecocert-certified milk protein-based plastics. Unlike PVA, whose aerobic biodegradation is limited to 13 % in 21 days in water, Lactips’s alternative can reach almost 100 % biodegradation within 28 days, a French SME built around the concept of building thermoplastic pellets from milk protein, is strongly investing in the production and commercialisation of their first applications, in 2018 they raised EUR 3.7 million,  

“Our product is the only thermoplastic based on sound and clean biomaterials (bio-sourced and biodegradable) in the world to be water-soluble at room temperature,” says Jean-Antoine Rochette, CEO of Lactips, the company behind the ECOLACTIFILM (A Water-Soluble Packaging to Unlock New Markets) project. “To produce it, we upgrade declassified milk’s main protein called casein, which used to be destroyed, to create a processable polymer. Casein is renewable, biodegradable and compostable, and it allows for developing a bioplastic with no significant aquatic toxicity.”

so it looks like cow plastic could be with us for the foreseeable future! for the full article have a look here.