Unlike petroleum-based products, corn-based products can be mechanically recycled, composted (this takes several years) and wont releares toxins when burned.

Creating the resin from corn also produces much less harmful gas than producing plastic from petroleum. Processing corn based products involves several steps using the process of fermentation, followed by polymerization. The first step in making corn cards is similar for both corn and oil-based plastics. It is the process that involves turning raw materials into tiny pellets.

First the corn is planted, harvested, then sent to a milling plant where starch is separated and isolated from each other components. The starch is converted to sugar. Then, through a fermentation process much like making wine or whiskey, micro organisms convert the sugar into a lactic acid, which ignites the biological process of polomerization. The polymer or plastic, is formed into pellets.

The most environmentally significat difference is that PVC is derived from oil, something that takes millions of years to regenerate, While PLA is derived from corn, a plant that grows in roughly 100 days.

Then, the sheet extruder takes the pellets and mixes its own proprietary blend of chemical additives to give the corn spawned plastic better strength.