Turning Lobster Shells into Golf Balls

By Dane Carlson on February 13, 2013 in Ideas

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This story came out of the University of Maine:

Golfers on the high seas can breathe a little easier — and so can the marine life around them — thanks to researchers at the University of Maine. In conjunction with The Lobster Institute, UMaine Biological and Chemical Engineering Professor David Neivandt and undergraduate student Alex Caddell of Winterport, Maine, have developed a biodegradable golf ball made from lobster shells. The ball is intended for use on cruise ships. Carin Poeschel Orr, who earned a master’s in marine bio-resources at UMaine, suggested the idea to Bob Bayer of The Lobster Institute. Bayer turned to Neivandt, who is known on campus as an innovative problem-solver. Though biodegradable golf balls already exist, this is the first to be made with crushed lobster shells with a biodegradable binder and coating, creating value from waste material. “We’re using a byproduct of the lobster canning industry which is currently miserably underutilized — it ends up in a landfill,” Neivandt says. “We’re employing it in a value-added consumer product which hopefully has some cachet in the market.”

Photoshop by Dane. Originals here and here.

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Business Opportunities Weblog editor and publisher Dane Carlson lives in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, just 15 miles from Yosemite National Park. He accidentally became a professional blogger in 2001. He has added 12,203 posts to the site.

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Another Idea: How to Start a Miniature Golf Course Business

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