A few products are just a little too iconic of our current environmental predicament. The Hummer. The computer you bought two years ago. The plastic bag. These items (and others) generate a lot of controversy along with waste, but at least one of them might now get a second chance to green up the auto market (hint: it's not the Hummer).

A Swiss company has announced that it has a process to turn plastic bags into diesel fuel. Just-Auto reports that Clyvia Technology GmbH in Germany has developed a way to extract valuable mineral fuels from petroleum-based products and can then turn the fuels into diesel (or heating oil). Biotherm Technologie AG is the Swiss company that is offering the service, which heats up the plastic bags (or whatever) up to 400 degrees C to get the diesel. While it certainly takes energy to get the bags that hot, Biotherm Technologie "claims it's 25 cents a litre cheaper than current pump prices for diesel - a differential which grows bigger with every rise in the price of oil," Just-Auto writes. The big question is if this will make the "paper or plastic" even more difficult to answer in the future.

UPDATE: added a press release from Biotherm Technologie AG after the jump.

[Source: Just-Auto]