Duroplast is light and strong. It is made of recycled material, cotton waste and phenol resins.
Similar to fiberglass, Duroplast has limited possibilities for efficient disposal. As discarded Trabants began to fill junkyards, disposing of the bodies inspired creative solutions. One of these was developed by a Berlin biotechnology company, who experimented with a bacterium that would consume the body in 20 days. Urban legends, depicted in the movie Black Cat White Cat and described in a song by the Serbian band Atheist Rap, described recycling Duroplast by feeding the cars to pigs, sheep and other farm animals. In the late 1990s, the same Zwickau plant that manufactured the Trabant developed a solution for Duroplast disposal. After removing the glass, engine, and steel frame, the Duroplast shell is shredded and used as an aggregate in cement blocks for pavement construction. This was featured in an episode of the program Scientific American Frontiers on the American PBS TV channel.
Public perception
The use of Duroplast in Trabants and subsequent GDR jokes and mockery in western auto magazines such as Car and driver gave rise to an urban myth that the Trabant is made of corrugated cardboard
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