A pair of Japanese researchers have launched a startup that turns food waste into cement with 4-times better bending resistance.
The potential applications are endless, and as well as being potential building material, the cement can produce any kind of simple object like tea cups or chairs; but it’s also edible, and aromatic, and biodegradable.
Tokyo University’s Kota Machida and Yuya Sakai are the brains behind Fabula Inc, a project to reduce food waste, help curb global warming, reduce pressure on landfills, and offer a new way of looking at production with their method of turning common types of food waste into cement that’s edible and strong.
Cement production, according to the UK thinktank Chatham House, produces 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, or around 3.5 times as much as the airline industry, and while modern “bio” or “green” cement usually incorporates wood ash, coffee grounds, or another previously-living substance into normal cement mixtures, Fabula’s product is 100% biological.
It took years of development but the method is simple. Food waste is dried, turned into a powder, and then heat-pressed into a mold. The difficulties originally arose from the fact that every food item needed different temperatures and pressures to correctly solidify.
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