Bio plastics

The IAAC also employed some unusual materials in the study, including orange peel, coffee powder and shrimp shells. There was a method to this and the material used has a genuine effect on the final plastic. The orange peel infused plastic was stronger, with better heat resistance, while the material containing coffee grounds displayed hydrophobic qualities.

The IAAC concluded that a combination of coffee and orange would make the best bioplastic and the geometry of the structure could then be varied to produce differing behaviour. Not every country has an excess of coffee and orange, but the study notes that each individual country can find their own combinations of food waste and plastic.

The amount of waste can also affect the level of shrinkage and bend over time in the plastic, which can be tuned for the individual purpose.

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Beverage to Bench

American fast food chain Chick-fil-A, don’t just throw their customers used polystyrene cups into the landfill. Instead, they take those cups and transform them into park benches.

Let’s see how they do it…

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dumpster house

How to get students thinking about their environmental footprints?

Jeff G. Wilson and his students at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, Tex., retrofitted a garbage container into a cozy pad that he lived in for an entire year. It was, he says, “a radical experiment in what it would mean to live on, and in, less” — specifically, 33 square feet. He moved out last February but the experiment continues.

Nine educators have since taken up residency for up to a week to see what it’s like to live without running water. Cooking is on a camping stove. But there is electricity. To battle interior heat that rises to over 130 degrees in Texas’s sweltering summers, the bin had to be connecting to the grid so air-conditioning could be installed. There’s now a TV and an overhead light. But it’s still tight quarters.

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