Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Styrofoam-Current Events

http://www.dogonews.com/2010/10/28/styrofoam-that-will-protect-your-television-and-garden

STYROFOAM
MADE ON THE 28/10/2010 BY MEERA DOLASIA
SEEN ON THE 2/11/2010
You have all noticed that Styrofoam that Styrofoam is used on most packaging...but not only that! It fills up 25% of our landfills AND it uses 1.5 L of gas in every cubic unit! Styrofoam sounds like a problem, but luckily scientists have found something that can replace it-something recyclable and does not use any of our precious valuable resources...It's the new Eco Cradle!!! 'It can be made by almost any useless agriculture which depending on the country could range from corn husks in China to buckwheat husks and oat hulls in the U.S.A., or soybean husks in Spain.' says Ms.Meera. To make this special Styrofoam, you have to cook and cool the husks. When the company has done that, it pasteurizes the material and mixes it with mycelium, a root of mushrooms. The last step is leaving the material in mold for five days. After that, you have a material that is very similar to Styrofoam, but better! It is water resistant and can be used to package almost any material. And, to make it even better, it doesn't cost that much more than normal packaging! But, the best part of all, you can throw it away in three different ways: In your garden to become mulch (which is awesome in my opinion), in the compost, and of course, in the trash!!! I really hope people use this Eco-friendly packaging,  because then we would be actually doing something to save the environment!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Clare,
    Very well written summary. This packaging seems like it would be very useful especially since we would use extra biomass that is left over from the harvest, it doesn't cost a lot and it can be thrown away naturally. How great!

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