How Food Waste Is Turned Into Plastic, Hair Extensions, And More | World Wide Waste

How we grow food leads to a lot of waste, and most of that happens before it even gets to market. Instead of sending agricultural leftovers to landfills, where it breaks down into planet-warming methane, these companies are using it to make products and generate power from turning avocado pits into plastic to making vegan leather out of mangoes join us as we revisit what these six companies are doing. With worldwide waste, this puree will eventually become vegan leather. It'S made from thousands of mangoes that would otherwise be thrown away. This waste can be used to make wallets handbags and shoes, but can it compete with the massive leather industry? We visited the headquarters of fruit leather in the netherlands to find out fruit. Leather collects around 1500 mangoes each week from a dutch importer. The quality control requires that we cut the mangoes. We cannot sell them anymore, so i wanted to have an outlet for that. Instead of just throwing it away like trash, it's a win-win as we receive the waste from them for free and they don't have to pay anymore to get rid of their mango waste back at their studio. Co-Founders hugo and goon start making the leather first, a machine, d-stones the mangoes and then crushes the fruit into a pulp. The mixture pumps through a tube into a large vat next hugo mixes several additives that will turn the mango pulp into a leather-like material. I'M checking if our measurements are right. My meter tells me that i have to add a little bit more of our additives perfect when it looks right, hugo pours the mixture onto metal, baking trays and smooths it out to create an even thickness. Then the trays go in a dehydrator overnight before we dry it. It always has this light cram color, but after we dry it, it tends to look very different based on the type of mango that we use. So, for instance, a palmer mango will give a more brownish material. Keith mango will give a more black material. Finally, the sheets go to a leather finishing facility to be coated in a protective glaze rico and his family have been in the leather business since 1952. But this is the first time they've processed vegan leather. We use the same process, but it's different material, so it responds differently to a heat or to the finishing products we use. First, he measures the thickness of each sheet. Then they mix resins to make the coating and it makes a little film on top of the sheet, so it will be protected from the elements. A machine presses a thin layer of protective coating onto the leather when the sheets pass through they go into a conveyor and that will roll into an oven. The 100 degrees celsius heat helps the coating dry. Then the sheet hangs on racks to cool and dry completely. Each one undergoes this process multiple times to make it more durable. Next, another machine applies heat and pressure to combine the layers of coating. The final step is the design this embossing machine can make the leather look and feel like animal skin. Then the leather is sold to designers around the world. Hugo and first came up with the idea for fruit leather back in 2015.. We wanted to turn something valueless into something that has value eventually, with a lot of experimenting. We came up with uh the material that we have today. A big part of this process was deciding which fruit to use when we first started. We didn't know that a certain fruit might lead to better material actually in such a way that we even tried processing watermelons turns out there's not a lot of fibers inside watermelon, it's mainly water. They settled on mangoes, because the fruit was easy to work with later. We found out how much mango holland actually imports. More than half of the mangoes in europe are imported or traded by the netherlands, and around 12 of food in the netherlands is wasted. We are able to get a very large amount of resource to make our material. That is why we decided to stick with the mango hugo and kun also want to reduce emissions. Another way we saw that all kind of chemicals were being used to tend the ladder with all co2 that comes from the tanning process. The chemicals used to tan leather can be toxic to both humans and the environment. There'S also the methane emissions that come from raising cattle. If we reduce the number of cows, then we also reduce the amount of greenhouse gases, but some experts say it's not. That simple leather is not primarily what's driving the cattle industry, and i think that there's a pretty compelling argument to be made that as long as beef production is still continuing, that we should make use of these hides. Vegan leather also comes with its own challenges, although some of it is made from mushrooms or pineapples. Most is made from plastic, and this still leaves a large carbon footprint. People started realizing that polyurethane leather which is made from oil is not the solution. In 2020, the synthetic leather market was valued at over 30 billion dollars and one study predicts it will grow to over 40 billion in the next six years, but that's still only a fraction of the leather industry which was valued at nearly 400 billion dollars. 13 times more than its synthetic counterpart, we do need these new alternative materials that have just a different environmental profile and hopefully a smaller carbon footprint, but for small companies like fruit leather, it's hard to compete right now. Fruit, leather is only able to produce 80 square meters of leather per month. That'S about 250 pairs of shoes, the final product costs around 22 dollars per square foot and the small size of each sheet means the company can only make certain products. Eventually, we want to work towards creating the material on a giant roll so that we can also increase our production capacity, but also expand the range of products that the material can be applied to the mango leather also doesn't last as long as traditional leather. The upholstery of a car needs to last like 10 years. This is something i wouldn't be able to withstand now, but they are still working to make the product more durable and hugo and say their goal isn't to replace cow leather altogether. This process has been completely thought out and we started in 2015, so we are not going to suddenly replace a product that has been around for thousands of years still they are aiming to make leather production easier on the environment, one mango at a time. We just can't seem to get enough guac. Last year, americans consumed more than 6 billion avocados and that produces a lot of inedible waste. Now a company has developed a process to transform avocado pits into plastic. Bioplastics like these could help reduce pollution because they break down faster and use less fossil fuels, but how they're made and disposed of determines if they really are a cleaner alternative. We visited bio fosse in monterrey, mexico to see how it all works. Mexico exports about half of the world's avocados, a single worker at this plantation in michoacan, can cut over 800 pounds of the fruit per day. Many of these avocados will be shipped whole, but some are pitted and processed locally. This factory produces ready-to-eat guacamole and salsa. They tried composting the avocado scraps, but it didn't work. Avocado pits contain oils that made the process complicated. So now they sell their seeds to biofosse. Bioplastics are what we call products that are mostly made of biological substances instead of petroleum. The process starts with avocado seeds that have been washed at the supplying factory pastures generally, as the seed is going through the machine, it's turned into a bioplastic resin, that's ready to withstand a lot of heat. What comes out the other end is a malleable sheet that can be molded and cut into different shapes elements. Studies have shown that bioplastics are an improvement over traditional plastics. It takes less fossil fuels to produce them, they contain fewer toxic chemicals and they decompose faster. The technology to make these products has improved over the past few years and has grown to a nearly 20 billion dollar industry. That'S about the same size as the rapidly growing plant-based meat industry. Biofosse is part of that trend. The company launched eight years ago with a single facility. Today it has three locations across mexico, but there are issues. Bioplastics require special industrial facilities to properly compost and they can contaminate the regular recycling stream they're, also more expensive than regular plastic, which is made from readily available petroleum. There are two reasons because first of all, crude oil is quite cheap, um right now and and secondly, the production capacity for bioplastics is much lower. While for fossil based plastic, it's much bigger, so they have an economy of scale in terms of production. Bio fossa produces about 130 tons of bioplastics each month, that's equivalent to the conventional plastic waste produced by thirteen thousand americans. It'S a modest output for now, but bio fossa products are shipped across mexico, the uk and other countries in europe and the company recently expanded to australia. But there's a long way to go. Bioplastics, i think, is probably a little bit less than one percent of the fossil based plastics. For now they are mostly used in restaurants, but the idea that biodegradables can be thrown into nature and will eventually go away, is false. It can take up to a year for bioplastics to break down in natural conditions. That'S still plenty of time to clog waterways or harm animal habitats. Still that's much shorter than conventional plastic items, some of which will stick around for hundreds of years. Bioplastics can replace some traditional plastics. So far, that's only been tried on a small scale, but thanks to biofosse we may be one avocado toast away from a cleaner planet. Bananas are one of the world's most wasteful crops, and these giant stems are a part of the problem. Farmers typically burn them, but that pollutes the air. So instead, one company in uganda has figured out how to pulverize them into fiber to make rugs placemats even hair extensions. So could bananas become a green alternative to cotton or silk? We visited the headquarters of texfad in the outskirts of kampala to find out every banana stem only fruits once in its lifetime, before it rots or catches a virus and for every ton of fruit plantations, produce two tons of debris, but in those mounds of refuse kimani Maturi saw potential, he founded texfad in 2013, after discovering his love for hand weaving in college. I cannot finish using the waste that is out there. It'S too much. First workers cut the stems into celery, shaped chunks and leave them out to dry in the sun. Then they feed those strands into an extractor like this one. This is a crucial step and the only part of the process that requires machinery and it's not cheap. This unit costs anywhere from one thousand dollars for a used one to ten thousand dollars brand new. That price presents an obstacle for expanding this business. The rest of the work is done by hand the extracted fibers dry again until they feel like a silky yarn, but one that is as strong as rope. At this point, it's also ideal for dying. The final stop is the weaving shed where the making of household goods and handicrafts begins. Some of the designs on these rugs are inspired by traditional east african patterns. Other products are custom made for clients. It can take up to a month to weave a rug. The price varies, but many start at around five hundred dollars. Texfad employs 23 people and even offers an internship program for students, the problem that we have here in our country. We study we get earned degrees, but we don't have opportunities. Esther inibiona has been at the company for about a year. She started as an intern and is now one of the main weavers. Well i like the people i work with it's because they are motivating they help. There are different groups of people around. It'S a very good thing because you interact with people of all ages. Banana textiles have been around for centuries in countries like the philippines, nepal and japan. But texfad is one of the first companies to bring it to uganda and the potential is huge because the country produces more bananas than any other in east africa about nine million tons every year. That'S about five tons of fruit for every person in uganda. I will never get worried that i won't have materials tomorrow as long as we are eating bananas on a daily basis and while kimani's business has grown over the past eight years, it isn't enough to make a dent in the 30 billion dollar global banana industry. Environmentalists say that composting the stems into fertilizers would be a more immediate solution, it prevents dehydration, it prevents deforestation and it gets a richer soil and richest oil is a more healthy. Many farms do that, but chopping. The stems requires tough manual labor, so for most farmers in uganda, getting rid of them is easier and faster. Still, these kinds of textiles are biodegradable and are a more sustainable alternative to other popular fabrics. Banana fiber absorbs dyes better than cotton, which means it needs less water and less land to produce, but the special equipment and expertise hold back this method from becoming more widespread. It could spread over the world if more machines are found and developed that actually makes such thin material that you can use it for the clothing industry, because currently it's quite hard to do so and not a lot of machines have been developed or it's costly, still. Kimani dreams, big, even during a pandemic, i'm just imagining. If there was no coffee, i think we would be a little further than we are today and he's always innovating. There is no rocket science in what we are doing here. No, even people who come to land here they don't take much time to to land, but this is just the beginning. I can tell you that banana fiber is the next fiber. The next fiber in terms of sustainable fibers for fashions, are not just for fashions for everything. These plates are made from the tops of pineapples that are shredded mixed with some recycled paper and turned into sheets that are left out to dry under the sun. A machine presses the sheets into form, and if these disposable plates end up in a place with soil and water, tiny seeds inside will blossom in a few days on a busy day, workers at lifepak can churn out ten thousand eco-friendly plates. In addition to plates, the company also makes sandwich containers and coffee cup sleeves that contain seeds from edible plants like cilantro amaranth and strawberry lifepack caps, its own carbon footprint by working with local suppliers, not it sources pineapple waste from a nearby processing plant. The plant's owners charge nothing for the pineapple crowns, they're happy that someone is willing to turn their waste into a resource foreign founded lifepak 12 years ago in the city of cali. The couple has won several small business awards and they even appeared on the columbian version of shark tank in apartments. Colombia, like nearly every country in the world, is trying to reduce plastic waste. In 2017, the country introduced a tax on single-use plastics that increases each year and in some cities, informal pickers are now paid as municipal workers, but getting consumers to buy these products isn't easy. The lifepak plates retail at about two and a half dollars per dozen. That'S more than double the price of plastic plates from a big box store, despite their higher price point, lifepak has been able to capitalize on growing demand for sustainable packaging, which has increased by 40 since the company started. Its plates are now sold in three large supermarket chains. Domestically, the company also handles dozens of orders through its website. Each week with a handful of customers in the us is lifepak's. Next challenge is to modernize its equipment, so it can boost production, andres and claudia also plan to franchise the business and expand into new countries to help more people cut back on plastic one plate at a time. India grows more bananas than anywhere else in the world, but about half of each plant goes to waste. One company is turning that waste into biodegradable sanitary pads that could help more people have safer periods with disposable plastic pads on the rise. Can banana stem save the country from mountains of trash? We visited sati to see how it's using worldwide waste when sathi started out in 2015 only about a third of women in india had access to pads, and that can mean more than just discomfort. You'Re missing out on school or work for those five days every month, and that sets you back. I was proud to be an indian, but also was assumed that we cannot provide something of basic necessity. Tarun bhotra and kristin kagetsu set out to help without creating more plastic trash, and they found the answer in farmwaste. Just one banana plant stem can yield up to 3 000 pads according to sathi. The stalks only bear fruit once so after each harvest. Farmers clear the fields to make room for new growth, chirag desai is a researcher looking for new ways to use these leftovers. The farmers are dumping it on the roadside or canal side, and it will create a huge environmental as well as social problems. His team has turned banana plant fibers into fertilizer fabric and even candy. The market is growing for such type of natural products. He shared some of his knowledge with southie's founders. They stay here for one week we gave them a good training basics how to extract the fireworks and all that the first step is to cut the stalks in half workers pull the halves apart layer by layer. They feed these celery-like chunks into machines that leave just the stringy fibers behind workers, wash the fibers and dry them on a line. Then they're ready for a second life. The founders set up stations with machines like these around the country, so local farmers can extract fibers from their own crop waste. We have been closely working with 18 000 of them on regular basis where we have set up different extraction units. Saathi pays the farmers for the fibers, giving additional income to farmers. That'S a first part of our circular economy. Farmers can also use the liquid from the stems as fertilizer at the sathi factory workers feed fibers into machines that cut them into shorter pieces. The next step is turning those pieces into this fluff. The founders told us. This part is a trade secret. We do a magical process once they reach our factory, convert them into a cotton-like material with our patented technology, which eventually will be pressed into more thinner and thinner sheets. This is the absorbent core of the pad. What is happening over here is they are putting all the different layers of the pad together workers layer, the banana fiber core between other sheets darun says these sheets are made from plants, but wouldn't tell us which plants he says he's worried about. Other companies, copying sathi. After the pads are cut to size, he tests them out from each batch using water mixed with ink, and the good part is that it is spreading instead of staying here leaking out of here. The material throughout the length is utilized. Sathi says the adhesive on the back of the pads is non-toxic, but wouldn't say exactly what's in it either the pads are ready to be sanitized using light. What we use over here is a uvc light, which sterilize or reduce any kind of viral road. Finally, workers package the pads, so there is not much of a rocket science over here, a simple packing: they wrap each one in yet another secret plant-based material and seal the packets. With heat, the founders say, the pads and all packaging are 100 biodegradable and they sent their products to a lab that confirmed this. This is a packaging made out of hygiene paper with no plastic coating on it, roll it up, use the same tape to stick it and throw it as it is. Conventional pads are made mostly of plastic. If all the menstruating women in india used them, it would create an amount of trash 10 times the weight of the great pacific garbage patch every year. Saathi says if buried its pads will break down in under six months. If they're left out in the open. It'S more like 18 months before disposable pads were invented, people often used cloth, dried plants or whatever absorbent things they could find. I would not say that these are always unhygienic methods of menstruation, but what makes it hygienic or unhygienic is whether the material is clean. How long it is used for many in india still use cloth for their periods, which can cause infections? If it's not washed and dried. Frequently sathi sells its pads at pharmacies at specialty stores and online and for each pad the company sells. It gives one away for free, we take it from people who have enough and give it to those who need most of the free pads go to people in rural areas who are less likely to have access to them compared to those in cities. We have successfully distributed almost 2 million pads now experts say free pads are helpful, but education is also key. We really need to go beyond just provision of pads now and talk about what it means to hygienically use them. Four to six hours is the maximum one. Should use and definitely change after that, when sati introduces its product to a new area, it organizes talks about menstrual health for local women at one recent session, sauron spoke about pads and handed them out to attendees, also taken care of and price, isn't the only issue? Cultural taboos can also stop people from buying pads, though it's becoming less common. Some traditional communities limit women's behavior, while they're menstruating italian. In that time, she's seen attitudes towards pad's shift she's able to support her family with her earnings. Since 2010, access to pads in india has risen dramatically. Art activism and government programs are making it easier to talk about periods sanitizers, but about one in four women in india still don't have sanitary period supplies. That'S tens of millions of people, but seeing how things have already changed keeps the founders going. A lot of women are having safe periods. The environment is not being polluted with plastic. The biggest service one can do is leave a greater legacy, a better world for generations. To come, what's better than that, 10 tons of food goes unsold every day at this market, but instead of going to a landfill, it's turned into electricity that will power street lights, buildings and a kitchen that preps meals for 800 people. This is called biogas. It'S plentiful! It'S low tech and experts say it burns cleaner than any fossil fuel. So why can't we make energy from the 1.3 billion tons of food that gets thrown out every year we visited the bon pali market in hyderabad india to find out. The first step is to chop up larger vegetables and load them onto a conveyor belt. Some of the vegetables are spoiled, others are thrown away because it costs farmers too much to transport them back home wasabi. The conveyor belt carries the material to a shredder which further breaks down the food into smaller, more uniform particles in a single day. It handles the same amount of vegetables that 150 indians eat in a year a grinder crushes the mixture into pulp, which is pumped through underground tanks and into two digesters. So anaerobic digesters basically have a bacteria which are operated in the absence of oxygen or anaerobic bacteria, and they actually eat essentially the food waste that we are putting in there and give out methane and carbon dioxide. Any organic materials emit these planet warming gases as they decompose, but the massive amount of food waste makes landfills the third largest source of human-caused methane emissions just behind fossil fuels and agriculture. Burning biogas to make electricity is a way to harvest those gases before they enter the atmosphere at bone poly. The fuel can be stored locally in four huge balloons until it's ready to use, and it goes all the way to the kitchen, which is about roughly 400 500 meters away from here. It'S enough power to run a canteen kitchen that serves roughly 800 meals per day. Aside from energy, the plant creates another valuable by-product fertilizer farmers who sell their wares at the market, buy it back and spread it on the same fields where their vegetables grow. By using this fertilizer, their soils are also getting better. Their crops yields are better and the crops are being sold at higher cost, because organic vegetables are very costly nowadays. You know organic rice and all these things, dr rayo, a scientist on the project, is already building five more plants around the city and it isn't limited to vegetables. Biogas can be produced from any organic material, including animal and human feces. So if biogas can be locally sourced, cuts down on solid waste and reduces emissions, why aren't we all doing this? Because in most countries it's still cheaper to keep burning fossil fuels in north america, biogas costs nearly five times more than natural gas. Now you can't compete with what you call gas in the united states, it's 20 cents a gallon. This gap is smaller in places like asia, where the difference in price is less than two dollars per unit. A lot of people, a lot of state governments who were thinking about setting up these projects have suddenly of understood that, yes, it's possible to do it. Yes, there are technologies which are indigenous which are built in india that can work for them. The world's biggest biogas plant was recently built in denmark, and new facilities are being built elsewhere in europe and africa. An israeli company sells a product to make biogas in your backyard. Biogas will never replace natural gas there's just not enough waste to keep up with the demand for electricity, but it does something that natural gas can. It helps reduce landfill waste and it's a huge missed opportunity in the united states, which throws out between 30 and 40 percent of all food, even the farmers who lose money when they can't sell their produce. Believe biogas is better than just throwing it away, and the engineers on the bow and pali are hopeful that its success will inspire others. So these projects have to happen. You know for us to make life more sustainable, not just for ourselves but for let's say even 20 years or 10 years down the line. The scenario needs to be a little better. You