Fruit and vegetable food scraps can be turned into materials stronger than concrete that’s usable in construction or packing with the end product still tasting good. It would eliminate some of the organic scraps decomposing in landfills and producing methane emissions. Various scraps, like bits of seaweed, cabbage leaves, orange peels, onion, pumpkin, and bananas were vacuum-dried. Then the materials were pulverized into powders, and mixed with water and seasonings to make pastes that were pressed in molds at high temperature (a method typically used to make construction materials from wood powder). Left exposed to air for four months, they did not lose appearance or taste, and resisted rot and insects.
Source: The work will be published in the proceedings of The 70th Annual Meeting of The Society of Materials Science, Japan as “Development of Novel Construction Material from Food Waste.”
www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2021/05/heres-something-to-chew-on-researchers-have-turned-food-scraps-into-materials-stronger-than-concrete/