By: Andrew Tan

Material scientists from Tokyo University have discovered how to turn food wastes into edible cement. This technology can turn items such as cabbage leaves and orange peels into edible and biodegradable cement that can be used for constructing homes. Surprisingly, the tensile, or bending, the strength of edible cement is almost four times stronger than regular cement!

Researchers first worked on a solution to make concrete by subjecting pulverized wood particles to heat compression. Then, they used simple mixers and compressors to conduct the three-step process of drying, pulverization, and compression. Next, they replicated the process with food waste. However, previous attempts required the mixing of harmful plastics with food waste to avoid the materials from sticking to each other. The consequence of consuming this would be that plastic would enter your body, while the small bit of plastic will stay in your system for a day since it’s small and your body can’t dissolve it into something to be used effectively. After a few months of failures, they saw that they could easily get the cement to fuse together simply by adjusting the temperature used.

On the other hand, each kind of waste had its own temperature sweat spot. These heats varied from very high temperatures to high temperatures. For example, other experiments for the application of food waste in construction involved using ground coffee or biowaste ashes as filler in regular concrete.

Finally, they were able to successfully create cement using tea leaves, orange and onion peels, and many other types of food waste. Moreover, the scent could be adjusted by changing the flavorings and seasonings in the mixture. In fact, the mixture can also be consumed by boiling it!

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