Food waste cement: A gingerbread house-style building option

TOKYO,
Ever dreamed of having a gingerbread house like Hansel and Gretel?

In the near future, edible houses may no longer just be found in fairy tales.

Tokyo University researchers Kota Machida and Yuya Sakai have developed a technology to transform food waste into potentially edible “cement” for construction use.

It’s the world’s first process for making cement entirely from food waste. The researchers say the tensile, or bending, strength of their product is nearly quadruple that of ordinary concrete.

Machida and Sakai say they hope to help reduce global warming, alleviating problems related to wasted food materials that emit methane when they rot while buried in landfills.

Sakai, an associate professor of Industrial Science, developed the technology while researching sustainable materials that could replace cement-based concrete. Cement production accounts for 8% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, according to the think tank Chatham House.

He first developed a way to make concrete by subjecting pulverized wood particles to heat compression. The three-step process of drying, pulverization, and compression was done using simple mixers and compressors the researchers say can be bought on Amazon.