In every vehicle, there is a humungous amount of plastic. Plastic is not an environment-friendly substance and it typically attains the status of being trash the moment the car is discarded. Simultaneously, the production of coffee also generates a lot of waste, which is organic though. Now both McDonalds and Ford have joined hands to deliver a powerful sustainable solution for handling plastic waste from car and coffee.
The skin of coffee beans comes out then they are roasted, which is known as chaff. Chaff is rather a hard fibrous and dry material. This chaff is organic and is biodegradable and they are found in abundance in the coffee industry. For long, scientists have been stating about the possibilities of chaff being utilized in plastic making. The question has always been how and where.
Coffee Chaffs Mixed with Plastic to Produce Heat Resistant and Strong Composite
Well, Ford and McDonalds have invented a way to do that. McDonalds is one of the leading producers of coffee in the US. As such, they roast a huge amount of coffee beans and produce an enormous amount of chaff. On the other hand, Ford is one of the prominent manufactures of cars in the world. Ford too produces a lot many plastic parts. Both the plastic producing businesses have come forward to figure out a viable solution for sustainable disposal of plastics produced by them.
However, in reality, plastic cannot be made out of chaff from the coffee beans. Chaff is, at first, heated to a very high temperature and in low oxygen surroundings. This dries the coffee more and makes it ready for the next level of processing. It is then the heated chaff is mixed with plastic. It is not possible to convert chaff into plastic but the chaff is mixed with plastic to produce coffee chaff composite. Pellets are formed out of this mixture, once more additives are added to it. This newly created substance is highly resistant to heat and extremely strong.
