{"id":69488,"date":"2022-04-18T08:49:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T06:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wevux.com\/?p=69488"},"modified":"2022-04-15T15:26:30","modified_gmt":"2022-04-15T13:26:30","slug":"chitofoam-a-sustainable-circular-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wevux.com\/chitofoam-a-sustainable-circular-system0069488\/","title":{"rendered":"CHITOFOAM, a sustainable circular system"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WeVux continues the exploration of new materials with the Chitofoam<\/a><\/em> system, developed by Charlotte B\u00f6hning<\/em><\/a> and Mary Lempres<\/a><\/em>. The project offers a circular solution for Styrofoam waste management, with the help of insects!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Styrofoam isn’t biodegrade and instead just fractures into smaller and smaller bits, called microplastics. Just in the US, roughly 25 billion Styrofoam cups are thrown away every year. Each of these can take up to half a millenia to degrade. The impacts of polystyrene production and pollution are therefore manifold with far-reaching effects on the environment, labor conditions and human health factors. Nearly 30% of landfill waste is Styrofoam from packaging and insulation. This waste often ends up in developing nations and is mismanaged. Recycling is possible, but seldom actually practiced due to the process: expensive, difficult and without a real market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, Stanford University researchers discovered that mealworms could safely digest, and thus biodegrade, Styrofoam. It was discovered that 100 mealworms could eat 40 milligrams of Styrofoam each day with no impact on their health or edibility. In their studio, the two designers began to dispose of their modelling foam and packaging waste in a homemade mealworm biodigestor <\/em>for depolymerization. As material developers and designers, they began to collect the exoskeletons that the plastic-eating worms shed and extracted a biopolymer gel called Chitosan<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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