At Ford\u2019s (F) material sustainability lab in Dearborn, Michigan you\u2019ll find a hodgepodge of seemingly random junk\u2014shredded money, dandelions, tomato stems and tree pulp. All of these items would typically be headed towards a landfill, but with the help of senior technical lead Deborah Mielewski they\u2019re being turned into car parts instead.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy job is to replace petroleum-based plastics with plant-based materials and I\u2019ve been at it for about 15 years now,\u201d she explains. Mielewski is currently developing a process to turn dandelion stems into rubber, tomato parts and old money into plastic and algae into foam. She\u2019s already created a soy-based foam that\u2019s used in the seats of a range of Ford vehicles.<\/p>\n
Plant-based materials are more quickly biodegradable and better for the environment than their petroleum alternatives. The biomaterials also reduce the weight of a car and increase fuel efficiency\u2014an added bonus.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne man\u2019s trash is another man\u2019s treasure,\u201d Mielewski tells us while explaining how Ford collects byproducts from companies like Heinz (KHC), Coca-Cola (KO) and Weyerhaeuser (WY) to experiment with. \u201cWe were at a meeting with Heinz having a nice glass of wine in the evening and they mentioned that they had billions of pounds of tomato fiber, seeds and stems from making ketchup that they didn\u2019t know what to do with. So I said \u2018why don\u2019t you ship some to me\u2019 and they did,\u201d she says. Mielewski learned how to dry the material and mix it with plastics, creating what is likely the world’s first tomato-based plastic material. She\u2019s looking into turning the material into car mats for Ford vehicles.<\/p>\n
One of the sustainability lab’s biggest partners is the Federal Reserve, which shreds thousands of pounds of old money each week. Money, which is made of linen and cotton, actually makes a great base for plastic says Mielewski. \u201cWe grind it up, put it into plastic and mold coin bins.\u201d Each bin has about $400 worth of shredded currency in it, and while the bins aren’t in Ford cars yet, Mielewski is confident that they soon will be.<\/p>\n
Watch the video above to see a tour of the lab.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At Ford\u2019s (F) material sustainability lab in Dearborn, Michigan you\u2019ll find a hodgepodge of seemingly random junk\u2014shredded money, dandelions, tomato stems and tree pulp. All of these items would typically be headed towards a landfill, but with the help of senior technical lead Deborah Mielewski they\u2019re being turned into car parts instead. \u201cMy job is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[],"supplier":[1245,1557,2396,305],"class_list":["post-27407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","supplier-coca-cola-co","supplier-ford-motor-company","supplier-heinz-company","supplier-weyerhaeuser"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27407"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=27407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}