Rice, straw and coconut the new alternatives to wood (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Fiona Graham
Technology of business reporter, BBC News

Resysta may look like wood, and be used like wood, but the main ingredient is rice husks.

"The idea was to create a new environmentally friendly material that could replace a variety of natural building materials, like stone and in particular tropical hardwood, for all uses where water creates difficulties," says Bernd Duna, managing director of Resysta International GmbH.

"Demand for wood such as teak has boomed in recent decades, making it into a profitable export, yet the long growth cycle of hardwood trees and the difficulty of certifying origin has meant the de facto existence of a large unregulated 'grey market' that preys on mature forests."

The husks are powdered, mixed with salt and mineral oil and pressed into board. Mr Duna says the material looks like tropical hardwood, but has certain advantages.

"It cannot absorb water, which causes wood to swell, warp and splinter.
***
more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13299292



Now, can we add corn and soybean ag waste to that?

[kestrel91316]

1. AFAIK there IS no "waste" from corn and soybeans It all gets used,

either as animal feed or fertilizer or raw material for manufacturing already.

No such thing as plant "waste". If nothing else, composting it works fine. And I would much prefer that unused plant materials be returned to the soil to enrich it.

[WhiteTara]

2. Wow! I want that!

It looks really nice for building.

[tabatha]

3. Good news.

The attrition of certain trees because of furniture has been disastrous for the natural habitat in which they grow - i.e. for all the fauna and flora that rely on all parts of the tree - from the leaf litter underneath it, to the tops and everything in between.

I would far rather have the use of ag crop by-products limit the devastation of natural areas.

(Bookmarked for later reference.)

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Recommended, this is due to people thinking outside the box where in this

day and age, most of us should be... cuz in the box means you are probably not among the living. :evilgrin:






“There is nevertheless a nagging suspicion among some astronomers, that all may not be right with the deduction, from the redshift of galaxies via the Doppler effect, that the universe is expanding. The astronomer Halton Arp has found enigmatic and disturbing cases where a galaxy and a quasar, or a pair of galaxies, that are in apparent physical association have very different redshifts....” Carl Sagan

[Javaman]

5. Seems like Giligan and the Skipper were onto something. nt