Dive Brief:
- Engineers at the Colorado School of Mines have created a process to mine minerals from food waste.
- Organic waste is pulverized in blenders, dried and then rendered into a powder which contains minerals. An oven then heats the silica powder into a molten substance that transforms into glass.
- A provisional patent for the process has been registered by the government.
Dive Insight:
The idea for this process was spurned by a report in which a rainforest was slated to be destroyed in order to reach a deposit of calcium carbonate located beneath it. Engineers are now trying to figure out how much food and agricultural waste can be eliminated from landfills, and will experiment with institutional, feedlot and agricultural waste next. This process would redefine mining to include a new source for minerals, eliminating the need to destroy the Earth's crust to create silica. Demand for glass requires 36 million tons of silica worldwide.
