Blogs

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When rice crops are harvested and the rice is threshed, what happens to the left overs of these valuable crops? 

The farmers in Indonesia have burnt the rice straw they harvested for years now. Rice straw contain high amount of inorganic compound and ash. During burning, rice straws released carbon, N2O, and fine dust into the air.  The rice straws that are currently burnt as waste is acting as a double damage. Polluting our environment is one. As well as eliminating a valuable material that can be useful in other ways.

There are several options available that can turn rice straw into a commodity that can benefit to rural people as an alternative solution to the burning of the rice straw and reducing the emissions of gas of greenhouse effect: production of compost to improve soil with its organic content, feeding livestock, biomass fuel, rice drinking straw and organic fibre blanket. 

This will give beneficial aspect for the environment: reducing the emission of greenhouse effect gases, improve the knowledge in respect to the culture of rice, improving the welfare of the rural people as well as conserving the environment.

Plastic straws should not be banned outright because there are some people who required straws to drink. We should not ban plastic straws if it creates accessibility issue. However, we do believe that we should limit the usage. A plastic straw ban could be a good start, but we actually need to use less of single-use plastic to be able to help the environment. Getting rid of plastic straw may not have a large impact on the environment. But getting rid of all single-use plastic definitely will help the environment.

Not many people are aware of Oxium. 

Oxium claimed that it can make plastic that is degradable. Oxium is an additive that can speed up molecular and chemical degradation of plastic and help to reduce the massive accumulation of plastic waste. 

Even though Oxium can degrade the plastic, it doesn't always break down into harmless substances. Sometimes, toxic residues are left behind and not suitable for composting. Those residues can enter the water stream, the soil and the ocean, which lead back to human. 

So, Oxium is not the same with cassava plastic, which is biodegradable and made from bio materials.

Silica is used in our everyday life; in toothpaste, in our hamburger, in our electrical devices even in our smartphones. The silicon is produced by combining silica and carbon in a high degree temperature and produced lots of CO2. Professor Richard Laine from University of Michigan discovered a greener way to produce natural silica without so much carbon from rice husk. Rice husk contains high amount of natural silica. This type of silica is much cheaper and greener. This means the waste products from one of the world's most popular crops would not be wasted but instead contributing to the development of advanced technologies and sustainable future. 

As European countries and some other countries are  banning the single-use plastic, some companies have developed commercially available alternative products, like rice drinking straws and rice utensils. But currently it is not affordable as the cost production is still high. As not many people know about the products, the demand is quite low. If more people are aware of these alternative products and the demand is higher, the cost of production can be cut by 120 percent. 

Currently, paper drinking straw is used as the plastic straw’s alternative. Paper straw is not ideal as paper straw has a funny aftertaste and gets soggy easily. Trees need to cut down to make paper straw so it is not ideal for the environment.  

Rice drinking straw does not have a funny aftertaste and it can hold up to 10 hours in cold drinks and 3 hours in hot drinks, which is more favorable compared to paper straw.

Individuals, who have long enjoyed the convenience of plastic, may find rice products inconvenient to use at first.

We tested rice drinking straws and pasta drinking straws in three different types of liquids, hot water, room-temperature water and ice-cold water, to see how long these straws can last under different condition.

We tested rice drinking straws, pasta drinking straws, and paper drinking straws in three different types of liquids, hot water, and room-temperature water, to see how long these straws can last under different condition. 

This might look like a typical plastic bag, but it isn't. This plastic bag is made of cassava and 100% natural and biodegradable. With the arising plastic pollution problem, this is one of the answers for the current situation.

There are various types of drinking straws available in the market. Which one would you prefer?

• Plastic Straw : Made of plastic, take up to 200 years to decompose, harmful to animals especially marine life.
• Paper Straw : Convenient to dispose, made of paper, need to cut down tree to produce, have funny aftertaste, get soggy easily, take 30-60 days to decompose.
• Metal Straw : Reusable and durable, hard in texture, not easy to clean, inconvenient, can cause injury, good conductor.
• Glass Straw : Reusable but fragile, inconvenient, can cause injury, hard to clean, clear view
• Pasta Straw : 100% plant based, made of wheat and water, biodegradable, does not affect the taste of the drink, can stay up to 1 hour in cold drinks.
• Rice Straw : 100% plant based, made of rice and tapioca, gluten-free, biodegradable, can stay up to 3 hours in hot drinks and up to 10 hours in cold drinks, no funny aftertaste, safe for marine life.
• Bamboo Straw : Natural, do not conduct heat from hot drinks that can cause burn, reusable, hard to clean.
• PLA Straw : Made of plants, eg. cornstarch or sugar cane, degrades in 3-6 months in a thermo-controlled composting stream for 10 consecutive days, take 100 years to naturally biodegrade.
• Avocado pit Straws : Bioplastic made from avocado seeds, biodegrades in 240 days when buried in the ground and take up to 100 years to fully biodegrade.

Rice straw is a byproduct of the rice production at harvest.  In a milling process, the husks are removed from the raw grain to reveal whole brown rice which upon further milling to remove the bran layer will yield white rice. Rice straw can be used for a lot of things. It can be used for paper, it is a cheap non-wood fiber material for papermaking. Since the fiber length ratio is large, which is good for interweaving and bonding between fibers, and increase the smoothness and transparency of the paper. You can also use it for furniture, food for livestock, making fibreboard, energy generation, conversion to sugar syrup and yeast protein.