CRI听力: Colombia Flower Waste

Flowers are one of Colombia's biggest exports. However it creates some 1,700 tones of floral waste every year. Now some of that waste is being recycled into biodegradable Styrofoam which can be used in packaging.

Reporter:

Colombia exports about 630 millions U.S. dollars worth of flowers annually, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.

They say the cut-flower industry has almost surpassed coffee as Colombia's most valuable legitimate agricultural export. However, the industry produces some 1,700 tones of floral waste every year.

Researchers at the National University in Bogota have spent ten years trying to find a new use for flower waste.

A government backed project has led to the creation of a biodegradable Styrofoam which can be used for packing.

Student Omar Bolivar explains that rather than let the flower stems simply rot, they are creating new raw materials.

"Basically, the project is to avoid what we are looking at here, which is the composting. It is a wide terrain that is being utilized just to dispose of floral waste. It has leaching problems, and we simply want to avoid all this by taking advantage of the waste, and converting it into new raw material and applying it to some products that at the end will benefit us environmentally, socially and economically."

Led by a Professor of Industrial Design, the team has produced biodegradable Styrofoam by boiling up parts of the waste into cellulose pulp.

The cellulose that forms part of a flower's cellular wall is removed from the stems. The stems are then placed into a container with caustic soda and water and boiled at high temperatures to create the cellulose pulp.

This can be used to make biodegradable Styrofoam which can be used to create surgical shoes, boxes and packing.

The team leader Luis Eduardo Garzon is a professor of Industrial Design at Colombia's National University.

Nacional de Colombia:(www.hXen.com)

"From all the Colombian fibers we found a problem encountered by the florists who also produce vegetable fibers. Currently those vegetable fibers are obviously not being used, they are waste. What we are proving now with this project is that those vegetable fibers are not garbage but a raw material to produce paper or geometrically designed packaging material."

The Colombian Association of Flower Growers has been supporting the project due to the benefits it represents not only to the environment but also to the flower industry.

Bolivar says stems from any flower can be used to produce the Styrofoam, but currently the project is being tested with the stems of roses and carnations grown in the vicinity of Bogota.

Garzon and his team now hope to find interested buyers for their products in both the domestic and international markets.