Oranges are one of nature’s wonders; not only do they come in their own natural packaging, but the tender juice inside is a natural compatriot to chocolate and vodka, without which you would be looking at 24 blank pages every Friday. And yes, we know, that might be preferable.
Still, they come with their own problem too – what to do with said peel when it’s discarded? Seems a massive shame to whap it into landfill, and for some reason our landlord frowns upon creating compost heaps on the balcony of our high-end penthouse suite beach condo which he donated to us for no reason and certainly nothing to do with letting him build there in the first place.
Luckily, there are some clever old boffins out there and James Clark at the University of York is one of them.
He told the press that he and his colleagues have discovered that subjecting orange peel – and other plant-based material – to powerful microwaves turns them into gas which can be distilled into a kind of plastic.
“The unique feature of our microwave is that we work at deliberately low temperatures…It works really well with waste paper. It can take a big range of bio-waste material,” Professor Clark told the Independent newspaper. Brazil has already signed up to form the Orange Peel Exploitation Company, which sounds like it should be a band playing at Glastonbury 2012.
Inhale/exhale/omnomnom
Professor Clark really should have had a word with his compatriot Iain Stewart, whose latest ridiculous idea was to lock himself in a sealed box with a load of plants.
This David “Getarealjob” Blaine-esque stunt was set up to prove that the plants would photosynthise his exhaled carbon dioxide back into enough oxygen to keep him going for 48 hours. Which they did. But he had a massive headache afterward. So it turns out that plants are indeed vital to the future of humanity – and, indeed, vital in us being here at all – but what they can’t do is inject common sense into people. More’s the pity.
While in there, Professor Stewart might have propped up his diet with some of his fellow inhabitants. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation announced recently that it is looking at how insects might become a greater part of global food. This is down partly to the fact that by October 2011 there’ll be seven billion humans and also that per-pound, insects are way more efficient at delivering meat than traditional sources. According to the Guardian, four locusts provide as much calcium as a glass of milk and mopani worms contain more protein than beef. Which is all very well, but we can’t see anyone ordering themselves an ant kebab any time soon. At least, not on purpose. And will people be sending their soup back because there isn’t a fly in it?
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