Diapers Can Go Green

To some organisms in nature, even a diaper waste can be raw materials for human food.

APPARENTLY there are two current problems that used diapers can help solve: reduction of urban solid waste and availability of high protein food sources. Or so it seems, as what four Mexican researchers from the Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana found out.

But used diapers cannot do it all alone. They need a fungus commonly known as oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) to perform biodegradation on the disposable diaper materials such as polyethylene, polypropylene and a superabsorbent polymer. Its main component, however, is cellulose, a plant structural material that degrades slowly.

Polyethylene is the most widely used plastic today. It is primarily used in packaging materials such as plastic bag. While polypropylene is the more heat-stable kind. It is used in plastic parts and automotive components.

It only takes... [Read more.]

This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 25 May 2011.

RELATED UPDATES

13 July 2011. The University of San Carlos Department of Chemical Engineering signed a memorandum of agreement with the FDRCon Co., operator of Cebu's first integrated resource recovery facility (located in Pangdan Village, Naga), to work together in developing a treatment facility for diaper and napkins. [Read more.]

Comments

Deadly X-Gene Mutants

A RECENT study on macrophages (i.e. defensive cells in our body that engulf threatening substances inside our body) introduced me to a lethal, genetic disease that targets the male population. This disease is called Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), named after the French neurologist Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne, who described it in 1861. While it has an incidence of one in 3,500 newborn males, health experts consider this as the most common lethal disease of childhood around the world. Mutation in the male (X) chromosome [dystrophin gene, locus Xp21] causes a rapid degeneration of the muscles, leading into an eventual loss of walking ability and then death. While females do not exhibit symptoms, they can be carriers of these defective genes, especially if the father had this condition or the mother is also a carrier. Symptoms usually appear before age five; at times visible in early infancy. These symptoms involve... ( Read more .) This article appears in Sun-Star Ce...

Joy, Temperance and Repose

“I RECKON being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better,” wrote Samuel Butler in The Way of All Flesh (1903). The term “antioxidant” was originally used in the 18th century to refer to a chemical that prevents the consumption of oxygen in laboratory experiments. However, in the late 19th and early 20th century, extensive study exploded... ( Read more ) This article appeared in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 02 June 2010.

Breakthroughs Today

Search This Blog