Manufacturers to produce building materials from food waste

Biohm, a sustainable bio-material construction company has launched a £1.25m funding drive to help increase production in a bid to create a circular economy.

The construction industry currently accounts for 39% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, 11% of which comes from manufacturing building materials.

To help reduce these emissions, Biohm will use commercial and local-authority waste as raw materials for its bio-manufactured products.

The construction of the materials is due to start production at Watchet in Somerset in September, supplying 20 homes a month, rising to 120 further down the line.

The factory will be producing mycelium insulation panels made from mushroom roots and semi-structural construction panels produced from food waste such as orange peel.

The biocomposite materials work on a similar principle to Fiberboard, they combine bulk waste such as orange peels that they collect locally from their special plant-based binders, yielding a strong and fully organic material.

The £1.25m funding will be used to help develop bio-manufacturing technologies to scale up its research into revolutionary, laboratory-grown building products. The funding will also be used to hire more scientists, engineers and designers.

The aim of the company is to create a fully circular economy to tackle consumer waste and to transform the construction industry by moving away from fossil fuel-powered construction materials.

Ehab Sayed, Biohm’s founder and director of innovation, said: ‘Our collaborations with social enterprises and local authorities put social impact at the heart of our business model through community profit share, so we can address start-up scaling challenges very effectively.

‘This generates rapid growth to meet the demand for our materials and will establish Biohm as an IP-rich and a research-driven company that quickly becomes self-sustaining.’

Photo Credit – Pixabay