Parts of Your Future Ford Could Be Made From Olive Trees
Olive trees offer a bounty that is enjoyed the world over – as a snack, in salads and for cooking. Now, Ford is exploring using branches and twigs – which are pruned during harvest – for auto parts. The olive trees are grown in Andalusia, Spain, producer of 10% of the world’s olive oil.
And every year, pruning creates 7 million tonnes of waste. The COMPOlive project is looking at instead combining that waste with recycled plastic to produce a sustainable, strong and durable biocomposite material. And by using that material to injection mould components,
Ford could also reduce the amount of plastic used in vehicle production. One major benefit is that these fibres are usually waste. They are not used for anything else. And so we don’t have any additional land usage or water consumption to grow these fibres. This is a foot rest of the current Focus.
And there we had the opportunity to test it under real conditions. And this worked very well after some changes we did on our own. The tests that we did, the simulations showed, that this material is very capable of being used in our cars.
So what you can see here is that the part is being filled virtually. So upfront, before doing any test, we can see if the part that we are choosing with this material can be produced or not. The company is evaluating the process to potentially help deliver the next wave of Ford vehicles.
So that olive trees both provide food for today and contribute towards a more sustainable future.
Olive trees bear a fruit that is consumed all over the world, as snacks, oil and tapenades. Ford has explored how using branches, twigs and leaves that are discarded during harvest for more sustainable auto parts.
The trial was conducted as part of the COMPOlive project that is committed to delivering environmental change in olive production, using biocomposites instead of plastic, and supporting the circular economy.
Using olive tree waste for auto parts could both reduce the plastic used in such parts and support cleaner air in the local area by avoiding burning as a means of waste disposal.
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