In Taiwan, it is a household routine to sort trash and recycle.
While not everything is recyclable, people are used to separating kitchen waste and leftovers from other garbage.
Many innovative companies have been working on transforming different kinds of waste into materials for production.
For instance, ChinYi Eggs, the biggest egg liquid manufacturer in Taiwan, is producing calcium supplements, detergent, soaps, skin-care masks, plastic-packaging materials, socks, scarves and blankets using eggshells.
Ms. Gu, general manager of ChinYi, told the media that, if they stack up the eggshells used daily for the company to manufacture various by-products, it would be as tall as 12 Taipei 101, which, at 508.2 meters, is Taiwan’s highest building.
Ms. Gu and her father, the founder of ChinYi Eggs, both believe that, except for yolks and whites, other parts of the egg, including eggshells and shell membrane, are rich in calcium and collagen, so they should be recycled rather than discarded.
Moreover, the waste disposal cost of eggshells is skyrocketing. Ms. Gu said the company needs to dispose of thousands of tons of eggshells annually. The disposal cost accounts for 10 percent of their production costs (the waste disposal cost last year was 1.5 times as much as that in the previous year).
To make good use of eggshells, ChinYi learned from its aquaculture industry experience of recycling oyster shells and figured possible market demands for eggshells.
Chiayi is one of the counties in Taiwan with the greatest aquaculture outputs.
The huge amount of aquaculture production comes with a vast amount of waste. About 90,000 tons of oyster shells are discarded annually in Chiayi County, which accounts for 70 percent of discarded oyster shells in Taiwan, and weighs as heavy as 18,000 African elephants.
Discarded oyster shells are not only smelly; they attract mosquitoes and flies. To address this issue, the government came up with ideas to manufacture by-products out of them.
As 95 percent of the oyster shell is made of calcium carbonate, the oyster shell powder can be used for fertilizer, feed and even slippers, medical materials and building materials.
Companies such as Taiwan Sugar Corp. and Formosa Plastics Group have started exploring possibilities of oyster shell powder-made products and the Chiayi County Government estimates that the market value of oyster shells can be up to 50 billion Taiwanese dollars (P87 billion).
Taiwanese ultramarathon runner Lo Wei-ming even finished second among seven runners in a 4,989km road race in New York City, becoming the first Asian to have completed the challenge in 2021 wearing sandals made of oyster-shell powder.
For ChinYi Eggs, because eggshells contain calcium carbonate and calcium oxide, they can be used as drinking water filter materials, wetsuit fabrics and materials for tires.
At the same time, they work with factories manufacturing plastics and textile raw materials using oyster-shell powder, and found out that scarves and blankets made of eggshell textile are more favorable than those made of oyster-shell powder. The textile is antibacterial, heat-preservable, anti-UV. It even has a deodorizing effect.