thank you [Applause] about half of every pineapple you eat ends up in the trash the skin and core can be composted but in many places they aren't one company turns fruit scraps into natural soap and cleaners [Music] the founder lead DUI Huang says they're safer for the planet and people so safe he drinks the stuff every day [Music] fermented fruit is part of a new trend cleaning with enzymes instead of harsh chemicals does it actually work throughout history people have used all sorts of stuff to wash up everything from animal fat to human urine in the early 20th century scientists figured out how to make suds in a lab using fossil fuels that paved the way for all kinds of synthetic gels powders and cleaning chemicals which are all detergents so much whiter she can actually see the difference instantly the problem is they were full of stuff that water treatment plants weren't built to clean out like phosphorus and nitrogen when those elements flood waterways they can make algae grow faster creating thick layers of muck that suffocate Life Below that's exactly what happened in North America in the 1960s Lake Erie is almost biologically dead today detergent pollution has spread around the world foaming up rivers and fueling overgrown algae biotech is betting that fruit cleaners are the next chapter for cleaning products the name fua comes from the phrase fruit Warrior the company buys fruit waste from a factory that makes canned pineapple workers here chopped thousands of them every day this pile is from just a half day's work these used to rot in nearby landfills creating bad smells and methane a powerful Planet warming gas now workers load the scraps onto a Truck and Travel about two miles to the production site here the team unloads the fruit skins and washes them next they mix together the first ingredients sugar and water uses about two metric tons of sugar every month workers add the pineapple peels to the sugar water and wait for the mixture to start to ferment fermentation is when microbes like bacteria or Yeast break down complex molecules like sugar into simpler stuff like alcohol it's how barley becomes beer and grapes become wine at fua fermentation is how waste becomes cleaning fluids but the secret isn't alcohol it's the enzymes and acids the pineapples will release enzymes are molecules that speed up chemical reactions like digestion in the human body certain enzymes can fight germs by entering cells and breaking them apart from the inside this can either kill bacteria or just slow them down enough that they probably won't make you sick foreign but to make those germs stopping enzymes from Plants you have to ferment the right mix of ingredients for just the right amount of time workers here stir the mixture every day after about a month it looks like this is by two months this glob of bacteria and microorganisms forms that's how you know it's working the founders don't keep any of their process a secret Huang says he learned this technique she's a scientist and Buddhist nun who figured out the formula then shared it freely for others to use after the mixture ferments for three months there's enough acid and enzymes for it to work as a cleaner now it's ready to be filtered foreign the leftover solids become fertilizer for nearby Farms and the remaining liquid is the base for everything fuwa makes things buys those oils from local farmers who make them using agricultural waste like stems and leaves the final mixture is bottled and shipped to mini Marts around Vietnam or to online customers in most countries one bottle of dish soap sells for just over two dollars Huang says that's less than the cost of similar imported products fuwa uses an on-site lab to test its products and it looks at competitor stuff as well measuring the ph and testing for other additives cleaning with fermented fruit is a fairly New Concept but there's evidence it has a lot of potential researchers compared a pineapple enzyme mixture to bleach in water and found it killed one type of bacteria equally well and early research suggests fruit enzymes might even make Wastewater cleaner we know more about common chemical cleaners like bleach they kill lots of germs but come with other risks Huang started making fruit cleaners when his wife now the company's CEO developed eczema um [Music] [Music] Studies have linked cleaning products to skin irritation and breathing problems including asthma when used and stored properly they're safe for most people but mixing bleach with the wrong cleaners can create deadly gas which happens thousands of times per year in the United States so could we one day replace household bleach and detergents with fermented pineapples we asked an expert you'll be surprised yes totally yes but he also said we need more research there's only certain number of bacteria that it has been tested so probably got to do a wide range of studies with a wide range of microorganisms to ensure that it's really effective enzyme cleaners pose another challenge shelf life it would be one of the major issues with certain temperature it might be inactivated fuwa says its products can last about two years which is about as long as most chemical cleaning sprays still fua has more work to do with so much pineapple processing in the region the company says it has lots of waste to work with but mainly the founders want people to know there's a gentler alternative [Music] so they're eager to spread the word um [Music]
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