It would take a whole lot less material in general for things if we expanded our imagination beyond stuff like cars as the sole means of moving around. Luckily the skateboard I take to the train station is already made of plant material.

>Just 500 grams of platelets [from discarded carrots] can reduce the amount of cement needed to make a cubic metre of concrete by about 40kg—a saving of 10%. Dr Saafi and his team have now embarked on a two-year study to investigate the process in more detail and to perfect the best mix for use by the construction industry.

This is really interesting and fascinating. This seems almost too good to be true. Perhaps we are moving slowly to a return of natural components in our materials. Im thinking of a term of like "nature-punk" :)

Mh... Composite materials are very nice for many small/easy-to-replace usages, because they have excellent performances but tend to last far less than "solid" materials (sorry I do not know a better English terms) and they are harder to check.

I do not like much the idea of using them for something else...

Some of these advances in wood involve much worse environmental processes, such as replacing all the internal water with plastic or glue. It's not plant based if it's the same old horrible stuff with just some plant fingers in it.

https://archive.ph/8EMO3

Isn't this called "wood" throughout history?