Have you ever noticed that virtually all children’s toys are made from plastic? According to The World Counts, plastic toys can contain heavy metals such as lead or cadmium, in addition to other harmful chemicals. When children do the taste test and chew the toys with their mouths, studies have shown that said dangerous chemicals are absorbed, harming the child’s health and potentially even causing cancer.
This is one of the reasons why South Korean industrial designer Subin Cho created a children’s balance stacking game made of a sustainable material derived from rice husk.
So why rice husk? Subin explains that rice husk is discarded as agricultural waste due to not being edible, and roughly 120 million tons of rice husk is tossed annually.
“Rice husk has large dry volume due to its low bulk density and possesses rough and abrasive surfaces that are highly resistant to natural degradation,” says Subin. “That is why disposal of rice husks has become a challenging problem. Therefore, from the viewpoint of environmental issues, how to improve rice husk and how to recycle rice husk have become very important environmental protection subjects.”
Since the toy is made from rice husk, it can be composed.
All images in this article are courtesy of Subin Cho.
