Spanish car manufacture SEAT has launched a pilot project to produce vehicle trim from Oryzite - a material made from rice husks - as an alternative to using traditional plastics.

More than 700 million tonnes of rice – the world’s most popular food - is harvested worldwide every year producing around 140 million tonnes of husks, most of which is currently burned or sent to landfill.

Joan Colet, Interior Trim Development Engineer at SEAT said, “At SEAT we’re always working on finding new materials to improve our products, and in this sense, rice husks enable us to work on reducing plastics and petroleum-based materials.” 

“The parts are lighter, which means that we reduce the weight of the car, thus reducing our carbon footprint. We’re also using a renewable material, promoting the circular economy and making a greener product.”