Episode: 2621
Title: HPR2621: Liverpool Makefest 2018 - Chan'nel Thomas a.k.a little pink maker
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2621/hpr2621.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 06:40:03

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This is Tony Hughes for Hacker Public Radio and with me I've got Chanel Thomas.
And can you tell us what your other handle is?
I'm standing in front of your stall and all sorts of cool stuff because tell us a little bit about it.
I'm here at Liverpool Make Fest and I brought with me a selection of biomaterials and sustainable ethical materials that makers can use to make their products for an ethical 2020 future Make Fest basically.
We were just having a pre-recording conversation and you told me a little bit about yourself.
So I have a background in very formal learning and I moved to Denmark, I lived in Copenhagen at the moment and I couldn't get a job.
I moved there and I was told my education was worthless and I wasn't so high standard so I bounced into tech and I became fully self-taught.
So I found fab labs and I taught myself and from there I basically now run a biolab based in Copenhagen called Bioligic Garrison which is Bioligic Garrison Danish.
And we are open-source sisters in science so you can come in and I can teach you how to make all of these plastics and more.
I can test your DNA to tell you if you're a Viking.
I can tell you if you have a gluten allergy, a lactose allergy, I can tell you why you have a double helix and why it splits in certain areas.
We are full system science for a nonprofit organization.
That is really cool. I've just been tasting one of your products. Can you tell us about that particular item?
So that is a fully sustainable what we call the bioplate.
So bioplate is basically made with wheat bran and left over brewery waste.
So in Copenhagen we obviously have kalsbag, they make a lot of brewery waste so we take from those guys and then we add in little small amounts of wheat.
We then pressurize it with one drop of water and it creates these beautiful edible plates.
And the idea is when you go to a food festival these plates should replace the plastic ones and they're fully edible.
The vegan friendly, they're fully compatible with lactose allergies, gluten allergies and they taste broke cheese.
And if they don't get eaten they can go on the composting.
Exactly. If they don't get eaten it's fully biodegradable and fully sustainable.
So you just break it up into pieces and it actually turns into like a fertilizer for your composting.
So it also does good in that way too as well as obviously saving all the plastic waste tissue.
Yeah you will also tell me about a leather project that you make. Can you tell me about how you make it?
So I make what's called bacterial leather. It's a form of scoby which is a symbiotic yeast and bacteria culture. It's made from tea.
So anyone can make this. It's most formally known as kombucha in the general world.
But you can actually make leather from kombucha and bacteria in cellulose which is a layer that grows on the top of your tea when you leave it to get a little bit fuzzy and moldy.
It's a very safe bacteria. It's very harmful for the environment as well.
And it also produces this beautiful gold and colour exactly like raw-hide leather.
So it's a sustainable option for the leather industry because every year we pollute the oceans with 4.8 tonnes of metric waste just from the leather industry itself.
So that's a lot just for this small raw-hide over one cow. So the future is out there you've got to make it.
Yeah, I've just been looking at that. And again, it's fully biodegradable. It can be composted after use.
Exactly. Fully biodegradable can be fully composted. The best way to break it down is to shred it into little pieces.
Pull it into your compost heap. And it turns into a nitrous rich fertiliser which is great if you have potatoes and strawberries.
So it's a really good alternative to the stuff that you were buying and being here. For example, it's also super cheap to make and do.
How would we find out about your products online?
So you can find me online at www.littlepinkmakers.com. And if you search for bioligic origin, so just type in biology garage or type in algae beer.
That's our latest product that we're making. We're making beer from seaweed. It's very interesting.
But you'll find our social media platforms and we also do workshops all around the world.
And currently about to go to Mexico, Peru and Ecuador after I finished the Liverpool to go and teach children in Latin America how to make bioplastics and how to be makers.
And then I come back and I've just been off to the fellowship at MIT. So I'm off there in September for a while to go and show them what I've been doing until I am from them too.
Wow, that's really cool. Thank you very very much. Thank you.
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