Online shopping is the next evolutionary step in consumerism, but this convenience can also create a lot of waste. Sure, you can recycle the cardboard box and the air pillows, but what do you do with the Styrofoam packaging? You could use it to build a fort for your kids. You could use it to insulate and soundproof your music room. But if you have the time, talent and patience, you could transform those unwanted blocks of Styrofoam into a sharp and practical knife. In a recent video, YouTuber kiwami japan transforms everyday Styrofoam into a beautiful and functional kitchen knife.
According to Eric Limer for Popular Mechanics: "Of course styrofoam in its natural form is not suitable for useful cutlery. Instead, kiwami japan makes uses a few clever techniques to condense the air-filled polystyrene foam that styrofoam is made out of into a denser, rock-like material that can take an edge. By distilling mashed up orange peels and using the resulting orange oil to melt the foam and further treating it further in grain alcohol, our extreme knifesmith was able to remove the air bubbles that make styrofoam foam, and reduce the polystyrene to a hard puck. From there, it's just a matter of cutting out a blade shape and sharpening it."