Most people associate soy beans with food, but for Debbie Mielewski, soy beans mean cars and trucks. Mielewski is the technical leader of a group of five women who are working to make the interior of Ford vehicles recyclable.
Milelewski joined Ford 24 years ago as one of its first female chemical engineers, and since then her team has been awarded 10 prize patents. They are replacing everything from the cup holders to the seat cushions of popular Ford models such as the Focus and F-150 pick-up truck.
Ford customers driving around right now may be unaware that the cushions, backs and headrests of their cars and trucks are filled with foam made from soybeans rather than petroleum. Three hundred million pounds of petroleum are saved every year due to this change.
However, the team’s overall mission is to make bio-fabrics that last a car’s lifetime and quickly degrade in a landfill.
“Many people are going to buy vehicles like these because the concept of ‘Going Green’ is so popular now. The women that came up with these products strongly care about the environment and there are a lot more people in this world that are just as passionate,” senior Kevin Groh said.
Junior Christian Mundell seems to be one of these passionate people, but he sees recycling as more of a recent trend. The recyclable Ford is on his list of possible future cars.
“I’d so buy a car with a recyclable interior. Recycling is the new trend
that makes you awesome; it’s like Hopscotch! Back in the day, if you could hop your scotch all 20 blocks, you were the coolest kid alive. Today however, if you can recycle all of your old stuff to make the interior of a smoking hot Ford…man, you are the bee’s knees!” Mundell said.
Other bio-plastic materials being tested to make the car interiors recyclable include coconut hair, prairie grass, rice hulls and old currency. Due to the rise in oil pricing, these materials have caught Ford’s attention but will still need to meet the company’s standards of cost, safety, durability, odor and aesthetics before they can be used.
“The materials may be cheaper, but I think it will cost more money to obtain and process them to be able to be used for the car’s interior.
The reality is that people don’t care for the environment, but about the amount of money they have to spend or save,” junior Farah Ansari said.
Ansari also believes that Ford is playing the feminist card to improve on their sales. It is true that the auto industry is traditionally dominated by men, but now every one in four workers is female. When Mielewski first began working at Ford, she even had to use the men’s bathroom with the door guarded by her co-workers so no one would walk in.
“The group of women who are creating these cars are campaigning it as a feminist movement,” Ansari said. “This is unnecessary because the gender of the producers should not matter. It would not affect my decision if I were going to buy a Ford car.”
