A US-based study by the Department of Agriculture has found that waste watermelons can be used to produce millions of liters of bio-fuel every year, making the fruit an eco-friendly way to power our cars in the future. It's estimated that around one fifth of the annual watermelon crop is rejected because of being misshapen or having surface blemishes. Currently they are simply left to rot.But a team of scientists has found that the unused fruit can be easily converted into bio-fuel, with around 20 gallons of the green fuel recoverable per acre of land from rejected watermelons. In total, American farmers reject 360,000 tones of fruit every year, which means that theoretically it’s a vast, untapped resource if the waste can be fermented and turned into fuel cost-effectively. With watermelons, trials have proved a success because the fruit is "a source of readily fermentable sugars," according to leading researcher Dr. Wayne Fish.
Bio-fuel production will prove highly lucrative for anyone able to make it cheaply and efficiently in the near future.
