Cologne, Germany — Every year, pruning olive trees creates 7 million tons of waste. Ford engineers in Cologne launched an innovative research project to explore how that waste could be re-purposed to create auto part prototypes. They found the parts to be durable, and believe research like this could enable lighter weight parts that reduce plastic used and carbon footprint in vehicle parts and using more recycled and renewable content in its vehicles.  The trial was conducted as part of the COMPOlive project designed to demonstrate the impact of using materials made from recycled and renewable materials in auto parts. For the trial, the waste materials were sourced from olive groves in Andalusia, Spain.