The Creation of Furniture Products from Rice Stubble

*Somchai Seviset and Songwut Egwutvongsa*

### **Abstract**

The objective of this research was to develop the transformation procedure of rice stubble in the dry season of Thailand. This would be significantly used for the creative building processes of furniture products for earning increased economic value for the people and the communities. Fiber was applied in the transformation procedure for the rice stubble, including the cementing of the formation procedure in the boiling and soaking methods. From the results from using both procedures in this research, it was found that knock-down furniture sheets had the ability to be formed as standard furniture products with JIS A 5908–1994 for the customer groups who had the most level of satisfaction to rice stubble furniture. Therefore, this resulted in a positive result affecting the reduction of the ratio of burning of rice stubble in terms of preparing the area for planting in the next season on a large scale, including decreasing the occurrence of the PM. 2.5 problem in Thailand in every winter season. As a result, this research could be considered as another choice as a proposal to present the solution guidelines for solving the PM. 2.5 problem sustainably.

**Keywords:** Products from rice stubble, the creation of furniture, furniture design, rice stubble, material transformation

### **1. Introduction**

From predicting the result of the in-season rice production for Thailand for the period of 2016–2020, it was found that there was an increasing ratio of 0.14% for each year. Additionally, this demonstrated that the amount of rice production was approximately 25.522 million tons, or an increasing production ratio of 6.06%. As such, it could be seen that currently Thailand is a world-class rice producing country with the amount of exported rice being second to India, or with approximately 7.58 million tons, which is the increasing trend for the exporting ratio in every year [1].

This further presented the promotion by the Thai government for boosting agriculturists to cultivate rice in the North-eastern region and the Central region of Thailand. Thus, nowadays, this cultivation has contributed to the country gaining large areas of rice fields, especially for the remaining rice stubble, which is approximately 72.321 million tons from the agriculturists' harvesting in each season. Moreover, this stubble is utilized for the mixing of straw mushroom cultivation or soil adjustment before the next season. However, this still leaves large amounts of rice stubble, so the agriculturists would remove it from their areas; such as, bringing

**Figure 1.** *Problem of burning rice stubble that results in PM 2.5 in Thailand.*

the soil for cultivating other plants; namely, beans and other short harvesting cycle vegetables. As a consequence, this would enable the agriculturists to increase their income after doing the rice cultivation in the dry season without burning the rice stubble in the North-eastern or Central regions in the same way. In addition, this material always contributes to dust called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), or PM 2.5 that is a size less than 2.5 microns, which is the dust from burning monoculture plants [2]. This would eventually be fed into the supply chain of the agricultural food production amounting to more than 209,937 tons per year, as well as being released into the world's atmosphere to become an annual environmental effect at a high level. Furthermore, this has had an impact on the Mekong River's region. Unfortunately, according to the checking of the quality index from the Pollution Control Department for the period of 2016–2018, it was found that the value of the Air Quality Index (AQI) was way below the set standard of the World Health Organization (WHO), which in turn would have a negative impact on people's health in the area of the rice fields of the Northern and North-eastern regions of Thailand [3].

These problems have also continued to occur in every dry season to become severe environmental and health problems for the people in these areas (**Figure 1**).

Therefore, the government sector has a policy to promote resolving these problems sustainably by encouraging the people to bring the remaining rice stubble to increase the income from agriculture, including encouraging the agriculturists to bring the rice stubble to be transformed into community products to be sold and allow them to earn more agricultural income. Therefore, this could reduce the chances of burning the rice fields by the agriculturists prior to cultivating in the next season. This was conducted according to the National Strategy 2018–2037. Additionally, it could be considered as having a leading role in the determination of the direction toward the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This could also be initiated to prepare for the structural adjustment for Thailand 4.0 in the future [4]. Thus, the government has aimed at the alteration based on the potential of the communities and local areas to utilize rice stubble in the rice fields to be transformed into a positive aspect of the sustainability development of the lifestyle and economy of the agriculturist communities [5]. As the result, this has depended on having the appropriate technologies with the potential of the community's people and expression through a participatory procedure until gaining a modern method with the tools and the specificness for the suitable uniqueness for increasing their own lifestyles'sustainability together with rice cultivation [6].

#### **2. Objectives**

To develop the transformation procedure from the remaining rice stubble to be wood substitute material.

To create furniture products for children from the remaining rice stubble and predict the solutions with the customer groups'requirements affecting the new products.
