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+12 +1
Thousands of Tons of Paper and Plastics Americans Put Into Recycling Are Getting Dumped in Landfills
When you toss your pickle jar or seltzer bottle into the recycling bin, you expect it to take a long journey that leads to reincarnation. You might briefly imagine its future transformed into a chianti jug or Cool Whip container. But for many vessels, it turns out there is no afterlife.
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+9 +1
Mini 3D printed huts offer zero-impact respite for trendy 'agrihood' community
New York based architecture practice DFA, has proposed a portable 3D printed structure for an elite respite location which caters to a community of wealthy technologists. By Kieron Marchese.
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+30 +1
How Chinese scientists plan to turn Dubai into rice fields
Chinese scientists have successfully grown and harvested rice in the deserts of Dubai after developing a strain that allows the crop to grow in saltwater. A team of scientists, led by China’s “father of hybrid rice” Yuan Longping, has already started growing the crop in diluted sea-water at home and is now bringing the technique to the Middle East, where fresh water is too precious to use for growing water-intensive crops.
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+20 +1
The planet is on edge of a global plastic calamity
Plastic pollution has grabbed the world’s attention, and with good cause. More than 100 years after its invention, we’re addicted. To pass a day without encountering some form of plastic is nearly impossible. We’ve always been eager to embrace the promise of a product that could make life cheaper, faster, easier. Now, after a century of unchecked production and consumption, convenience has turned to crisis.
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+8 +1
Paper bags to replace plastic at Morrisons
Morrisons has started selling fresh produce in old-style paper bags, rather than plastic ones, as it tries to cut the use of plastics. The supermarket chain, the UK's fourth largest, says it will mean 150 million fewer plastic bags are used each year. Prime Minister Theresa May has called plastic waste "one of the great environmental scourges of our time".
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+9 +1
Deluge of electronic waste turning Thailand into 'world's rubbish dump'
At a deserted factory outside Bangkok, skyscrapers made from vast blocks of crushed printers, Xbox components and TVs tower over black rivers of smashed-up computer screens. This is a tiny fraction of the estimated 50m tonnes of electronic waste created just in the EU every year, a tide of toxic rubbish that is flooding into south-east Asia from the EU, US and Japan.
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+14 +1
Plastic-eating bacteria discovered by student could help solve global pollution crisis
A student may have found a solution to one of the world’s most urgent environmental crises – breeding bacteria capable of “eating” plastic and potentially breaking it down into harmless by-products. The microbes degrade polyethylene terephthalate (PET) – one of the world’s most common plastics, used in clothing, drinks bottles and food packaging. It takes centuries to break down, in the meantime doing untold damage to its surroundings.
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+10 +1
Researchers race to make bioplastics from straw and food waste
New bioplastics are being made in laboratories from straw, wood chips and food waste, with researchers aiming to replace oil as the source of the world’s plastic. The new approaches include genetically modifying bacteria to eat wood and produce useful chemicals. But the bioplastics are currently significantly more expensive to make than fossil fuel-based plastics. Land and seas around the world, from high mountains to deep oceans, have become polluted with plastic, prompting major public concern. The world has produced 8bn tonnes of plastic since the 1950s and demand is still rising.
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+11 +1
Virgin Atlantic Removes Beef and Palm Oil From Flight Menus
Sir Richard Branson’s international airline Virgin Atlantic, with flights from the UK, North America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, has been removing ingredients deemed unsustainable such as beef, palm oil, and soy from in-flight menus. The initiative is part of the company’s ongoing partnership with the non-profit organization the Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA).
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+20 +1
Scientists Just Discovered an Entirely New Reason for Banning Plastics
No. On top of all the other bad things we can attribute to plastics pollution (the damage to marine life, the leaching of toxic chemicals into the environment, the making gross and unsightly of beaches, etc.) a team at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa’s Center for Microbial Oceanography has found one more: Plastics are releasing potent greenhouse gases, including methane and ethylene, into the atmosphere at an alarming rate. (Is there any of the kind of rate?)
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+1 +1
A giant floating trash collector will try to scoop up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
On Sept. 8, an ungainly, 2,000-foot-long contraption will steam under the Golden Gate Bridge in what’s either a brilliant quest or a fool's errand. Dubbed the Ocean Cleanup Project, this giant sea sieve consists of pipes that float at the surface of the water with netting below, corralling trash in the center of a U-shaped design.
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+21 +1
How one Canadian food court eliminated 117 bags of garbage a day
The food court at Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto used to generate 120 bags of garbage a day. Now it produces just three — despite the fact that it serves noodles, fried chicken, burgers and other fast foods to 24,000 customers a day. "It actually just goes to show the type of waste that is here in the food collection or after you finish your meal — how much of that is actual garbage," said Claire Santamaria, the mall's general manager.
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Analysis+16 +1
American Beauties
How plastic bags came to rule our lives, and why we can’t quit them.
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+3 +1
Lush Gets Nakedly Candid About Sustainability
This eco-friendly company is doubling down on sustainable packaging and has even launched a package-free store dedicated to ensuring their beloved products do not create a lasting impact on the planet.
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+12 +1
France to set penalties on non-recycled plastic next year
France plans to introduce a penalty system that would increase the costs of consumer goods with packaging made of non-recycled plastic, part of a pledge to use only recycled plastic nationwide by 2025, an environment ministry official said Sunday.
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+13 +1
The Cost of Plastic Convenience #NoPlasticJuly
July signifies the beginning of environmental campaigns heavily focused on the issues of plastic output. Devised as a mechanism to shed much-needed light on the direness of plastic pollution, #NoPlasticJuly engages social media users and pushes the issue in front of the unaware. A key driver for #NoPlasticJuly is prompting people to share their own plastic reductions. But, this has transgressed the intended direction of the month and become a show in greenwashing and a PR move.
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+20 +1
Ditch the almond milk: why everything you know about sustainable eating is probably wrong
From cod to clingfilm, the advice we’re given can often be confusing. If you’re serious about eating green, here are some straightforward solutions
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+16 +1
Stop Wasting Food: Creative Ways to Use Every Last Bit You Buy
Almost 40 percent of the food supply in this country never gets eaten, due to loss and waste, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. ("Loss" refe
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0 +1
Striking the balance: retaining brand image in eco-friendly packaging
As demand for more streamlined and recyclable packaging peaks, manufacturers are challenged with creating solutions that keep their brand image.
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+11 +1
Cleantech startup makes plastic from 'the fat of the bacteria'
What if plastic were made from waste like banana peels, coffee grounds and cardboard takeout containers instead of petroleum? And what if, after use, that plastic decomposed like the biological materials it was made from? Toronto-based Genecis, a cleantech startup, is trying to make that dream of greener plastic a reality, and to make it cheap enough to use in everyday throwaway items like coffee pods and other food packaging.
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