Nigerian Homes Built From Thousands of Plastic Bottles –12x Stronger Than Brick And Earthquake Strong

Discarded plastic bottles can be found along too many miles of Earth roads—but in Nigeria, one of the most populated African countries, there are enough to create a sustainable construction business. In fact, there are now houses being built with discarded plastic bottles that are filled with sand and set into a wall via a […]

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Michigan Develops a $97 Million Plan to Improve Recycling

How well do the residents in your state do when it comes to recycling? In “The 50 States of Recycling: A State-By-State Assessment of Containers and Packaging Recycling Rates,” Maine and Vermont ranked the highest. They were followed by Massachusetts, Oregon, Connecticut, New York, Minnesota, and Michigan.Michigan did well with a recycling rate of 48% […]

New Shipping Material Made From Popcorn Can Replace Styrofoam ‘Peanuts’

In a stroke of scientific genius, a German researcher enjoying a box of popcorn in a dark movie theater realized that the overpriced, butter-soaked concession had the exact same size and consistency as Styrofoam packing peanuts. Considering Styrofoam is made from polystyrene, which requires fossil fuel extraction and takes centuries to break down into yet […]

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150 Brands Unite to Clean Up Our Paper Supply – Saving Global Forests and Improving Recycling

Pack4Good, a campaign by the NGO Canopy, is one of the fastest growing corporate responsibility platforms in America for ensuring paper packaging is not coming from virgin, endangered, or valuable forests. Canopy’s work in auditing supply chains and providing recycled or sustainable packaging solutions has attracted 750 brands across all its campaigns, including e-commerce giants […]

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A Step-By-Step Guide to What Happens to the Cardboard and Paper You Recycle

It’s easy to recycle cardboard and paper, but people don’t always understand the process. When you recycle paper, what happens to it? Tossing empty boxes, cereal boxes, greeting cards, egg cartons, mail, and printer paper into a curbside bin takes little time. Bills that have confidential information are often shredded first by the resident. The shredded […]

World’s First Fully-Recyclable Electronic Transistor Produced By 3D Printers at Duke University

Engineers at Duke University have developed the world’s first fully recyclable printed electronics. Their recycling process recovers nearly 100% of the materials used—and preserves most of their performance capabilities for reuse. By demonstrating a crucial and relatively complex computer component—the transistor—created with three carbon-based inks, the researchers hope to inspire a new generation of recyclable […]

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They Melted Down 22,000 Firearms in Belgium, Recycling Them Into Steel

Belgium recently melted down over 22,000 firearms into 60 tons of recycled steel. Half of the firearms were collected from members of the Belgian public. The other half were police weapons that are no longer used. Carina van Cauter, governor of East Flanders, said in a statement: “The result is impressive: 22,457 firearms have disappeared from […]

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Battery Parts Can Be Recycled Without Crushing or Melting, Saving Valuable Raw Materials

Researchers in Finland have discovered that electrodes in lithium batteries containing cobalt can be reused following a special process. In comparison to traditional recycling, which typically extracts metals from crushed batteries by melting or dissolving them, the new process—which newly saturates the electrodes with lithium—saves valuable raw materials, and likely also energy. The rechargeable batteries […]

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‘The Manta’ Sailing Vessel is Designed to Feed on Plastic Waste for Power–While Cleaning Oceans

A professional yacht racer, annoyed by the constant sightings of floating mats of plastic garbage in coastal waters, has designed an ocean-cleaning sailboat that is powered by the waste it collects. The 56-meter (184 feet) Manta is the first offering from racer Yves Bourgnon’s SeaCleaners Project, and would be one of the largest waste-collecting vessels […]

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Scientists Make Microplastics Breakthrough, Devising Method to Trap And Remove Them

Microbiologists have found a way to use bacteria to trap microplastics, removing them from the environment and making them easier to recycle. The new technique, developed by scientists at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, uses bacterial biofilms—a sticky substance created by micro-organisms—to trap microplastic particles. The biofilm is then processed and dispersed, releasing the microplastic particles […]

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