Until recently, it was assumed that companies burning fossil-fuels would eventually need to capture the resulting carbon emissions and bury them underground. This option turned out to be inefficient and costly. That’s why innovators have been digging for new ideas that would eventually slash the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and also help them make a buck out of it.
Take, for example, CCm Technologies – a company that uses CO2 to turn cow dung and maize into high-grade fertilizer, while heating people’s homes.
Another example can be found at Strutt and Parker Farms – a farming enterprise that extracts clean CO2 from horse muck and straw and sells it to local breweries to put the fizz into lemonade and lager.
Similar innovative thinking comes from Carbon 8 Aggregates – a firm that captures CO2, mixes it with water and chimney ash, the product of which forms artificial limestone for building blocks and other purposes. These firms are pioneers in what’s known as the Circular Economy, in which waste is turned into raw materials. With more companies successfully turning carbon dioxide into something useful, we’re starting to see that carbon isn’t necessarily the enemy.
