Volunteers in Myanmar build a library for orphans out of discarded plastic
Myanmar’s Ayeyarwady River intercepts an estimated 119 tons of plastic waste per day, making it one of the most polluted waterways in the world. It is not uncommon to see plastic waste littered on the country’s roadsides and clogging up sewage drains. The excess of plastic litter inspired Read More...
This futuristic bus shelter is designed to improve air quality in cities
Air pollution is one of the most pressing public health challenges facing urban areas today, so designing infrastructure that tackles this problem is key to ensuring a sustainable future for our cities. We’ve previously seen such innovations in the form of air-purifying advertising banners, and Read More...
Study: Regularly drinking milk can help stave off heart disease
While we at The Optimist Daily are frequent proponents of adopting a mostly plant-based diet, if you are going to indulge in animal products, you might want to make it a glass of milk as a recent study has found it has the potential to keep heart disease at bay. The study found that those drinking Read More...
Networks of recycled waste heat to help keep UK homes warm
The heating of homes in the UK accounts for almost a third of the country’s total carbon emissions. This means that finding greener ways to heat homes is key to achieving the government’s goal of bringing emissions down to net-zero by 2050. In an effort to reach that ambitious target, UK Read More...
G7 finance ministers meet to support global tax accountability accord
Wealth inequality around the world has increased dramatically since the 1980s with the top one percent owning 40 percent of the world's wealth. In the US, this problem is even more severe with the top 0.1 percent owning more than the bottom 90 percent. This inequality is exacerbated by financial Read More...
June 3, 2021
Kristy and Summers celebrate the first ever in-person recording of The Optimist Daily Update with stories about compostable takeout boxes and a rechargeable battery that uses CO2 to store renewable energy. Listen to The Optimist Daily Update with Summers & Kristy - Making Solutions the Read More...
June 3, 2021
Kristy and Summers celebrate the first ever in-person recording of The Optimist Daily Update with stories about compostable takeout boxes and a rechargeable battery that uses CO2 to store renewable energy. Listen to The Optimist Daily Update with Summers & Kristy - Making Solutions the Read More...
To avoid stigma, Covid-19 variants will be given Greek alphabet names
Scientific names for the variants of diseases and illnesses can be complicated to say and difficult to remember, so people often fall back on distinguishing between variants based on where they were detected. This year especially, the world has seen how identifying diseases based on certain Read More...
These ultra-low-cost batteries use CO2 to store renewable energy
While the price for lithium-ion batteries has dropped significantly in recent years, the technology is still a tad too expensive to be the best solution for the long-term storage of renewable energy, most of which is weather-dependent. As such, innovators are looking beyond lithium-based batteries Read More...
Circ has cracked the code on recycling textile waste
Consumer focused strategies like thrift shopping, repairing old clothes, and reducing consumption is great for the motivated environmental dresser, but for the massive amount of people still supporting the fast fashion industry, the looming question of what to do with textile waste still remains. Read More...