Circularity
Understanding the value of a circular economy and identifying circular solutions are essential to changing our world for good. Circularity, or the zero-waste principle of keeping materials in a closed loop and away from landfills and incinerators, is the future. Find out about the latest innovations and solutions accelerating the transition towards a circular economy in the articles here from The Optimist Daily.
This plastic sculpture puts the environmental impact of plastic waste into perspective
Since the early 1950s, the world has produced about 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic. About 60 percent of that plastic has ended up in either a landfill or the natural environment. Seeking to put that mind-boggling about of plastic waste into perspective, artist Iiina Klaus has teamed up with Read More...
Ways to curb your fast fashion habit
Haven’t you heard? Sustainability is in style, while exploitative and wasteful consumerism is out. So why is it so difficult for the fashion industry to catch up with the trends? In the past, many of us would go clothes shopping to buy cheap garments with short lifespans that we end up Read More...
Novel material converts waste heat to electricity with record efficiency
Researchers at Northwestern University have come up with an extremely high-performing thermoelectric material that may be the most efficient yet at converting waste heat into electricity. Thermoelectric systems generate electricity by using a temperature gradient. When one side of special material Read More...
Beyond recycling: plastic can be eaten!
Single use plastic waste is one of the largest problems facing humanity. According to Greenpeace, over 6.3 billion tons of plastic waste have been created and discarded, with only 9 percent of that number being recycled. This isn’t necessarily due to a lack of effort; plastics like polyethylene Read More...
This eco-friendly energy storage device is made from tropical fruit waste
While your local grocery store most likely doesn’t have any tamarinds in its fresh produce aisle, the tropical fruit is consumed in great quantities in Asia, where the fruit’s bulky shells usually end up in landfills after they’ve been discarded. In a bid to find a better use for this Read More...
Scottish distillery unveils transport fleet that runs on whiskey waste
Like an increasing number of businesses around the world, whiskey giant Glenfiddich recently pledged to reduce its footprint on the environment. With that goal in mind, the company started adapting its delivery trucks to run on low-emission biofuel created from its own whiskey waste. Adopting a Read More...
This book made of recycled plastic features letters to future generations
At this point, we can all agree that our take-make-use-dispose model of consumption has been nothing but harmful for the planet and that it’s about time we part ways with one of the biggest contributors to this problem — single-use plastics. A creative agency in Vietnam, called Ki Saigon, Read More...
This campaign wants to remove single-use plastics from the big screen
Have you ever noticed that characters in your favorite movies and TV shows tend to use a lot of single-use plastics? Whether it’s a busy professional grabbing a cup of coffee on the go or an athlete drinking out of a plastic water bottle, modern media definitely normalizes the consumption of Read More...
This sleek compostable lamp is made from discarded orange peels
Earlier this year, we wrote about how the city of Sevilla, Spain, is using leftover oranges to generate clean energy. Driven by the same mission to turn waste from citrus into something useful, Milan-based startup Krill Design has 3D printed orange peels into a sleek, compostable lamp, dubbed Read More...
This toilet turns South Korean students’ poop into cryptocurrency
We live in a world driven by consumerism. So, it’s fitting that Cho Jae-weon, an urban and environmental engineering professor and researcher at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), has invented a toilet that turns what’s been literally consumed into green energy, Read More...