Environment
Need some good news about the environment? The Optimist Daily is your go-to herald of positive environmental news, highlighting eco-friendly solutions and scientific progress around climate action, circularity, conservation, and more. Learn about everything eco in our Environment section.
Don’t throw away that greasy pizza box! Recycle it
If you’ve long tossed your pizza boxes into the trash, figuring—along with many other Americans—that the grease and cheese leftover on the cardboard meant it couldn’t be recycled, Domino’s wants you to think again. It turns out that nearly three-quarters of US residents have a recycling Read More...
This is how trees make urban areas cooler
You might consider urban areas to be the epitome of cool, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, buildings, cars, pollution, and lack of soil, all contribute to an urban heat island effect, making cities considerably warmer than surrounding rural areas. Luckily, there is a Read More...
Greta Thunberg wins €1m prize, then donates it all to climate action
Although Greta Thunberg has long been at the center of the youth climate movement, she has always tried to divert attention away from her and bring it towards climate action. But it’s not just media attention Thunberg has been receiving. Recently, the 17-year-old environmental activist was Read More...
Mayors want guaranteed income programs to help us recover from Covid-19
In early 2019, we published a story about Stockton mayor Michael Tubbs, who implemented a guaranteed income program in his city to help residents meet their basic needs. We have been closely following the program ever since, with the preliminary results from October showing that the 125 recipients Read More...
Pakistan meets UN goal on climate action, 10 years ahead of schedule
Pakistan is ranked as one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations - a position that has pushed the country to implement an incredible number of green initiatives in recent years, all in a bid to make it more resilient in the face of climate change. Now, Pakistan has turned its green Read More...
When users play this virtual game, millions of real trees are planted
Since its launch in 2016, over half a billion people have used Ant Forest to convert lower-carbon activities such as using public transport into real trees. The game is helping China lead the way in re-greening the planet and is serving as a model for tree-planting schemes elsewhere. It's the Read More...
This eco-friendly brick is made almost entirely out of construction waste
The hefty carbon footprint of our built environment is one of the main contributors to the climate crisis. And while it’s essential that we find smarter, more efficient ways to operate our buildings, it is of equal importance to reduce the embodied carbon of the building materials that we use in Read More...
Levi’s is using old jeans and wood pulp to create new, recyclable jeans
When you wear the newest pair of Levi’s, you’ll also be wearing someone’s old Levis: they’re partially made from old, recycled jeans. They’re also fully circular: When they eventually wear out, they can be recycled again into new material for new jeans, using the same innovative Read More...
Ocean Voyages Institute completes largest ocean clean up in history
At the end of June the Ocean Voyages Institute’s marine plastic recovery vessel, S/V KWAI docked in Honolulu. The ship spent 48 days at sea recovering 103 tons (206,000 lbs.) of plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, setting a record for the largest at sea clean-up in the Gyre to Read More...
After near extinction, thousands of red kites now fly over British skies
In April, we shared a story about white-tailed eagles returning to England for the first time in more than 240 years. Then, just over a week ago, another conservation story out of England was published about plans to bring bison back to the UK for the first time in 6,000 years in order to Read More...