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.
Buddhist temple in Thailand is turning plastic waste into robes for monks
Thailand is among the top plastic polluters in the world, but seeking to change that, a Buddhist temple in the south of Bangkok is recycling thousands of plastic bottles and turning them into sacred orange robes for the monks. Over the last two years, monks at the recycling temple of Wat Chak Read More...
This Chicago artist is bringing music education back to public schools
When governments make budget cuts, all too often it is schools and their creative programs that pay the price. Such is the case in Chicago, where many elementary schools are without any music programs, which is a crying shame considering music education has been found to benefit a child’s memory, Read More...
Green policies, citizen science, and reversing the trend of wildlife losses
Amid big declines in wildlife, action can still help to reverse the trend for some species. This is the conclusion from a new analysis out of the UK which shows that freshwater insects, mosses and lichens are bucking the trend of wildlife losses in the country and have expanded their ranges since Read More...
Belgian waffles of the future will come with a side of insect butter
Belgians are waffle experts. In fact, they take their waffles so seriously that when it came to potentially replacing butter toppings with a product made from insect fat, researchers decide to tackle studying the transition. Researchers from Ghent University created three waffle varieties: one Read More...
Jeff Bezos to donate $10 billion to climate action. Can he fix Amazon too?
Jeff Bezos announced the creation of his Bezos Earth Fund this week, which will donate a remarkable $10 billion towards fighting climate change. Any time a donation this big goes directly to forces fighting climate change, it's worth celebrating. But let's not get carried away by the scale of Read More...
Here’s an eco-friendly alternative to your child’s disposable dinnerware
It’s not uncommon for a china set of dinnerware to be passed down generation by generation in a family, so why do we treat kids’ dinnerware like a disposable addition to our cabinets? That was the problem married couple Adam and Ai Su Bonnier wanted to tackle when they created Miniware, a Read More...
Escaped beavers have brought quantifiable benefits to English rivers
In 2013, a group of beavers that had escaped from captivity were found living wild along a river in Devon, England. When plans to exterminate the animals were greeted by a popular outcry, the government agreed to a scientific trial to measure the environmental impact of the beavers, with the funds Read More...
This couple is buying land near a tiger reserve and just letting it regrow
It was his love for nature and wildlife that led Aditya Singh to quit his Indian civil services job, leave his well-appointed house in Delhi and settle in a remote corner of Rajasthan, abutting the famous Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, in 1998. Over the last 20 years, Singh has been buying tracts of Read More...
The largest oil refinery on the East Coast is closing for good
It’s official! On Thursday, a federal judge finally confirmed the Chapter 11 bankruptcy plan of Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES), the company that ran the benzene-polluting mega refinery that closed after bursting into flames last June. The plan includes the sale of PES’s 1,300-acre Read More...
The milkman reimagined: Delivery service Loop launches next month
One of the most ambitious attempts to eliminate plastic waste from weekly groceries is set to launch next month. The Loop, as it’s called, will be a major new online service backed by the world’s biggest brands that will deliver products ranging from soft drinks to washing powder and shampoo in Read More...