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.
A farm in New York has been powering itself using food scraps and cow manure
On a farm in upstate New York, a cheese brand is turning millions of pounds of food scraps into electricity needed to power its on-site businesses. Founded by eight families, each with their own dairy farms, Craigs Creamery doesn't just produce various types of cheddar, mozzarella, Swiss and Read More...
London to start heating homes using ‘waste heat’ from the city’s underground
If you frequently commute via the metro, you’ve probably noticed the hot gusts of air that tend to blow out of train tunnels. In London, a new project seeks to harness the heat from the underground metro in order to heat homes in the north of the city during the colder months of the year. The Read More...
This brilliant system turns food waste into natural pigments for paints and dyes
Many of the artificial pigments that are used to color clothing or to produce paints can be toxic. That’s why a graduate of the Imperial College London has designed a system called Kaiku that turns plants into powdered paint pigments that can replace artificial pigments. Using vaporization Read More...
Instead of corrosive salt, researchers are using grape skins to de-ice roads
Sodium chloride (aka salt) is an important ingredient for helping get around in the winter. Spread on roads, it lowers the freezing point of ice, making it melt faster and making roads safer. The problem with using salt on roads But all that salt can also be harmful—not only is it corrosive Read More...
A brewery in Brooklyn is making beer using leftover bagels to reduce food waste
No matter how hard Black Seed Bagels in Brooklyn tried to avoid overproducing bagels, the business always had leftover bagels at the end of the day. In an attempt to make use out of the leftover bagels and reduce food waste, the business came up with the idea of turning the leftover bagels into Read More...
This startup is using dehydration to turn food waste into healthy snacks
A San Francisco-based startup by the name of Treasure8 might have found the key to solving the problem with food waste—at least partially. What Treasure8 has developed is a drying machine that can fully dehydrate fruits, vegetables, and fungi without stripping them of their nutrients in around in Read More...
This code for heavy machinery makes it impossible to cut down protected trees
It can be extremely difficult for law enforcement to ensure the protection of large swaths of the forest from loggers. In a new, unique approach to protecting trees, developers are creating code that could be added to heavy machinery in order to prevent deforestation in areas that struggle with Read More...
Recycling is finally becoming circular thanks to artificial intelligence
The problem that has long plagued recycling is that too many different kinds of waste are mixed together, which needs to be accurately sorted out in order for recycling to be effective. But thanks to new artificial intelligence, we have a revolutionary solution to the problem of sorting Read More...
To prevent algorithmic bias, NYC has created a position to oversee ethics in AI
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has taken a major step forward in ensuring that the city’s AI systems are fair and bias-free after creating a position dedicated entirely to overseeing the ethics of AI and other algorithms. AI systems are based on data, but the problem is bad data can contain Read More...
The tech from self-driving cars could help prevent wildfires in the future
Last year, California had its most destructive and deadliest wildfire year on record. Increasingly dry, warm, and windy weather conditions wrought by climate change are a big reason why. But the immediate cause is often power lines: Downed lines that come into contact with nearby trees can create Read More...