Viral Alternative News: Environmentally Friendly

Showing posts with label Environmentally Friendly. Show all posts

This Innovative New Packaging Could Soon Replace Plastic!

A Japanese design company developed an earth-friendly way to package goods using seaweed.

Credit: AMAM

Have you ever considered how much plastic you might be responsible for wasting? If you’re the average American, you’re likely to throw away an astonishing 185 pounds of plastic per year. Worse, 50% of the plastic that ends up in landfills and the oceans was only used once before it was discarded. Only 5% of what’s tossed into the trash is every recovered, and that’s dismal considering its effect on the environment.

Because plastic, on average, requires 500 to 1,000 years to decompose, the Japanese design company AMAM decided to develop a more earth-friendly way to package goods.

Called Agar Plasticity, the product is derived from agar, which is a gelatinous material that is readily found in red marine algae. (Recently, TrueActivist reported about a new water bottle made out of the seaweed, which you can ready about here)

The three designers behind AMAM are Kosuke Araki, Noriaki Maetani, and Akira Muraoka. In 2015, the trio teamed up to create things beyond their respective areas of interest; the algae-based alternative to plastic is their first collaborative project.

Credit: AMAM

Explains Araki, one of the designers:

“We were attracted to the materiality of agar—the delicacy in its texture and beauty in its appearance—at a local supermarket. Relatively soon after that, we thought its delicate and light structure would be suitable for cushioning material. Then, we did some experiments and found agar was moldable, so we decided to send our proposal to LDA.”

According to GOOD, the design team’s project is one of four finalists for the 2016 Lexus Design Award. Each team was paired with a design mentor to bring a prototype to life for Milan Design Week.

The seaweed actually has a fascinating history as a food ingredient in Japan. It is typically sold dried, but people can also melt the agar in hot water to make traditional Japanese sweets and desserts. Reportedly, the process of making agar-based packaging is quite simple.

Credit: AMAM

First, agar powder is dissolved in simmering water and then poured into a mold. Once the agar sets into a kind of jelly, the mold is frozen for approximately two days. This freezing process forms the agar into a structure that can provide cushioning for a packaged item, according to Araki. Finally, after two days, the frozen agar solution is thawed and completely air-dried.

“We are currently designing a box-like package, which has a cushioning structure derived from the freezing process for delicate objects (like a fragrance bottle), cushioning sheets for wrapping, and nugget-like cushioning,” Araki says. “We are ultimately dreaming of replacing disposable plastic products, such as shopping bags, amenity goods prepared at hotels and so forth, with agar-derived plastic.”

The designer also relays that someday, the team hopes the algae-based packaging will replace plastic. However, the process is presently “too technical and chemical for us to achieve by ourselves.” With help from researchers interested in collaborating, however, it could be made possible.

Packaging made from agar, however, would be an incredibly beneficial alternative to plastic. Agar-based packaging can be disposed of in an environmentally-friendly way, as agar absorbs and retains water very well. It could also be used to improve water retention by mixing it with soil in a garden.

Credit: AMAM

And, if the agar packaging were to end up in the ocean like billions of tons of plastic already is, it wouldn’t be devastating to the environment and wildlife’s health.

While the designers emphasize that Agar Plasticity is still in its prototyping phase, it’s exciting to see such a relatively simple alternative to plastic being presented. Certainly, when a group of passionate and inspired thinkers collaborate, anything is possible.

This article was written By Amanda Froelich and first appeared on True Activist

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Save The Environment AND Reduce Your Utility Bill With This Electricity-Free Underground Fridge [Watch]

Fresh and modern in its design, the underground fridge is basically an innovative version of the traditional root cellar.

Whether you’re interested in lessening your burden on the environment or are prepping for doomsday, you’re sure to favor the plans of an underground cooling system – aka underground fridge – which keeps produce and fine wines from spoiling before their time.

The Ground Fridge, as it is called, was invented by Dutch designer Floris Schoonderbeek for the company Weltevree. Its purpose is to cool and store foods at a low temperature – no electricity required.

Credit: Floris Schoonderbeek

Fresh and modern in its design, the underground fridge is basically an innovative version of the traditional root cellar. As Contemporist reports, it was designed “for the new cosmopolitan with its own vegetable garden and a modern self-sufficient existence.”

Credit: Floris Schoonderbeek

According to the designer, modern houses are often built without a basement while a lot of people nowadays feel the need for one. Focused on eating healthy and preparing for the future, more and more people are opting to grow their own food and/or buy in bulk at the local organic farmer.

With the Ground Fridge, people are granted the basement they desire to store food rations and other supplies. Wooden shelves are included.

Credit: Floris Schoonderbeek

The temperature in the fridge remains stable year-round between 10 and 12° C. This is the ideal temperature to store fruit, vegetables, wine, and cheese.

Credit: Floris Schoonderbeek

As is clear in the design, the spherical structure is buried and covered with the excavated earth. Because the layer of soil is about one meter thick, the container is insulated so the fridge barely varies.

Perhaps the best part? No permit is required to place the Ground Fridge, and no soil needed to be displaced.

Credit: Floris Schoonderbeek

What are your thoughts on this innovation?

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Website Only Stocks Products That Last A Lifetime

Tired of replacing stuff? Buy Me Once solves that problem.

Once I heard the premise behind Buy Me Once, I couldn't believe the website didn't already exist. Tara Button, the webshop's founder, couldn't either. She was working in advertising, and one of her clients was Le Creuset, the famous maker of ceramic cookware that has a lifetime guarantee. She got a cooking pot from the company and she thought, "Why aren't there more things like this?"

Then she figured there must a place online to find more things in other categories that shared the same principles as Le Creuset. She searched and searched and couldn't find a site where all types of products built to last were vetted and sold.

"I tried hard to ignore the idea, but it wouldn't go away," Button told me. "It kept on coming back up in my head. When I would read the news about the environment and about the waste we produce, I felt almost sick. I would get this visceral, itchy feeling inside that told me: 'You can do something about this.' I finally got to the point where I was like 'I have to make this site.'"

Button jumped into entrepreneurship and started building the Buy Me Once site after work and late into the night. She finally quit her day job in late January to dedicate herself full-time to the site, and she has already gotten a lot of attention from shoppers and the media. Right now, most of the site is available to shoppers in the U.S. and U.K., and she's working on getting every item available from each country.

As a longtime fan of stuff that lasts, I was curious to learn how this project came together, and Button filled me in on how she made her vision happen.

MNN: What items have you found that will stand the test of time?

Tara Button: I found Buy Me Once socks. If socks can have have a lifetime guarantee, why can't anything? There's clothing, cookware, toys for kids, recycled plastic toys that are hardcore durable and sustainable wooden toys too. There are accessories, like umbrellas, and luggage, like Eagle Creek. A massive bugbear for me is plastic "wood" that chips, and there's so much furniture out there these days that's made like that, so we have furniture that won't fall apart after a few years, and if it does get nicked, you can fix it. If it's made out of vinyl, no way. It's a shame. Also, beauty products, like hairbrushes, tweezers and shavers.

How do you decide what to include?

I'm looking for the best in show in terms of longevity. And the companies that are really trying and trying to cut down on this throwaway culture. Like Patagonia offers free fixing of their clothes. Nobody does that, and half of us don't know how to [sew] anymore. It's wonderful to find these gems of companies; they do exist. It's all about finding things that last and helping things to last — cherishing the things that last. That's the ethos.

Up until now, it's been mainly me reading countless reviews, talking to people, calling companies, comparing and contrasting different products in the same category, to which one is the best. And there was serious research too. When it came to choosing shoes, I talked to cobblers and asked about what shoes are easy to fix and which ones last. I'm a big fan of talking to the experts, since they are going know from experience what lasts.

What's your biggest challenge?

I'm looking a products from companies all around the world, and sometimes it's been tricky to find people who will ship. I also underestimated response from the U.S. It's been huge. Over 60 percent of our traffic is coming from America, so we are determined to give that love back.

The response has just been amazing. I have an email backlog of 600 emails of suggested products from people, and we are plowing through them, checking to see what they are and if they fit our ethos. Some won't work and some will. If readers have ideas, they can send them along to me at: contact@buymeonce.com. We always want to hear about great products that have lasted and the stories behind them as well; we want to put them up online and share the best.

Will the site feature anything other than products?

One of the sides of the website that is going to become an important part is challenging manufacturers to do better. If we feel that there's a particular category that needs attention, we are going to create a challenge. [For example] we haven't been able to find a Buy Me Once electric kettle. The guarantees from the companies are really short, and online reviews say they all break really soon. For me, that's not good enough. In a world where we build satellites and send people to space, we can make a kettle that doesn't break after three years. There used to be kettles that lasted longer. If you find a kettle from the 1950s, they often still work. That kind of thing gets my goat.

It's frustrating, and I feel it's immoral to make something that breaks and ends up in a landfill, and it's really short-sighted. If you're not a wealthy family, having to replace these items is not cheap. And the first company who does do that will make a killing. People really do want stuff that's built to last. We have some other work to do on the site first, but the challenges are going to be important.

We also have content: Like how to have a kid's birthday party with no waste. You can have a fun, colorful, great birthday party but without three trash bags full at the end of the day. And we're working on a capsule wardrobe that's "Buy Me Once."

Sweden Is Now Recycling 99 Percent Of Its Trash. Here’s How...

It would serve Americans greatly to take a page out of Sweden’s book about recycling their waste.

The Scandinavian nation of Sweden has set a new precedent in the world of recycling its trash, with a near zero waste amount of 99 percent. Sweden was already ahead of the game back in 2012, when they were recycling 96 percent of their trash, but the three percent jump in just two years is quite impressive. Image credit: sweden.media

How does Sweden do it? They have an aggressive recycling policy, which goes in an order of importance: prevention, reuse, recycling, recycling alternatives, and as a last resort, disposal in landfill. As of 2014, only 1 percent of their waste ends up in a landfill.

Swedes understand that producing less waste to begin with is key to reducing the amount of trash that ends up being thrown away. Something as simple as using reusable containers for water and drinks can greatly reduce the amount of trash each person produces per year.

They have a very advanced system of trash separation which makes it easy to recycle nearly everything that’s thrown away.

Much of the left over waste is taken care of by using “recycling alternatives”, such as the Waste-to-Energy program, which is explained in this video:

While the “recycling alternative” remains controversial, it’s cleaner than drilling for oil or natural gas to burn in traditional power plants.

Sweden is so good at recycling its trash in fact, that it now has plans to import 800,000 tons of garbage from other countries in Europe in order to create heat for its citizens through its Waste-to-Energy program.

America should take note of this process considering we only recycle approximately 34 percent of the garbage we throw away.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Nick Bernabe is the owner and lead editor of the website TheAntiMedia.org, an activist, blogger, and the founder and spokesman of the March Against Monsanto movement. He is also a guest contributor to The Mind Unleashed. Please follow his Facebook page by clicking here.

America’s First Hemp House Pulls CO2 From The Air!

The gorgeous, eco-friendly home costs only $133 per square foot to build.

Hemp is making a major comeback around the world. In the US, five states have legalized the recreational use of cannabis, and hemp-based building materials are now gaining in popularity.

The first house built in America with hemcrete was constructed in Asheville, North Carolina, and the 3,400 square foot Push House boasts a number of eco-friendly features.

To create a solid – yet breathable – wall system, hemp hurds were mixed with lime and water on-site an poured in-between the exterior supporting studs in lift.

As USA Today notes, Hempcrete is actually less like concrete and more like infill straw bale, as it is non-structural. The insulating quality is r-2.5 per inch, and it has the unique ability to capture airborne pollutants over time – absorbing carbon when it is grown and in place.

In addition, the material’s high thermal mass helps keep a steady interior temperature, rather than allowing it to fluctuate.

The interior walls of this gorgeous, eco-friendly house are made from Purepanel, a unique product made from recycled paper. It consists of a rigid skin with a corrugated paper core, similar to cardboard. (Below)

As CNN reports, the house also features 30 salvaged window frames that have been fitted with high tech glass. They were placed to allow the most daylighting without overheating the space. An open floor plans also allows the light to pervade deep into the home.

That’s not all: The energy-efficient wall system is coupled with a super efficient 21 SEER air-based heat pump to effectively heat and cool the home, reducing utility costs and also the need for expensive equipment. With these installments, this home ends up costing a respectable $133 per square foot to build.

Some compromises were made, such as introducing petroleum-based foam products into the ceiling and foundation. However, the house is a stellar example of how health, energy and design can co-exist in sync.

The architect is looking forward to constructing similar, smaller homes in the future once he gets through the learning curve of using Hemcrete. Admirably, he says from here on out he will only build houses safe enough for his daughter to live in; we applaud that.

What are your thoughts? Share in the comments section below.

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This article (America’s First Hemp House Pulls CO2 From The Air!) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com

Floating Garden Purifies The Water Of The US’ Most Polluted Waterway

An oasis of greenery is floating on the Gowanus Canal in New York City, purifying the water and brightening the murky waterway.

The Gowanus Canal in New York City is known to be one of the most polluted waterways in the United States. You can imagine everyone’s surprise, then, when an oasis of greenery was spotted sprouting on the surface of the river three weeks ago.

Not only is the brackish water’s appeal improved with the improbable garden, the stream is being cleansed at the same time.

Called GrowOnUs, the project is an experiment in “floating infrastructure” that utilizes a process called phytoremediation to purify the waterway. Over thirty different kinds of plants act as sponges to clean, desalinate, and mitigate the chemicals affecting the murky canal.

The flora is grown inside the very same metal culvert piping used to carry sewage waste into the waterway, reports GoodNewsNetwork. The “test tubes” are made buoyant by environmentally sustainable construction materials like coconut fibers and bamboo.

New York company Balmori Associates, which specializes in creating eco-friendly sustainable infrastructure, is responsible for taking action on the GrowOnUs project after receiving a $20,000 grant from the Cornelia & Michael Bessie Foundation. Diana Balmori explains in the video above that three attempts had already been made to produce a sustainable patch of vegetation in the waters, but the pollution had been too much for the plants.

Now, using tougher, more conditioned greenery, the garden is thriving and benefiting the canal.

Ideally, project GrowOnUs will deliver a positive change in shoreline protection, wildlife activity, and financial income for the city. Some even hope it becomes the next wave in locally-grown food.

Said Balmori in a press release:

“We have pioneered floating landscapes, we now want to learn what can make these floating structures financially sustainable. Dr. Michael Balick at the New York Botanical Garden suggested we grow herbs, low maintenance crops.”

“In a few years NYC restaurants may be serving meals and drinks infused with herbs [and fruits] grown on one of these islands.”

How innovative and refreshing!

This article (Floating Garden Purifies The Water Of The US’ Most Polluted Waterway) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.com

Navigation

This Innovative New Packaging Could Soon Replace Plastic!

Save The Environment AND Reduce Your Utility Bill With This Electricity-Free Underground Fridge [Watch]

Website Only Stocks Products That Last A Lifetime

Tired of replacing stuff? Buy Me Once solves that problem.

Sweden Is Now Recycling 99 Percent Of Its Trash. Here’s How...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

America’s First Hemp House Pulls CO2 From The Air!

Floating Garden Purifies The Water Of The US’ Most Polluted Waterway

An oasis of greenery is floating on the Gowanus Canal in New York City, purifying the water and brightening the murky waterway.