What Goes Around, Comes Around

September 14, 2011May 5, 2013 / Amie Inman / 1 Comment

Despite the fact that this post makes me look like a “one trick pony” I have to share yet another recycling innovation that involves, well, you know…

The Canadian company Knowaste has opened several facilities in the U.K. that are making a significant dent in the nearly 800,000 tons of disposable nappies and other “absorbent hygiene product” waste that would normally go directly to landfills annually.

The company has pioneered a system that, after heat sterilization, converts the plastics in the products into items such as roof shingles and plastic tubing, with the waste from that processing used to generate heat and power for the plant itself. Continue reading →

News(Paper) Power

September 10, 2011September 10, 2011 / Amie Inman / 2 Comments

Despite the now ubiquitous use of the internet to follow both local and world news, newspapers continue to exist for many people as their daily connection to current events. In many countries that’s not their only use of course. We’ve written about the recycling initiatives of newspaper bags and baskets, as well as their use as wrappers and packaging in markets around the world. But used for fueling our cars? Now that’s news!

Tulane University associate professor of cell and molecular biology Dr. Mullin and his team have just applied for a patent for a method to produce the biofuel butanol from organic material. Continue reading →

Challenge: Nappie-free Landfills

September 9, 2011July 9, 2017 / Amie Inman / 2 Comments

Even if the jury is still out comparing the environmental impacts and carbon footprints of cloth vs. disposable nappies, it’s clear that standard disposables are a landfill problem. As in, a space problem if nothing else. Being a petroleum-based product, they pose other problems as well.

But since the main component of these stubbornly indispensable items is cellulose, and mushrooms are nature’s cellulose-eating machines, Mexican scientist Alethia Vázquez-Morillas of The Autonomous Metropolitan University in Mexico City has found a solution. Continue reading →