#recycling

#recycling

Beach Cleaning Robot the BeBot can Sift the Sand for Tiny Plastics that We might have Missed Meet the BeBot, a machine created to help clean up microplastics on the beach. The robot was a collaboration between 4ocean and Poralu Marine for areas that have relatively clean beaches but large amounts of microplastics.The BeBot is powered by batteries connected to a solar panel, which makes it quiet as it travels back and forth on a beach. It is also able to cover an area roughly three-fifths the size of a football field each hour! As for its sifting process, the machine sorts through the top layer of sand through a screen, getting any item that is larger than a square centimeter. While it takes a person to sort through the different objects the robot got during its cleanup process, it is much faster than manually looking through each part of the beach. 4ocean is currently testing the robot in some of the most plastic-polluted beaches on the planet in Hawaii. The BeBot is ‘no means a solution for the ocean plastic crisis,’ says Alex Schulze, co-founder and CEO of 4ocean to Fast Company. The company, however, hopes to use the machine ‘to collect that plastic that exists as well as raise awareness to how that plastic is getting on the coastlines and in the ocean.’Image credit: 4ocean #Machine #TheBeBot #Recycling #Beaches #4ocean #PoraluMarine #BeachCleanup #Technology

Official LEGO Brick Made From Recycled PET PlasticThe LEGO Group has made a new breakthrough for their future releases! They have just introduced their latest prototype: recycled LEGO bricks made from sustainable materials.The new prototype LEGO brick is made from PET plastic from recycled bottles. According to LEGO’s official press release, a single one-liter plastic bottle has enough raw material to make ten 2x4 LEGO bricks.Over the past three years, LEGO’s material scientists and engineers have tested over 250 variations of materials and other plastic formulations to create a prototype brick that is as durable and strong as existing LEGO bricks. While the newest sustainable prototype has been announced, it will take some time before these recycled bricks appear in LEGO product boxes. The company will continue to test, develop and assess these bricks  before they could move to the pilot production phase.Image credit: The LEGO Group #Sustainability #LEGO #Recycling #PET #Plastic #Bricks #LegoBlocks #Toys 

Food Scraps Recycled Into Materials Stronger Than Concrete (But Strangely Remained Edible)The option for food waste is quite limited - either throw it away or compost it - but there may soon be a third option: make it into a new and robust construction material.Researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science at The University of Tokyo first turned fruit and vegetable scraps such as seaweed, cabbage leaves as well as orange, onion, pumpkin, and banana peels into powder. Then, they mixed the powder with some water, poured the resulting mixture into a mold and pressed it at high temperature.When they tested the newly molded material, the researchers discovered that they were quite strong. "With the exception of the specimen derived from pumpkin, all of the materials exceeded our bending strength target," said Kota Machida in a statement, "We also found that Chinese cabbage leaves, which produced a material over three times stronger than concrete, could be mixed with the weaker pumpkin-based material to provide effective reinforcement."Surprisingly, the materials remained edible. They were also more resistant to rotting, fungus and insect infestations and didn't change in appearance or taste after being exposed to air for up to four months.#food #recycling #concrete #ConstructionMaterial #MaterialScience

Recycling E-Waste Into Olympic MedalsFour years ago, the organizers of Japan’s Olympic and Paralympic Games kicked off a campaign to create 5,000 medals out of discarded electronics. “Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic medals will be made out of people’s thoughts and appreciation for avoiding waste,” said Japanese Olympic gold medalist gymnast Kohei Uchimura, “I think there is an important message in this for future generations.”The campaign asked the Japanese public to donate unwanted electronics or e-waste, including smartphones, digital cameras, handheld gaming consoles and even laptops.  Recycling centers would extract the precious metals in these devices, which will then be made into gold, silver, and bronze medals for the games.According to digitaltrends, in just a year and a half, the e-waste-to-medal campaign received 47,488 tons of equipment and over 5 million mobile phones.  This translated to 28.4 kg (62 lb) of gold (93.7% of the targeted 30.3 kg) and 3,500 kg (7,716 lb)of silver (85.4% of the targeted 4,100 kg).The program was so successful that this year’s games will be the first Olympic and Paralympics to have all of the awarded medals be made from recycled electronic wastes.#Olympics #Paralympics #Tokyo2020 #medal #recycling #eWaste

This is How Recycled Glass Bottles Are MadeAmericans toss out about 10 million metric tons of glass every year. Only a third of that gets recycled, and the rest ends up as trash in landfills - this is a shame because glass can be crushed, blended, melted and recycled endlessly to make new glass products without any loss of quality.#recycling #glass #glassbottle #culletsHere's a short video clip of how crushed bottles and jars are made into granular materials called cullets, which are then melted and recycled into new bottles.