Recyled bricks tackle waste and emissions
CategoriesSustainable News

Recyled bricks tackle waste and emissions

Spotted: According to the UN Environmental Programme, the construction industry accounts for around 11 per cent of total global carbon emissions. Now, Dutch startup StoneCycling is hoping to make a dent in this figure with bricks made from recycled construction debris. The company currently makes recycled bricks containing 60 per cent waste, and in the future expects to bring that figure up to 100 per cent.

Currently, most of the company’s bricks are made up of two to three waste streams, although the company works with 60 waste streams overall, including construction waste such as ceramic toilet bowls, roof tiles, and steel. The waste is sorted, ground, moulded, and fired in a kiln, just like traditional bricks. However, while traditional clay bricks are very energy intensive, the recycled waste bricks can be fired at lower temperatures, so their manufacture releases less carbon.

The type of waste used gives different colours and textures to each collection of bricks. For example, some drive-through Starbucks locations in Europe were built with StoneCycling bricks speckled with white; those are made from crushed toilet bowls. The bricks are especially useful in repairs to historic buildings, as the variation in colour and finish makes the bricks appear more historically accurate. The company also makes BioBased tiles, a tile product that is 300 per cent stronger than concrete blocks and creates 95 per cent less CO2.  

StoneCycling describes its mission as creating, “A circular world where waste is synonymous with raw material. Cities and their buildings will be constructed of building materials that are made from 100 per cent waste, are 100 per cent recyclable at the end of their life cycle, and absorb more carbon than it takes to create them.” The concept was conceived at the Design Academy Eindhoven in around 2009, when then-student Tom van Soest worked on upcycling waste found in vacant buildings. After graduating, Van Soest founded StoneCycling with his friend Ward Massa, who manages business strategy.

In order to reduce carbon emissions, it is vital to improve the sustainability of the construction and materials sector. With the cement industry alone generating somewhere between four and eight per cent of all global man-made carbon emissions, the use of recycled resources is seen as vital. Springwise has seen this in a wide number of recent innovations, including carbon-negative insulation made from grass and construction materials made from plastic waste. 

Written By: Lisa Magloff

Website: stonecycling.com

Contact: stonecycling.com/contact/

Reference

Charcoal-free incense made from waste flowers
CategoriesSustainable News

Charcoal-free incense made from waste flowers

Spotted: Waste is probably not the first thing you think of when you hear the word ‘temple’, but each year, millions of tonnes of flowers are left as offerings at Indian temples. For religious reasons, these offerings can’t be thrown into landfills, so they end up in rivers. The flowers are often covered in pesticides, toxic metals, and insecticides, and once they reach the water, the chemicals wash off, creating toxic compounds that suppress oxygen levels and threaten marine life. Sitting by the Ganges one day, watching as colourful flowers were dumped in the river, Ankit Agarwal got the idea for Phool (the Hindi for ‘flower’).

The startup employs around 1,200 women, many of whom do not have access to traditional employment, to collect more than 13 tonnes of floral waste from temples in Uttar Pradesh each day. The petals are removed from the flowers and sorted by colour, while the stems are used to create a compost that is sold as a separate product. The petals are dried, then ground and mixed with water and essential oils to create a clay, which is rolled into incense sticks. All of this work is done by hand.

In addition to reducing waste and providing much-needed jobs, the incense sticks are also charcoal-free, so they release fewer harmful chemicals than traditional incense sticks. While, at first, Phool had to convince temples to give them their flower waste, today, temple authorities want to be part of the project, realising that it helps both the environment and people. The company also makes essential oils and other fragrance products.

Phool is also working to develop methods for turning the flowers into products such as a vegan leather and a biodegradable alternative to Styrofoam. The company explains that they, “have invested ourselves heavily into our R&D to invent methods to convert temple-waste into biodegradable packaging and bio-leathers. We are also constantly trying to enhance our impact on empowering the women who are employed with us. It has been our earnest effort to turn this pious waste collection into a full-blown social enterprise which now spans three cities.”

Springwise has highlighted a number of organisations that combine innovation with job opportunities. These include a social enterprise that promotes affordable menstrual hygiene and a coffee chain that provides employment for employees with disabilities.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

Website: phool.co

Contact: phool.co/pages/contact-us

Reference

A biodegradable plastic made from plant waste
CategoriesSustainable News

A biodegradable plastic made from plant waste

Spotted: Polyethylene terephalate (PET) is a common type of plastic used for applications such as water bottles, dispensing containers, and biscuit trays. Although PET is recyclable using both mechanical and advanced recycling processes, a large amount of this plastic ends up in the environment due to the sheer amount in circulation. Moreover, PET is made using chemicals derived from fossil fuels. There has therefore been a push to develop bioplastics that can replace PET and other plastics. However, this is easier said than done.

PET bottles are so ubiquitous because they have useful properties such as low cost, heat stability, and mechanical strength. These attributes have proved to be difficult to replicate in plant-based plastic alternatives. But researchers from the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have recently developed a biodegradable plastic that exhibits many of the benefits of PET while also being environmentally friendly.

Developed by a team at EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences, the plastic is made using the non-edible parts of plants. “We essentially just ‘cook’ wood or other non-edible plant material, such as agricultural wastes, in inexpensive chemicals to produce the plastic precursor in one step,” explains Professor Jeremy Luterbacher who led the research team.

The new plastic is both heat-resistant and tough, and could be a good material for food packaging as it acts as an effective barrier to gases such as oxygen. Thanks to its structure, the plastic breaks down into harmless sugars in the environment, and it is also compatible with chemical recycling.

Applications for the plastic include medicine, textiles, packaging, and electronics. The researchers have already used it to make fibres for clothing, films for packaging, and filaments for 3D-printing.

Other bioplastics recently spotted by Springwise include a collaboration that turns food waste into bioplastic for cosmetics, a smart bioplastic made from green algae, and a compostable plastic that breaks down quickly.

Written By: Matthew Hempstead

Website: actu.epfl.ch

Contact: epfl.ch/about/overview/contact-en/

Reference

Circular production process uses industrial fruit waste for vegan leather
CategoriesSustainable News

Circular production process uses industrial fruit waste for vegan leather

Spotted: The development of vegan leather that looks and feels like the most luxurious animal leather, is a major goal for designers. Startup Polybion specialises in organic, vegan leather made in a closed-loop production process. The company uses local sources of industrial fruit waste as the basis for its material and has already identified additional waste streams should demand grow.

Called Celium, Polybion’s leather is grown to a variety of thicknesses. Fungi and bacteria feed on the fruit waste, producing cellulose as a byproduct of that process. The Polybion team then stabilises the growing material at the desired size and depth before treating it to be ready for dying and other bespoke processes. Customisable and strong, Celium can be produced with an infinite variety of grains and embossments, along with varying levels of water resistance.

Already, Polybion has identified enough biowaste nearby to create up to 168 million square feet of the vegan leather each year. From vehicle interiors and footwear to homewares and fashion, large-scale organic leather production could make significant inroads in multiple industries seeking more sustainable resources.  

The scope of new leather options is widening by the day, with creators and innovators in many industries finding new ways of working with surprising ingredients. Springwise has spotted a number of leather alternatives, with two recent innovations being lab-grown leather and a leather bag made from grape skin.

Written by: Keely Khoury

Email: contact@polybion.bio

Website: polybion.bio

Reference

An energy-harvesting wearable made from recycled waste
CategoriesSustainable News

An energy-harvesting wearable made from recycled waste

Spotted: The global market for smart wearables is forecast to reach $42.3 billion (around €38.9 billion) by 2028. These devices will undoubtedly improve our lives through greater connectivity and convenience. But more electronic devices mean more demand for raw materials such as iron, copper, and gold – something which is increasingly emerging as a problem.

To tackle this, researchers from the University of Surrey, are explored how recycled waste materials can be used to make wearables by developing and testing a prototype wrist device made from discarded paper wipes and plastic cups.

The prototype is powered by energy harvested from the wearer’s movements. The device contains materials—called Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENGs)—that become electrically charged when they rub against one another, in a process known as electrostatic induction. This charge is used to power the device – which currently transmits morse code. In the future the prototype could be developed into a smart watch.

“It won’t be long until we have to ask ourselves which of the items we own are not connected to the internet,” explains Dr Bhaskar Dudem, project lead and Research Fellow at the University of Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute (ATI). “However, the current internet-of-things (IoT) revolution highlights the simple fact that our planet doesn’t have the raw resources to continue to make these devices which are in such high demand.”

Wearable innovations recently spotted by Springwise include
a biosensor
that can measure emotional data, a wearable
sensor for tracking stress, and a wearable
that uses the human body to power electrical equipment.

Written By: Matthew Hempstead

Email: mediarelations@surrey.ac.uk

Website: surrey.ac.uk

Reference

Pellets made from agricultural and wood waste replace fossil fuels
CategoriesSustainable News

Pellets made from agricultural and wood waste replace fossil fuels

Spotted: Each year, Costa Rica produces more than 1.2 million tonnes of wood, of which around 40 per cent ends up as waste. Much of this wood waste is disposed of improperly with decomposition releasing methane, a greenhouse gas that adds to global warming. Now, renewable energy company Pelletics is putting waste to work fighting climate change.

The company takes wood and agricultural waste from sawmills and cassava cultivation and turns it into pellets that constitute a high energy density fuel. Depending on its exact properties, the feedstock is put through one or a combination of processes such as drying, particle reduction, densification, cooling, and dust removal. This treatment takes places at the company’s plant in Muelle, San Carlos, which is situated at the heart of Costa Rica’s sawmill region.

The fuel produced by Pelletics is considered carbon neutral, and can be used as a direct replacement for fossil fuels in applications such as boilers, industrial burners, and home heating. In Costa Rica, fossil fuels are imported whereas the company’s pellets are produced locally, reducing transport emissions while supporting local jobs.

The company currently works with more than 30 sawmills, and the company recently updated its facilities with new technology to further improve its sustainability.

Pelletics is not the only company spotted by Springwise that is developing bio-based alternatives to fossil fuels. Other innovations include a Kenyan biofuel company that services informal retailers, anda researcher turning cardboard boxes into biofuel.

Written By: Matthew Hempstead

Website: pelletics.com

Contact: pelletics.com/contacto

Reference

Collecting and recycling electronic waste from homes and businesses
CategoriesSustainable News

Collecting and recycling electronic waste from homes and businesses

Spotted: Electronic waste, or e-waste, refers to any discarded item that has a plug or a battery – and it is becoming a major problem.

According to a United Nations forecast, we are on track to produce 74 million metric tonnes of e-waste by 2030. And in 2019, each person on earth generated around 7.3 kilogrammes of e-waste – with only 1.7 kilogrammes recycled per person.

In Malaysia 25 per cent of e-waste is recycled, and startup ERTH is looking to improve this rate with a service that pays consumers to recycle their old electronic devices. The service works by employing a network of freelance drivers. When a customer has e-waste that they wish to recycle, the system matches them with the nearest driver – just as ride-hailing apps match users to a taxi driver. This driver then collects the e-waste and the customer receives a cash reward.

Drivers return the e-waste they have collected to a central warehouse on a weekly basis. ERTH’s recovery partner then comes to this warehouse and collects the e-waste for dismantling and segregation. All this e-waste is recycled through the proper, regulated channels, and the company claims it has stopped more than 200,000 kilogrammes of e-waste from ending up in landfill.

ERTH is not the only e-waste recycling service, and customers in Malaysia can also deal with recycling facilities directly. However, ERTH’s service offers several important benefits. First, the company claims that its competitors require a minimum of ten items, whereas ERTH only requires one working device or three non-working devices for free pick up. Second, the startup offers fast and convenient payment through cash, bank transfer, e-wallet, or cheque. Finally, the network of drivers does all the heavy lifting, taking the hassle and inconvenience out of the process.

In addition to its core service, ERTH also offers e-waste collection boxes, secure data destruction, and a B2B recycling programme.

Other e-waste focused innovations spotted by Springwise
include a new
process can efficiently recover metals from electronic waste, and an Indian
startup that takes a collaborative
approach to e-waste.

Written By: Matthew Hempstead

Email: hello@erth.app

Website: erth.app

Reference