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Bioeconomy, Recycling, Bioeconomy
Artificial intelligence for smarter recycling: the plastics pollution challenge
Artificial intelligence for smarter recycling: the plastics pollution challenge
When we throw a plastic bottle in the right waste container, we feel virtuous because we have done our part for the environment. However, we cannot imagine the huge effort that will be needed to ensure that our bottle is effectively recycled.
Surfing on bio-based boards
Surfing on bio-based boards
Surfing has a dirty secret: surfboard production techniques are often at odds with the sport’s eco-conscious image. Most modern surfboards are a sandwich-like construction: a polyurethane foam core – known as a blank – coated in a fibre-reinforced composite.
Making fabric from wood
Making fabric from wood
Regenerated fibres are man-made, or synthetic, fibres created from natural polymers. These polymers are broken down by chemical processes and then reformed into fibres that can be spun and woven to produce fabric.
Discovering the “third generation” of bioplastics
Discovering the “third generation” of bioplastics
What if we could turn the waste from the world’s crops into a biomaterial suitable for packaging? This is not science fiction. Today plastics can be made with the waste from tomato production , for example.
Preventing “oceans of plastic soup”
Preventing “oceans of plastic soup”
Approximately 8 million metric tons of plastic waste washes off land into the ocean each year. Bottle caps, toothbrushes, tiny plastic fragments, filaments, pellets, film and resin float about in the water columns.
Ridding the sea and land from toxic plastics fragments
Ridding the sea and land from toxic plastics fragments
Plastic products made of PVC, Polystyrene and other prominent plastics are flooding the market. They are a growing threat to the environment, as they are found in the sea or dumped in land fills .
When urban waste become bioplastics
When urban waste become bioplastics
Each year, the European Union produces three billion tonnes of waste. This equates to six tonnes of solid waste for every EU citizen, according to Eurostat. A major challenge is findings ways to reduce and reuse a large amount of such waste .
Edward Soméus – when animal waste provides greener fertilisers
Edward Soméus – when animal waste provides greener fertilisers
The Swedish environmental engineer Edward Soméus invented in the early ’80s a CO 2 free technology, abiding by the 3R principles: Recycle-Reduce-Reuse, to manufacture a natural fertiliser called biochar .
Tweaking Mother Nature’s chemistry box
Tweaking Mother Nature’s chemistry box
Natural enzymes are very clever molecular machines. They are the catalyst for many of nature’s chemical transformations. And the conditions they need to perform their task are rather precisely defined.
Ralf Otterpohl: a second life for unsuspected nutrient-rich waste
Ralf Otterpohl: a second life for unsuspected nutrient-rich waste
Every day cities in Europe discard a useful nutrient-rich resource that could be used to grow crops. Ironically, we treat and process human wastes while we mine non-renewable phosphate and potassium and we consume fossil fuel to make nitrogen fertiliser.
Funky food from fruit by-products
Funky food from fruit by-products
Food processing of cereal and fruits creates a rather voluminous amount of by-products . The London, UK-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers recently estimated that anywhere between 35% and 50%--or 1.
Daniel Ribera: turning food-soiled packaging into safe compost
Daniel Ribera: turning food-soiled packaging into safe compost
Designing environment-friendly compostable food packaging is the challenge that Daniel Ribera, the coordinator of the EC-funded Ecopack , tells youris.com about.
Nylons made from shrimps
Nylons made from shrimps
Shrimps and lobsters are among the most popular crustaceans. However, the shell waste produced by the seafood industry is a growing problem , with significant environmental and health hazards.