Enjoy our special posts in the fields of Earth & Planetary Sciences (EPS Blog) and Social Sciences & Arts (SSA Blog)
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Since a major portion of food waste happens at plate level, researchers are using digital technology to put sustainability back on the menu.
Food waste has reached colossal proportions and the magnitude of the problem requires equally massive resources with the potential to supply sustainable answers. What better than the dynamic digital databases and advanced analytics we literally have access to "at our fingertips".
Credit: Tokumeigakarinoaoshima
Engineers research recycling and reusing lithium-ion batteries to optimize design
Researchers at Cornell University, partially funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, recently published a study that outlines ways to sustainably repurpose used lithium-ion electric vehicle batteries to reduce their carbon footprint. The researchers investigated how battery chemistry, reuse, and recycling influence the energy output and environmental impact of lithium-ion EV batteries.
Green technologies
New technologies that capture and recycle carbon dioxide from industrial processes such as steel and cement making will be vital if the EU is to meet its goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 and down to zero by 2050. However, while solutions are emerging, more work is needed in order to roll them out at scale, experts say.
Photo credit: unilever.com
The Waste Free World project
The co-operation of two of the world's biggest consumer goods firms results in an innovative recycling project. They have created machines that use artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically identify and sort plastic packaging.
The initiative is called The Waste Free World and it was recently announced as a collaboration between Unilever and the Chinese giant Alibaba. The goal of the project is to unite the packaging technologies of the former with the business operating system of the latter to advance and ensure a highly efficient process of returning plastics back into a closed-loop recycling system.
image: pixabay.com
Scientists from the University of Portsmouth have created a new super enzyme that breaks down plastic bottles. The process is 6 times faster than before.
So far, PET plastic (recycling polyethylene terephthalate), used for the production of single-use drink bottles, carpets, and clothing, has been broken down by the PETase enzyme, engineered by the same team. Now the researchers have added another enzyme, MHETase, to the process and managed to significantly speed it up. Both enzymes were found in a plastic-eating bug discovered in 2016 at a Japanese waste site.
