Category: Recycling

Impact Lab > Recycling
Breakthrough Thinking, Great New Product, New Discoveries, New Inventions, Recycling

Re-Wine is a clever recycling idea

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The Re-Wine redesign reuse system in action.

Re-Wine is a clever design that transforms from a reusable, biodegradable carrying case for your wine into a lamp shade that uses the empty bottle as the base. If you’re not looking for a new lamp, the case also has interlocking joints that allow it to be connected to other units to form a custom seat, table or shelf. The more wine you drink, the more modules you have for building lamps or other furniture! Now there’s an idea that’s sure to motivate people!

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Art, Crazy Stuff, Entertainment, Historical Perspectives, New Viewpoints, Recycling

Amazing 3D landscapes carved out of books

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Books with a literal view.

“So I carve landscapes out of books and I paint Romantic landscapes”, says interdisciplinary artist Guy Laramee who, in the course of his 30 years of practice, found his way through such varied and numerous disciplines as : stage writing, stage directing, contemporary music writing, musical instrument design and building, singing, video, scenography, sculpture, installation, painting and literature. Laramee uses books that are slowly falling apart, such as old encyclopedias and dictionaries to create dramatic landscapes… (more pics after jump)

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Architecture, Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Crazy Stuff, Latest Trend, New Viewpoints, Recycling

60 recycled shipping containers transformed into London’s Boxpark Shopping Mall

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Recycling takes on a new form at Boxpark.

Boxpark is a new shopping mall built from standard-sized recycled shipping containers. Located in London’s ultra-hip east end, the shops are achingly trendy, with the majority selling tee-shirts, shoes and some jeans. All with attitude, of course.

The container village is painted black and white and contains 60 containers which are stacked two stories high and five rows wide. It is all a pop-up, easily plunked down…

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Analysis, Architecture, Art, Award Winner, New Discoveries, New Viewpoints, Recycling

Reused tires make a squid-like playground for refugee children

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When Go Play! announced a competition to design an innovative playground for 1,000 refugee children along the border of Thailand and Burma, Dutch designer AnneMarie van Splunter thought of old car tires. To be specific, she thought of a playground made entirely out of reused tires on a bamboo frame, made in the shape of a tree with expanding roots…

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Art, Great New Product, Green Friendly, New Viewpoints, Recycling

Fantastic Ways To Recycle Tires

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A pair of woman’s shorts, made predominantly from tyres by – unsurprisingly given the logo – Michelin.

Each year – and this is in Britain alone – they apparently throw away approximately 500’000 tonnes of tyres; as such, and due in part to their incredible durability, the disposal of disused tyres is seen as one of the largest waste problems in the world. Below are several examples of tire recycling that really capture the imagination, and serve to remind us that the trusty tyre is actually an incredibly versatile object that can, with a little imagination, be transformed into a wide range of different products…

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Breakthrough Thinking, Green Friendly, Health & Fitness, New Discoveries, Recycling

Generating Electricity with Whisky

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What kind of wattage can we generate with the whisky-making process?

Whisky. Is there anything it can’t do? Here’s what the Scots are going to do with the byproducts of whisky-making process:

It is the spirit that powers the Scottish economy, and now whisky is to be used to create electricity for homes in a new bioenergy venture involving some of Scotland’s best-known distilleries…

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Architecture, Art, Latest Trend, New Viewpoints, Recycling

Rain Collecting Skyscraper Cuts Water Usage

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Rain is an under valued resource.

Gutters aren’t pretty. Most architects, given the choice, try to find a way to conceal them so they don’t turn an elegant roofline into a clunky mess. But when it comes to the ‘Capture the Rain’ skyscraper, gutters are perhaps the most important element of the structure, and they’ve been integrated in a way that makes them a design statement of their own accord.

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Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Entertainment, Great New Product, Green Friendly, People Making a Difference, Recycling

Hardwood Floors & Basketball Courts Recycled into Skateboards

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Glide on your new ride.

Watching basketball, do you ever wonder what happens to the wood flooring when the court has to be replaced? Well, in the case of the court at Virginia State University, the maple planks once played on by the Trojans were recycled, and in an unusual way: they’ve been remade into skateboards…

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Art, Breakthrough Thinking, Crazy Stuff, Humor, New Viewpoints, Recycling

Phantom of the Floppera

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YouTube user FunToTheHead has created a working organ that uses finely tuned wheezing floppy drives to play rather impressive renditions of music. It’s not easy to sequence for four-note floppy-drive organs, but FunToTheHead has done a rather good job with Toccata and Fugue — a solid choice for any mad-science organ! I love that he’s got the blinkenlights synched with the music…

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Current Events, government, Health & Fitness, Historical Perspectives, Latest News, Latest Trend, New Viewpoints, Recycling

European Parliament Backs Tough Electronic Waste Recycling Targets

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Electronics Waste is a hot issue.

This week the European Parliament backed a proposal to re-write the WEEE directive. WEEE stands for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment, and the directive sets requirements for the end-of-life management in the growing electrical and electronic product sector. The re-write attempts to address wide disparities in the success of the existing directive, which requires collection of 4kg/person of WEEE. Currently, Sweden tops the ranking of European nations with 16 kg per person of WEEE collected, while Italy collects only 1 kg per person. The proposed directive attempts to level the playing field for WEEE as well; so that the Italians could satisfy the directive if it is shown that Swedish people purchase 16 times more EEE than Italians. Although this is a stretch, it is only fair that targets be set in relation to actual consumer behavior.

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Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Green Friendly, Latest News, New Discoveries, New Viewpoints, Recycling

Ben & Jerry’s Factory to Convert Ice Cream Waste into Energy

Ben & Jerry's BIOPAQ AFR from Paques - 3D artist impression

Green Energy Never Seemed Sweeter.

Unilever is taking a Ben & Jerry’s factory in the Netherlands a green step forward: constructing a bio-digester that will convert the waste products from ice cream production and provide for 40 percent of the factory’s green energy requirements.

Made by Paques and expected to be operational a little later this year, the BIOPAQ®AFR is not like bio-digesters of old.

Paques describes:

After a successful test period, Unilever has opted for a new type of bio-digester from Paques, the BIOPAQ®AFR, in which natural micro-organisms (in this case more than 24 billiard (24•1015) little bugs!) ‘eat’ waste products and convert them into biogas. In this system, wastewater is purified by converting waste products from ice cream production such as milk, cream, proteins, syrups and pieces of fruit into biogas.

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