In the Philippines, an engineering student has won the James Dyson Sustainability Award for an invention that turns waste crops into clean energy-generating building cladding. Carvey Ehren Maigue developed AuReus by extracting luminescent particles from waste agricultural crops and suspending them in resin to produce cladding for walls or layers between windows. The particles convert […]
In Canada, KFC is debuting biodegradable cutlery. The ubiquitous purveyor of seven herbs and spices expects the switch to sporks made of bamboo, corn, and sugarcane will eliminate 40 million pieces of plastics from its waste stream. The new cutlery, which debuts in December, breaks down into biomass, carbon dioxide, and water at room temperature. […]
In the Netherlands, British biotechnology startup Deep Branch is building a production facility to make protein for fish and animal feed from carbon dioxide emissions. Funded by a €2.5 million ($3 million) grant from EU Horizon 2020 – European Innovation Council (EIC) accelerator funding, the plant will be based at Brightlands Chemelot Campus in Geleen. […]
In the United Kingdom, a consortium of researchers is developing a process to convert household waste, biomass, and fabric into new textiles. They hope that the £5.4 million (USD$7.2 million) project with the Royal College of Art will help improve the sustainability profile of the textile market. “The clothing and fashion sector is currently one […]
In Malaysia, a producer of medical gloves is hoping to address the environmental impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by introducing a natural rubber medical glove that biodegrades 100 times faster than its synthetic counterparts. According to Meditech Gloves, 300 billion medical gloves will be used in 2020, enough to fill the Empire State Building a […]
In the United Kingdom, biotech firm Toraphene has developed a biodegradable plastic packaging incorporating graphene that it says will boost food safety and shelf-life. The material, also called Toraphene, is stronger, thinner, and has better permeability characteristics than current bioplastics. “Amidst a climate crisis, plastic waste is known to be a huge global problem and […]
In the Netherlands, a company suspected of marketing biodiesel with forged certificates is once again under the eye of the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT). Due to large-scale fraud, biodiesel that is not produced sustainably is registered as a sustainable fuel, providing the fraudsters with great financial gain. Digital data carriers and company files […]
In Washington, the American Farm Bureau Federation and more than 60 other organizations are urging Congress to extend tax provisions that promote biofuel production, as well as craft breweries, wineries and distilleries. Among more than 30 temporary tax provisions, commonly known as “tax extenders,” set to expire at the end of the year are a […]
In Argentina, the Nacion newspaper reports Explora, which has its plant in Puerto General San Martín, Santa Fe, invested more than $5 million in a new technology to transform sewage waste into biodiesel. It has already produced 12,000 metric tons of deacidified residual oil that was exported to Great Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, Bulgaria and […]
In Canada, the Ontario government is making gasoline that drivers use every day cleaner by becoming the first province to require fuel suppliers to increase the amount of renewable content in regular-grade gasoline to 15 per cent. This change is expected to result in an annual reduction of up to one megaton of greenhouse gas […]
