October 16, 2020 Update: America’s Largest Solar Panel-Maker Leads the World in Panel Recycling–Recovering 95% of Materials Solar panel recycling is important for the future of solar. Solar panels have a lifetime of about 30 years. With the increasing number … Continue reading
One of America’s highest Latino-populated cities now has a strategy to address the climate crisis. Earlier this month, the San Antonio (64% Latino) City Council passed Climate Action and Adaptation Plan (CAAP) by a 10-1 vote. It outlines objectives that … Continue reading
HOUSTON — One by one, they stepped to a clear plastic lectern at the Global Plastics Summit here and talked about what their companies were doing in response to the world’s crisis in plastics waste. Representing businesses all along the … Continue reading
Tired of plastic pollution? There are many alternatives. Why should we and brands care about plastic pollution? Plastics is one of the biggest challenges the world is facing right now. Thanks to David Attenborough’s Blue Planet, consumers are suddenly aware … Continue reading
What should wealthy countries do with their plastic waste now that China no longer is buying it? For years, America sold millions of tons of used yogurt cups, juice containers, shampoo bottles and other kinds of plastic trash to China … Continue reading
Whale blubber and buggy whips were once fine industries, but progress moved us away. And today we know the days are over of a false choice between environmental protection and economic growth. Since when did the simple concept of leaving … Continue reading
Alan Jamieson remembers seeing it for the first time: a small, black fiber floating in a tube of liquid. It resembled a hair, but when Jamieson examined it under a microscope, he realized that the fiber was clearly synthetic—a piece … Continue reading
A Capitalist System for the Future The perverse incentives inherent in a largely unconstrained capitalist system still exist. These incentives drive behaviors that increase inequality, reduce social mobility, devalue communities, deplete soils, acidify oceans, destroy biodiversity, trigger mass migrations and … Continue reading
A small San Antonio family business is trying to combat the dangers of decaying banana peels and the gaseous gore of yesterday’s lunch scraps. Betsy Gruy and daughter Kate Gruy Jaceldo started Compost Queens to keep food waste out of … Continue reading
From Deleration.news: "Because much of the official discussion and implementation of the circular economy has taken place from the top down, on the level of governments and industries, we were most interested to hear about local, bottom-up, and community-driven efforts … Continue reading
Fungi can be used to break down waste plastic and create sustainable building materials, according to scientists from Kew Gardens in London. The State of the World’s Fungi 2018 report – the first of its kind – highlights the aspergillus … Continue reading
Elegant design and engineering goes beyond being sustainable to being eco positive. New vocabulary, additional data collection and working with scientists is needed to most effectively stimulate and manage a circular economy, making the means by which we live to … Continue reading
Polyface Farms – How our food is farmed is what matters most, as in biomimicry, study ecosystems and mimic ecosystems, rather than just blaming meat eaters. Animals can be good for the land and have an ecopostive affect. Regenerative farming … Continue reading
With four major cement manufacturers in the area, is San Antonio ripe for using and developing carbon capture biomimicry tech to ward-off more than $1 billion in EPA non-attainment air quality and health costs? At least until these cement-making bacteria can … Continue reading
Editor’s Note: I stumbled across this piece by Graham some time in 2013, not long after it was published, and it set off more than one lightbulb moment for me. Up to that time I’d considered permaculture an intriguing subculture. … Continue reading
What is the Social Responsibility of Business?Ever since Milton Friedman famously proclaimed “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits” (NYTimes 1970), pundits have pondered whether his purist interpretation was really the only way.Profit is certainly a lot … Continue reading
When the Canadian atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe moved to Lubbock 11 years ago to take a faculty position at Texas Tech University, she was well known and regarded in the field of climate-change research, but not too far beyond it. … Continue reading
Science writer Janine Benyus believes innovators should look to nature when solving a design problem. She says the natural world is full of ideas for making things waterproof, solar-powered and more. Source: Janine Benyus: What Can Today's Designers Learn From … Continue reading
I’m a fisherman who dropped out of high school in 1986 at the age of 14. Over my lifetime, I’ve spent many nights in jail. I’m an epileptic. I’m asthmatic. I don’t even know how to swim. This is my … Continue reading
French supermarkets will be banned from throwing away or destroying unsold food and must instead donate it to charities or for animal feed, under a law set to crack down on food waste.The French national assembly voted unanimously to pass … Continue reading