Recycling

A new juice kiosk recycles its own orange peels into the cups used by the customers.

The UK's Matthew Perks has been running a YouTube channel for about five years, where he walks viewers through the ins and outs of making their own gadgets. For his latest project, he's rescued some broken televisions and computer monitors and turned them into artificial daylight panel lighting.

​Every day, dairies dispose of milk that for one reason or another is deemed unfit for human consumption. A Los Angeles-based startup by the name of Mi Terro is taking some of that milk and using it to create T-shirts, that reportedly have some big advantages over regular cotton Tees.

​When buildings are being insulated or torn down, a lot of waste "mineral wool"-type insulation ends up in the landfill. Thanks to new research, however, that material may soon instead find use in an improved type of construction mortar.

​Although many people do send paper off to be recycled, the recycling process isn't entirely eco-friendly – it requires a lot of power, and incorporates toxic chemicals. Now, however, scientists have developed a method of simply removing the printed text from sheets of paper, so they can be reused.

When a cotton gin is used to separate cotton fibers from their seeds, a lot of lint is produced as a waste product. Currently, much of that cotton lint is just burned or put in landfills. Thanks to recent research out of Australia, however, it may soon be converted into biodegradable plastic.

​Although glass is thought of as being eco-friendly because it's recyclable, the fact is that a lot of it doesn't get recycled. Now, however, scientists are suggesting that glass waste could be used to make concrete that's stronger and cheaper.

​Commonly used to make a wide variety of items, low-density polyethylene can be recycled into new plastic, but there's much more waste than recycling facilities can currently handle. With that in mind, scientists have now devised a method of converting the material into something else – jet fuel.

​In recycling facilities, workers pick through items going past on a conveyor belt, sorting them by their material. While this setup is a source of employment, it's also costly, limiting the feasibility of such operations. A new material-detecting robot hand, however, could bring costs down.

​​Historically, space launches are anything but cheap, but reusable rocket programs like those from SpaceX and Blue Origin promise to significantly reduce costs (if they’re not already). In a similar vein, the EU is looking to develop a "rocket catcher" that snaffles boosters in mid-air for reuse.

​Although used-up wine barrels can be turned into items such as planters, wineries generally just throw the things out. Lance Rake isn't a fan of such wastefulness, so he's developed a new use for the barrels. He wants to turn them into cruiser bikes, one of which he's already built.

​Lightweight and shatterproof, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic is recyclable, although most items made from it don't get recycled. This is because reclaimed PET (rPET) just isn't as good as the original material. A new "upcycling" process, however, is claimed to make it even better.