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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Although glass IS recyclable, the recycling process is generally limited to large pieces that can be easily sorted by color. Because it's not worth the effort to sort smaller fragments, they tend to simply be discarded. A new process, however, can convert them into a useful substance.
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Although concrete doesn't burn, it can "spall" when subjected to extreme heat – this means that surface layers of the material break off, potentially causing structures made of it to collapse. According to a new study, however, fibers obtained from discarded tires can help keep that from happening.
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Electronic waste can be quite valuable, and there have been a number of projects aimed at recovering precious metals from e-trash. Now it appears that Olympic winners in 2020 will be awarded medals made from smashed up phones and cameras.
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If your city has a program for converting old Christmas trees into mulch or compost, that's good, but … evergreen needles do take a long time to decompose. According to new research, those needles could instead be harvested and used in products such as paints or sweeteners.
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On Monday, Boeing announced a new partnership with British-based ELG Carbon Fibre to recycle carbon composites left over from production at 11 Boeing manufacturing sites that will reduce solid waste by one million pounds (453,000 kg) per year.
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Pop bottles are one of the most common types of plastic waste, so the more ways that we can find of recycling them, the better. With that in mind, researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed an inexpensive method of converting such bottles into a very useful aerogel.
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