Waste

Imagine an oversized claw machine at an arcade, but instead of trying to grab cheap toys, your prize is the assortment of waste that sinks to the bottom of the sea. That's essentially what an autonomous robot has been doing at Marseille recently.

In a world first, the researchers who used waste coffee grounds to make concrete that’s 30% stronger are putting their innovative material to the test by laying sidewalks made of the stuff to see how it fares when it's subjected to foot traffic.

Let's face it, eating a reheated meal in a cramped coach seat is never going to be a fine-dining experience, but airlines are now looking to new technology to give us more of what we want, ultimately reducing the current shameful amount of food waste.

Scientists have developed a new "ink" that allows objects to be 3D-printed out of wood. The material could reduce the amount of wood that gets wasted in the manufacturing of various products, plus it could utilize existing wood waste.

Sorting trash is one of those tasks that people can get pretty tired of, pretty fast. That's why ZenRobotics makes robots that do the job. The company's latest generation is particularly trash-savvy, as it can ID over 500 types of waste.

Although we should try to keep as little of our organic waste as possible from going to the landfill, not everyone has the outdoor space for a compost heap. The Puresky Waste Composter is designed to help, by moving the composting indoors.

Researchers have turned lignin into nanoparticles that can create a transparent coating with antifog properties or a colorful antireflective surface, transforming this abundant waste product into a useful material with diverse applications.

Researchers have made concrete 30% stronger by replacing a percentage of sand with spent coffee grounds, an organic waste produced in huge amounts that usually ends up in landfill. The method offers a greener approach to construction.

There are now several devices that help you keep food waste out of landfills by converting it to compost … but what if you don't have a garden? Well, the Mill converts such waste into dried grounds which are sent off to feed chickens.

Hydrogen sulfide famously stinks like rotten eggs. It's also toxic, corrosive, flammable and produced in large amounts as an expensive by-product at petroleum refineries. Now, researchers have found an easy, profitable way to turn it into hydrogen.

Discarded electronics can be a gold mine – literally. Researchers have developed an efficient new way to use graphene to recover gold from electronic waste, without needing any other chemicals or energy.

The production of cement is a major source of carbon emissions, so the less of it that's used, the better. A new study could help, as it shows that cement can be made much stronger with the addition of material derived from waste shrimp shells.