The ways modern science has harnessed the waste products of the human body for good may surprise. Now a team from the University of Cape Town has developed what it says is the world’s first biological brick made with human urine, with the strength able to be tweaked to serve a range of needs.
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It has been a long journey for the Ocean Cleanup Project, but after years of development and a 1,300-plus-mile trip through the open water, its first system is now installed at the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the single biggest accumulation of ocean plastics in the world.
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Single-use plastic straws are a massive environmental problem, with increasing calls to ban the ubiquitous plastic drinking tubes. At least one major source of the problem has heard these calls, with McDonald's committing to find more environmentally-friendly alternatives.
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To make concrete more environmentally friendly, the industry has been adding by-products from coal-fired power plants, but doing so had its own problems. Now, Rice researchers have developed a new composite binder that requires no cement, and reduce waste from power plants at the same time.
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When rain water runs down city streets and into storm sewers, it can be carrying a lot of filth with it – filth such as E. coli bacteria, which may end up in rivers. There could be an inexpensive and efficient new way of ridding the water of that bacteria, however, using chips of waste steel.
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PNNL has vitrified low-level radioactive waste taken from a tank at the decommissioned Hanford Site nuclear production complex in Washington state for the first time in a continuous process. The waste was turned into durable glass that immobilizes the radioactive and chemical compounds inside.
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Chances are, you probably don't use many stir sticks at home. Coffee shops, however, go through a great deal of the things on a daily basis. Inventor Scott Amron didn't like the thought of all that plastic and/or wood being thrown away, so he created the Stircle.
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A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has developed a novel new method to recycle wood waste by incorporating it into cement and mortar mixtures, making the resulting materials both stronger and more watertight.
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A new Kickstarer project aims to remove trash from the Chicago River by creating a remote-controlled floating garbage collector. Named Trash Robot, the machine can be controlled a web browser, so potentially anyone can take a turn doing their bit to clean up the river from anywhere in the world.
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What do you do when you have too much garbage but not enough energy? Convert one into the other. That’s the thinking behind the waste-to-energy plants that are beginning to pop up around the globe, and now the Government of Dubai has announced plans to build the world’s largest.
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