Tag: News

California has been going through a historic drought for what feels like a decade at this point and to address it people are beginning to get creative. 

Buzz Boettcher didn’t want to see any water go to waste and started planning on how to recycle water.

“I’ve done a lot of offshore sailing and racing over the years, and it didn’t make sense that ten people could live on a boat for 15 days out in the ocean and survive on 200 gallons of water, and you come ashore, and you use 20,000 gallons a month,” Buzz said.

So he started building a device that would collect rainwater and convert it into grey water. That water, which would most likely end up washing down the gutter then could be used to do things like flushing toilets.

After starting his first one at the Santa Monica Pico branch library he’s started opening water collection systems around Southern California even making it to an Eately restaurant.

The systems are expanding outside California as well like one where they’re working out how to recycle truck wash water for much of the same purpose.

“It doesn’t make sense to use nice, clean, potable water to flush toilets,” Buzz said. “Talk about good water going after bad.”

This article aligns with the UN SDG Climate Action among others.

Bubbles. You love them in the bath, in a bottle, in your flavoured water.

But now, there’s an even better reason to love these fun and whimsical miracles of science.

Every year, 8 million metric tons of plastic ends up in our oceans – and as much as 80% of that plastic is estimated to have arrived there after being dumped into rivers.

A team of Dutch inventors came up with the Great Bubble Barrier back in 2019 and the first one was deployed in the mouth of the Oude Rijn (Old Rhine) river at Katwijk in mid-western Netherlands.

Locals have been upset by the plastic littering nearby beaches for a long time and, finally, there is an invention that will do something about it.

The Great Bubble Barrier works by creating a ‘bubble curtain’ using a perforated tube placed diagonally on the bottom of the waterway. Air is pumped through this tube, creating bubbles!

The bubble curtain prevents plastics from passing through and instead pushes them to the surface of the water and to the edges of the waterway where there is a catchment system. After this, the plastic can be appropriately disposed of, preventing it from polluting oceans and beaches.

The bubble curtain allows fish and otherwildlife to pass through unhindered, and the whole system works 24/7, 365, regardless of what the water levels are like.

Since the success of the bubble barrier in the Netherlands, another has been deployed in Amsterdam, and two more are planned for Portugal and Germany.

This article aligns with the UN SDG Climate Action.

A campaign is encouraging people to embrace the circular economy this January – and Skip the Tip!

Skip the Tip?

#SkipTheTip is a new campaign by YoungPlanet, created by parents Jason and Emma Ash. YoungPlanet is a platform and app designed to ‘declutter, give joy, save the planet’, by encouraging people to embrace the circular economy.

So how does it work?

Just like many apps and websites that help you sell your unwanted items, YoungPlanet allows you to create listings of items you no longer need. People can then browse the app, request an item they want, and get it completely for free!

Not only does it mean people are getting items for free, it means we aren’t creating waste in the same way.

YoungPlanet has already helped over 150,000 people save £1 million worth of children’s items from landfill by encouraging families to make cashless exchanges.

If you’re interested in YoungPlanet, take a look at the website here.

This article aligns with the UN SDG Climate Action.

Oregon is home to a large variety of crops, ranging from grapes for an incredible array of wines and sweet cherries, to coastal cranberries, red clover, pears, lavender, and more.

Those plants – and many more of the flora in Oregon and around the world – wouldn’t be possible without pollinators like the honey bee.

To highlight their importance and to help contribute to protecting bees, Oregon is releasing specialty license plates, called the Pollinator’s Paradise, that feature the insects, and proceeds will go to the Horticulture Department at Oregon State University to fund research.

The plate will be an extra $40 every time you renew your tags for your plate, 35 of which will go to the aforementioned research fund and five to the DMV.

The art for the plate was made by 16-year-old Marek Stanton who is the youngest member of the Oregon State University Extension Service’s Master Melittologist Program, which is the term for someone who studies bees.

The Oregon Bee Project asked Marek to try and design something after seeing some of his other artwork.

“I think most Oregonians know that bees are important, but may not realize what makes the state such an amazing places for these creatures,” says OSU Extension pollinator health specialist, Andony Melathopoulos.

For the plate to become a permanent fixture there need to be at least 3,000 pre-orders, and at the time of writing, there are about 2,400.

This article aligns with the UN SDG Life on Land among others.