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Biodegradable Agar: A Possible Replacement for Plastic

One of the largest issues in pollution today is the amount of plastic waste produced by humans. The trouble is that no other material is so easy and cheap to make, so it is difficult to find a replacement for it. A group of Japanese scientists were interested by this problem, and as a result developed biodegradable agar. This material behaves like plastic, but is both sustainable and eco-friendly.

The agar is derived from boiling algae and seaweed, and drying the left over soup. This product can then be formed into many different shapes and textures in different conditions; if it is frozen, it becomes soft, and if it is compressed, it resembles a plastic film. This diversity gives the agar a variety of uses that can be applied in many areas of production.

The agar is incredibly eco-friendly, as it is biodegradable and harmless to the soil. In fact, it can actually enrich the surrounding soil by increasing its capacity to hold water. Another benefit of the agar is sustainability, because algae and seaweed are both renewable resources.

In the future, biodegradable agar could reduce the amount of plastic pollution and our reliance on harmful plastics. With its utility and friendliness to the environment, this agar is one of the best alternatives to plastic. 

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Vertical Farming: A Green Alternative

With the human population constantly growing at an exponential rate, the need to grow food to feed them is also increasing rapidly. There’s a problem however, as the amount of arable land on Earth is limited, and most of it is already being used for agricultural purposes.

For this reason, many companies, such as AeroFarms, have looked to the concept of vertical farming as a solution, specifically for vegetables. Vertical farms are usually found in large urban buildings, and grow veggies in vertical stacks, or shelves. The environment is completely climate controlled, and veggies are typically grown using artificial light and without soil or pesticides.

AeroFarms states that on average, it can grow in 16 days what a traditional farm will in 30 days. They also use 95% less water than a traditional farm, which is beneficial in places that are having droughts, such as California. To add to the efficiency, they only sell products locally (within 200 miles), which greatly decreases the carbon emissions from transportation normally seen in traditional farming.

Vertical farming addresses many vital concerns for the future of agriculture, such as space, carbon emissions, and water scarcity. With the increasing demand for food and space to grow it, vertical farming could be the best alternative to traditional farming.

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Saving Energy in Your Home

Heating homes accounts for about 40 percent of household energy use worldwide, and air conditioning accounts for roughly 6 percent. In an attempt to alleviate this problem, a new thermostat, Nest, has been developed. 

Nest self programs, learning the heating and cooling schedule of its owner, and taking note of what times during the day the temperature is increased or decreased. Then, after about a week, it will adjust the temperature by itself according to the owner’s habits. It can even be controlled by a smartphone, tablet, or laptop.

In addition to its convenience, Nest will also display when settings are saving energy. If the set temperature is conserving energy (according to the user’s normal settings), a green leaf will pop up. This way, it is easy to be conscious of energy usage. To add to the user’s ability to monitor energy expenditure, it will compile all data about energy usage daily and monthly into a Home Report. This way, the owner can physically see how they can conserve energy in the future.

All of these convenient features allow the saving of energy, and propose an innovative solution to the high energy usage of regulating temperature in homes.

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Lighting the Way to a Greener Future

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Aisa Mijeno, a engineer and co-founder of SALt (short for Sustainable Alternative Living), has invented a new type of lamp that produce eight hours of light on only one cup of salt water. This lamp was developed especially for places like the Philippines, where there is a lack of access to electricity and high usage of kerosene lamps.

The battery for this lamp contains two electrodes which are submerged in an electrolyte solution, or in this case the salt water. The use of saltwater is particularly convenient for places near oceans, as the salinity of the ocean water is compatible with the electrode battery. 

Mijeno’s solution is easy, as it only requires two tablespoons of salt and one cup of water, which are much more affordable resources compared to kerosene. In addition, they don’t produce any harmful pollutants and use renewable resources. 

The product is not quite on the market yet, since it is currently being manufactured for only local areas in the Philippines. However, it will soon be available for purchase around the globe.

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Cleaning up our Oceans

Boyan Slat, a 21 year old entrepreneur and owner of The Ocean Cleanup, has come up with a new method to clean up the oceans. He’s using v-shaped floating barriers, called arrays, that span 100km and guide plastic wastes into the center of the structure. In addition, there is a non-permeable screen that goes deeper into the water to catch the plastics that aren’t floating at the top of the water. The plastic can then be collected into one area, and the waste can be picked up for recycling later.

The reason this innovation is so effective is because it uses the movement of the ocean itself to catch plastics. Instead of being permanently anchored to one position, it floats on top and flows with the ocean’s currents. This reduces the wear and tear on the structure, and ensures that a maximum amount of plastic is captured.

This project has been proven to be feasible financially, with costs up to 33 times less than other ocean cleanup plans. In addition, a single array can clean up half of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in just ten years.

Slat’s ideas and technologies present a promising means to help clean up the oceans. He is still raising funds for the full deployment of the arrays, but the full-scale cleanup is scheduled to happen in 2020.

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Through the Roof

A team of engineering students from the University of California, Riverside (UCR) has developed a special spray for roof tiles that can break down smog-causing nitrogen oxides. The compound used in this spray is called titanium dioxide, which activates in the presence of sunlight and proceeds to break down the nitrogen oxides. 

According to UCR Today, “500 tons of nitrogen oxides are emitted daily in ... Orange County and the urban portions of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.” For this reason, coating roof tiles with titanium oxide would be incredibly beneficial, especially in large industrial areas such as these. In addition, roof coating could cost as little as five dollars.

To test the compound, roof tiles were coated with various amounts of titanium dioxide and put in a container that simulated atmospheric conditions. The titanium was placed under UV light, and the tiles coated with the compound were found to reduce the amount of nitrogen oxide significantly. On average, the amount of nitrogen oxide in the container was decreased by 88-99%.

The team of students is still working on developing the titanium oxide coating, but are making fantastic progress. Their innovation is incredibly inexpensive, and will greatly help air purification and quality, especially in highly populated cities like Los Angeles,

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Green Fuel. Literally.

With the declining sustainability of fossil fuels, scientists have been working on greener ways to power cars, planes and other forms of transportation. One of the biggest contenders is biofuels, specifically those obtained from algae.

Algae are cultivated in manmade ponds, as pictured above, and oil is extracted from them by breaking down the cell membrane. It is further processed in a refinery where it can be developed into fuel for vehicles.

So why is this such a green solution? Algae use photosynthesis, and therefore need carbon dioxide to live. For this reason, turning algae into biofuel could potentially help our overproduction of carbon dioxide. Farms could even be placed next to factories or other buildings that produce a lot of this gas, and the algae could help negate some of the emissions.

This is also a sustainable solution, because there are many different strains of algae that can each live in different environments. They grow in different climates, and some can even survive in waste water. Essentially, we could be recycling parts of our waste into a power source.

The only drawback is that it requires more research, and it could take years to perfect the technology and techniques of refining the fuel. But with enough work, it could be the greenest solution to our addiction to fossil fuels.

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Alarmingly Eco-Friendly

Ever get tired of all the cords in your bedroom, or changing the batteries in your alarm clock? Look no further, as the Bedol water-powered alarm clock may be the solution! Bedol’s clocks run solely on tap water, and can run up to six months without need for a water refill. When it does need refilling, however, the LED lights that display the time will start to fade. These clocks even have a small memory chip implanted in them, so it won’t forget the time or your alarm settings during refills. They come in many different styles and colors, and are quite portable due to their size. In addition, they reduce your carbon footprint and the need for batteries, and use a minimal amount of water.

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Conserving Water with a Simple Switch

This new and innovative shower head, developed by the Uji company, tells you when it’s time to get out of the shower with the use of lights. After seven minutes of keeping the shower running, the green light will gradually turn to a red light, signaling that it’s time for you to get out. This way, users are more aware of the time they take in the shower.

On average, it has helped people reduce their shower time by 12%, and pays for itself in water savings in about seven months. After seven months, the inventors claim that with its water saving technology, it will only cost $85 a year.

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A Greener Way to Charge your Phone

Technology is a growing resource in society, and with its growth, there is also an increasing need to be able to charge it on the go. For this reason, Solpro has developed a portable “smart charger,” called the Helios, that uses solar power to charge gadgets such as smartphones and tablets. In just 90 minutes, it can store enough power to charge the average smartphone. And with five hours of exposure to sunlight, it can store enough power to charge a smartphone three times. There are two USB ports to charge devices on, and one microUSB port to charge the Helios, just in case there isn’t enough sunlight.

So why is this a good and environmentally-friendly alternative to a regular charger? Solpro argues that a normal charger can take at least 15% more energy than a Helios, as the voltage from the wall outlet has to be converted to match the voltage of the battery. The Helios greatly decreases the amount of energy used by this process by using a feature called "pass through charging.”

In addition to saving energy through their pass through charging feature, you don’t have to worry about buying additional battery packs. The Mophie for Apple and Galaxy products can cost up to $99, and are exclusive to one device, while the Helios is just twenty dollars more at $119 and can charge several kinds of devices.

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Build Greener

In today’s industrialized world, humanity and the entire Earth are facing threats such as climate change and high carbon dioxide emissions. As a result, many efforts have been made to combat these relentless adversaries. Ecofriendlyhouses.net is one of the many companies that has developed several different models of energy efficient buildings, including the home featured above. 

This particular model uses the ModCell, which includes “prefabricated timber frame panels” made from straw bale and hemp. The straw bale and hemp are very effective insulators, and help reduce energy consumption from heating. Ecofriendlyhouses.net even goes so far as to say that the ModCell has a “thermal performance up to three times higher” than conventional houses. Two other benefits of using the ModCell include a decrease in heating costs and carbon emissions.

Ecofriendlyhouses.net also offers installation of various other buildings and structures, including sky scrapers, offices, warehouses, and houses made of 100% recycled material. Innovation and versatility such as theirs are two vital factors for reducing humanity’s ecological footprint on the world and the curbing of carbon emissions.