This Vanilla Ice Cream Is Made With Recycled Plastic And It’s Probably Safe to Eat
A UK designer claims to be the first to ever make ice cream with vanilla flavoring sourced from recycled plastic. While no one has tasted it yet, it’s supposed to taste just like regular vanilla ice cream. As part of her final-year project at Central Saint Martins Design School, Eleonora Ortolani set out to do […]
Cosmetics Company in Hot Water After Its Paper Bottle Turns Out to Be Plastic
South Korean beauty brand Innisfree has attracted a lot of criticism after a bottle labeled as being made of paper turned out to be plastic simply wrapped in thin cardboard. Innisfree, a company that specializes in naturally-inspired beauty products, apparently didn’t expect anyone to actually check if the bottle for its face serum was actually […]
Belgian Restaurant Serves Drinking Water Recycled from Its Toilets
To highlight a new type of water purification system, a restaurant in Kuurne, Belgium, has started serving its customers free drinking water recycled from its sinks and toilets. The water served at the Gust’eaux restaurant in Kuurne these days is the same as any other potable water – it has no smell, no taste, no […]
Woman Knits Stylish Suit Out of Hundreds of Plastic Grocery Bags
Looking at Rosa Ferrigno’s new suit, you could swear it was knitted with regular yarn. It’s only when you touch it and hear the characteristic rustling of plastic that your realize there’s something special about it. In fact, the suit and jacket ensemble is made out of over 300 plastic grocery bags. At age 75, Rosa […]
Eco-Conscious Woman Cuts Her Trash Output to a Tiny Mason Jar Per Week
Do you think you could make do with just a Mason jar instead of your trash can? It’s highly unlikely, but a Canadian woman has managed to do just that. After seeing the huge amount of plastic waste in her son’s lunch, Tippi Thole decided to make a drastic change. While she already recycled and […]
Swedish Brewery Makes Beer with Recycled Sewage Water
In an attempt to raise awareness about the ability to turn wastewater into safe drinking water, a brewery in Stockholm, Sweden has launched a new beer brand made with recycled sewage water. Aptly called PU:REST, the new beer crafted by Stockholm’s Nya Carnegiebryggeriet (New Carnegie Brewery) in collaboration with the Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL) […]
Hood Houses – Used Jacket Hoods Recycled Into Cozy Homes For Stray Cats
South Korean ad agency Cheil Worldwide partnered with Molly’s Pet Shop, a popular pet shop chain, to provide stray cats with comfortable shelters on cold winter and spring nights, by recycling old jacket hoods into cozy homes. Called Hood Houses, the ingenious cat cribs were created to raise awareness about South Korea’s stray cat problem, and also […]
Artist Spends Three Months Building Accurate Model of Midtown Manhattan Out of Old Computer Components
Zayd Menk, a very patient artist from Zimbabwe, spent three months building a 0.0635:100 scale model of Midtown Manhattan out of discarded computer components. The 17-year-old artist, who made the model for a school project, used 263 sticks of hot glue, 27 motherboards, 11 CPUs, 10 CRT monitor motherboards, 18 sticks of RAM, 15 batteries, 12 […]
Talented Artist Turns Used Teabags into Miniature Paintings
Most of us see used teabags as stained, soggy pieces of trash, but to visual artist and graphic designer Ruby Silvious they are miniature canvases just waiting to be turned into artworks. Three years ago, Ruby Silvious came up with an ingenious way of combining two of her favorite pastimes – painting and drinking tea – […]
Artist Creates Fairytale Dresses Out of Leftover and Used Gift Wrapping Paper
Most people throw away torn gift wrap as soon as they open their Christmas presents, but not Olivia Mears. The 26-year-old costume designer from North Carolina uses the colorful junk to create Disney princess-like dresses. Mears is famous for turning unconventional materials into stunning outfits. Back in 2015, she went viral online for a “Taco […]
This Landfill Diner in Indonesia Lets Patrons Pay for Food with Plastic Waste
An extraordinary new restaurant in Semarang, Indonesia is on a mission to support locals trapped in poverty, many of whome are earning less than $25 (USD) a month, by providing them with an alternative way to pay for their food. The Methane Gas Canteen, run by husband and wife team Sarimin and Suyatmi, is located […]
Keep Healthy with Garbage – Indonesian Health Insurer Takes Payment in Trash
In order to show people that basic healthcare needn’t be expensive and that recyclable trash has value, a young Indonesian entrepreneur came up with the ingenious idea of allowing the poor to pay for their healthcare with garbage. The Garbage Clinical Insurance thought up by Indonesian health care entrepreneur Gamal Albinsaid may sound like a […]
How Discarded Orange Peels Brought a Costa Rica Forest Back to Life
20 years ago, a couple of ecologists fighting for the conservation of Costa Rica’s tropical ecosystems convinced a large orange juice producer to donate part of their forestland to a national park in exchange for the right to dispose of massive amounts of orange peels on a degraded plot of land within that same park. […]
Artist Saves Up His Recyclable Trash for 4 Years to Create Powerful Photo Project
We often hear about the insane amounts of trash we as a species currently generate, but words and figures don’t make a very big impact on most people. Images work much better, so one French artist decided to actually show just how much trash a single human being generates over time. To do that, he stopped […]
German Man Cheats Recycling Machine Out of Over $47,000 Using a Single Bottle
A drinks vendor in Cologne, Germany was recently tried and convicted to ten months in prison for modifying a bottle recycling machine and cheating the swindling several tens of thousands of euros from the national recycling system. Bottle-recycling machines in Germany are fairly straightforward – a person inserts one or more bottles into the machine […]