Guerillapps, a social game maker, debuted a cool new Facebook game at Disrupt NYC that is adding a new spin to green games. What’s more, from what I can tell, Trash Tycoon is the first “upcycling” game to hit the Facebook platform. But what is this “upcycling”, you ask? Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials into new products of better quality and higher environmental value, so when gamers play Trash Tycoon, they take on the role of recycling entrepreneurs responsible for doing just that.
Gamers become the stewards of their city, a la Sim City, fighting litter and trash wherever it rears its ugly head. Players earn game money and points by collecting trash and upcycling it to create new products out of trash, just like its sponsor TerraCycle does in the real, green world. → Read More
Today, RecycleMatch — a Houston-based startup that helps businesses sell or give away stuff to recyclers and manufacturers so that they don’t have to send it to a landfill — took its online marketplace out of beta, unveiling several new features and services.
If the site performs as hoped, RecycleMatch could become the Alibaba, eBay or Amazon of waste-management and manufacturing, while helping just about any company improve its sustainability profile.
Among the materials RecycleMatch helps businesses take out of the landfill-bound waste stream are: “commodity recyclables” including paper, steel, plastic and glass; wastewater; consumer electronics and business equipment (a.k.a. e-waste); and food waste… → Read More
Automotive parts and batteries manufacturer, Johnson Controls Inc., broke ground on a new, battery recycling plant in Florence, South Carolina, today. Local and national environmental groups there reached consensus with the company on air emissions standards in August 2010, allowing the company to embark on its plans to build a $150 million facility, taking up about 36 acres of a 270-acre property.
The permits represent the first in about twenty years given to “a new, fully integrated battery recycling facility in the United States,” multiple spokespersons from Johnson Controls have noted… → Read More
Waste Management and its subsidiary Greenopolis are diving into social gaming with a new Facebook app called Oceanopolis. The game will launch in beta, with a full rollout expected in the coming weeks.
In the game, players maintain their own island by recycling trash to build a sustainable community and interacting with friends. Points earned virtually turn into printable coupons that can be used at movie theaters, restaurants and stores. Alternatively, they can be turned into cash donations. Points can also be earned in real life through recycling or through blogging on Greenopolis‘ site. → Read More
Buying a flash unit can be expensive, but here’s a cheapskate alternative that will do the job, at least for a while. Plus, you’re recycling a disposable camera into something reusable, and saving all those bits from the landfill. Besides, once you use all of the flash out of one disposable camera, you can always build another one to replace it, and recycle the first one. → Read More
65,000 tons of mobile phone e-waste are generated every year. The bad news is, only 1% of consumers choose to recycle their headsets when they upgrade. eRecyclingCorps is working with carriers to integrate the recycling process into the POS sale system at the retail store. → Read More
If you live in Spain that is. University of Zaragoza researchers have been looking into using various forms of solid waste to generate electricity for the nation, up to as much as 7%. What is it lately with all this decaying matter being useful? → Read More
UN Under-Secretary-General Achim Steiner gave a talk at an environment protection conference in Bali describing a growing problem among developing nations: e-waste. While places like China and India already have their own problems with informal e-waste recycling, the UN expects to see the same intractable problems surface in Africa and Latin America while levels of trash will double or triple in already problem-plagued countries. What does this mean? Generally it means that entire swathes of the developing world will soon become e-waste producers and recyclers. As folks in developing counties begin buying computers, TVs, and fridges the e-waste problem is compounded by population and horrible recycling techniques and the refusal by organizations like the CEA to back forced recycling programs in already developed areas. → Read More
What we have here is a machine that automatically turns office paper into toilet paper. It’s called White Goat (seriously) and is made by a Japanese company called Oriental [JP]. The way it works is simple: You just feed the machine with about 40 sheets of office (or whatever) paper, wait for 30 minutes and take out a perfectly made toilet paper roll.
The machine shreds the paper, which is then dissolved in water, thinned out, dried and wound into toilet rolls. Oriental says one roll costs 10 Yen ($0.11) to make, which isn’t bad. And the machine can be installed right in your office, too. Oriental also claims that regular usage of the machine can save up to 60 cedar trees annually. → Read More
Ever tried to get rid of an old, sack o’ crap computer? It’s not as easy as it sounds. You can’t just throw it in the garbage (legally), charitable organizations have finally realized that it takes more time and effort than it’s worth to refurbish a 486 DX2/66 machine that nobody’s going to use anyway, and dumping the computer at your municipal recycling center often costs a pretty penny. → Read More
Love the Earth? Love plastic bags? Why not melt them together and add an old t-shirt for the lining in order to create a laptop case? Using an iron and a bunch of crinkly bags you can create sheets of plastic that you can then sew together to create a bag, jacket, or pants, thereby save the Earth and showing the world how much you like bags in one fell swoop. → Read More
The Mode All-In-One Premium Recycling Center is a recycling solution designed to help ease the burden of recycling. With 13 gallons of total capacity divided into a 5 gallon paper bin and an 8 gallon bin for glass, plastic, and metal, the RCC-1000 makes it easy to separate your recyclables. It also includes a unique compaction system, a nifty system to track how much you’ve recycled, and a programmable alert to remind you to take out the recycling. Click on through to watch the fascinating video review. → Read More
It’s easy in these dark economic times to wallow in misery and wait for a handout from the federal government. Whatever happened to that “Can Do!” American spirit that put a man on the moon, and bacon in pre-wrapped packaging? Thankfully there are some keeping the flame of invention alive, and working to make an honest buck along the way. Witness Newsoap<, bringing you new soap in recycled packaging. → Read More
Chances are you’ll be replacing some tried-and-true piece of personal electronics with a newer, faster, better model. Whether it’s replacing an MP3 player with a new one, or replacing an old computer or laptop, what do you do with the old stuff? Hopefully you don’t just throw it away, especially if it still works! → Read More
http://current.com/e/76355482/en_US Current has, in its Naked China series of videos, this interesting but scary breakdown of just what happens to all those old PCs, printers, and DVD players that are obsoleted every year and binned. In a place like China, where manual labor is their most abundant natural resource, it isn’t hard to turn a profit from tearing down imported e-waste and selling the valuable bits. The thing is, so much of e-waste is toxic or otherwise dangerous (not to mention the poor conditions in general for laborers) that the towns where it is the chief industry are seriously troubled. Take a few minutes while scarfing down your daily ramen to get a close look at where our PCs go to die. [good find, Giz and Valleywag] → Read More
Most people aren’t going to go out of their way to recycle a TV or set of speakers. That’s why Sharp has helped set up a proper recycling program that will be up and running in several states by next month before spreading to all 50 of ‘em within the next three years. Even better is that, in addition to accepting Sharp products, the program will also accept stuff made by Panasonic and Toshiba. Hooray for Mother Earth, right? The program is actually run by the Electronics Manufacturers Recycling Management Company, which is a consortium charged with, you guessed it, getting consumers to properly dispose their old electronics. The group’s Web site shows where you can drop off your junk, and has state-by-state links for more information. All well and good, sure, but that Sharp came up with the term “eCycling” is sorta unnecessary. It’s recycling, right? Why go out of your way to concoct a silly name for it? → Read More
Look at this environmentally-advanced mama jama. It’s called the Aquaduct, and though many are referring to it as a bicycle, it’s got three wheels. That, my friends, is a tricycle. Forget semantics, though, because the Aquaduct not only gets your from Point A to Point B (and occasionally Point C), but it also filters cruddy crap-water into delicious drinkable water using an onboard, pedal-powered filtration system. You simply fill up the back end of the trike with whatever water you can find and start pedaling. The little jug on the front side of the Aquaduct will begin to fill with clean, drinkable water as it’s filtered throughout the system. This concept comes from IDEO and won Google’s 2008 Innovate or Die competition. Aquaduct Concept Vehicle [IDEO via Gadget Review] → Read More
Panasonic’s “Eco Technology Center” sits in a little town outside of Osaka, Japan and is unique in that it’s one of the only recycling centers that has an on-site research and development lab and allows public tours. Check out the above video to see more. In Japan, the Home Appliance Recycling Law (HARL) was passed in 1998 and then fully enforced by 2001. The law calls for end-of-life home appliances to be recycled through the cooperation of consumers, retailers, and manufacturers with the target goal of over 50% of the materials in various home appliances to be used to make new appliances. There are four main categories: CRT televisions and monitors, electric refrigerators and freezers, electric washing machines, and household air conditioners. We got a chance to sit down with the president of the Eco Technology Center, Kazuyuki Tomita, and peppered him with questions about what they do with the stuff that can’t be recycled, a refrigerator-eating machine named “Jaws”, and all of the weird and wonderful things that they find in old, forgotten appliances. → Read More
