waste reduction

One day someone will come up with a product to replace the ubiquitous aluminum can. 106,000 of these cans are used every every 30 seconds in the US. These cans have to end up somewhere, and many of them end up scattered all over the place. For those that aren't recycled or dropped then it's the landfill.

Haoshi Design Studio may have the solution with its Renew X CAN. The can is crushable just like an aluminum can and opens at the top into a spout. This can has an added advantage however, because the top unscrews like a lid to form an opening that's the width of the entire can.

Copenhagen, Denmark will soon have a brand new waste-to-energy plant incinerating trash to generate power and heat for the city. Scheduled for completion by 2016, the design by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) won an international competition and features a built-in ski slope.

The finished building will include over one million square feet and cost 650 million dollars. BIG architects conceptualized the project as a gift to the city of Copenhagen, providing what they call Hedonistic Sustainability. Everything about the plant is designed for ecological, economic and social sustainability.

Imagine one external power adapter that works for all DC-powered electronic devices. Now imagine that as these devices are replaced and recycled, the upgraded hardware continues to use the same external power supply. How much energy, material, and landfill space would be saved?

According to Green Plug, 737 million external power supplies will be manufactured for the US alone in 2008. 434 million obsolete and incompatible adapters will be retired, with only 55 million of these being recycled. Green Plug enabled power hubs