In April 2025, New York City got serious about composting, as the Department of Sanitation implemented its first-ever mandatory curbside composting program. The program aimed to divert food and yard waste generated in residential buildings from landfills, as organic materials make up a third of the City's waste stream.
The convenience of sourcing online is fraught with more pitfalls than most of us want to admit. Try finding adequate photos of a vintage piece's condition-close-ups of the fabric, video of damaged areas, any images of a piece's rear or underside!
In 2019, scientists found that balloons eaten by seabirds are more likely to kill them than other kinds of plastic yet they do not seem to have been earmarked in the same way as, for example, plastic straws.
Shredded paper is especially difficult to recycle, so many programs will not accept it. Shredding accelerates fiber shortening and lowers the paper grade from high-grade to mixed-grade. Mixed-grade paper is still recyclable, but it ends up baled and processed into products like paper towels and packing paper.
The durable plastic and its lid are excellent for seed starting because they'll create a greenhouse-like effect, keeping your seeds warm and trapping moisture to help them germinate.
Coffee byproducts offer a promising, cost-effective and environmentally sustainable alternative for improving the functional and ecological performance of bio/edible films. These agro-industrial residues exhibit a richness in biofunctional compounds such as polyphenols, caffeine and dietary fibers, which contribute significant antioxidant, antimicrobial and UV-barrier properties, making them ideal candidates for applications in active food packaging.
Never place batteries of any type in your curbside recycling bin. Batteries can damage recycling equipment and, if lithium batteries are mixed in, cause fires. Always use designated battery collection programs.
While you might assume that potato chip bags or other snack bags are recyclable, most are made from mixed materials. This means that the bags may contain plastic on the outside and an inner lining of plastic and aluminum film or foil. While the individual materials may be recyclable on their own, the only way they could be used is if the recycling facility has the means by which to separate the materials.
This corn-based construction material was made by Manufactura, a Mexican sustainable materials company, and it imagines a second life for waste from the most widely produced grain in the world. The project started as an invitation by chef Jorge Armando, the founder of catering brand Taco Kween Berlin, to find ways he could reintegrate waste generated by his taqueria into architecture. A team led by designer Dinorah Schulte created corncretl during a residency last year in Massa Lombarda, Italy.
Your eyes don't deceive you. The use of polyester has ballooned with time, according to Henry Navarro Delgado, an associate professor at Toronto Metropolitan University's school of fashion. It's partly because polyester can be quite useful, he said. It is a type of plastic made from petroleum compounds that are cooled and stretched into yarn, according to Michael Palladino, a fashion industry veteran and lecturer at Kingsborough Community College's business of fashion program in New York.
"Ironically, many if not most of these 'sustainability' projects remain disassociated from companies' core procurement strategies, meaning the coffee produced from these projects is not necessarily bought by the companies involved, or only in minimal quantities," the paper states. "And for the coffee that is purchased, prices do not factor into the project design, despite the fact that price is the single variable impacting farmer income that is in the direct control of companies."
Last week, I was making my morning coffee-you know, the complicated order I'm too embarrassed to say out loud at coffee shops-when I noticed the pile of used grounds in my filter. For years, I'd been tossing these straight into the trash without a second thought. But then I remembered something my grandmother wrote in one of her letters years ago: "The garden teaches us that nothing is truly waste."
Europe's supermarket shelves are packed with brands billing their plastic packaging as sustainable, but often only a fraction of the materials are truly recovered from waste, with the rest made from petroleum. Brands using plastic packaging from Kraft's Heinz Beanz to Mondelez's Philadelphia use materials made by the plastic manufacturing arm of the oil company Saudi Aramco. The Saudi state-owned holding opposes production cuts under the UN plastic treaty and is the world's largest corporate greenhouse-gas emitter (over 70m tonnes up to 2023).
If you spend a lot of time in the kitchen, you may find yourself needing to use a lot of disposable plastic products, from plastic bags to plastic wrap. While these tools can come in handy once in a while, a lot of sustainability- and health-conscious home cooks try to avoid them as much as possible. There are concerns that chemicals leached from plastic wrap could cause health issues, and being disposable and decidedly not biodegradable, many view these types of food storage tools as bad for the environment as well (and a great way to cut down on plastic waste in the kitchen).
According to research by the World Economic Forum and United Nations Development Programme, the circular economy could unlock $4.5 trillion in new global value by 2030, and investors are racing to capture part of that opportunity. Meet Elizabeth Blankenship-Singh, Director of Innovation at Overlay Capital, an Atlanta-based alternative investment firm whose Waste and Materials Fund is backing both early-stage materials innovators and later-stage recycling operations with established infrastructure.
Toilet paper, a product that is used for a few seconds before being disposed of forever, is typically made with trees, energy-intensive manufacturing processes and chemicals that can pollute the environment. Experts say more consumers are seeking toilet paper made from recycled content or sustainable materials, but it can be hard to know what to look for. Sustainable toilet paper often costs more, but can have significant environmental benefits.
Then she read an article in this newspaper, just over eight years ago, and discovered that fossil fuel companies had ploughed more than $180bn (130bn) into plastic plants in the US since 2010. It was a kick in the teeth, says Gardiner. You're telling me that while I am beating myself up because I forgot to bring my water bottle, all these huge oil companies are pouring billions She looks appalled. It was just such a shock.
Just like that coffee cup, eyewear is a complex fusion of materials. Metal hinges are screwed into polymer frames, which hold chemically-coated lenses. This mix of metals, plastics, and coatings means standard sorting machines cannot process them. As a result, they are rejected as contamination and sent directly to landfills, where they contribute to non-biodegradable waste. Unlike a disposable paper cup, however, a pair of sunglasses is built for durability. Its high-quality components make it a perfect candidate for repair, reuse, or reinvention.
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