Recyclable

Synthetic resins start out as viscous liquids that eventually solidify or "cure" into clear or translucent solids. These materials, which combine the desirable properties of strength, durability and light weight, are so useful that you can find them in thousands of applications, particularly aircraft, automobiles and electronic circuits. But for all that versatility, there's one thing that's remained elusive: once cured, resins can not be reshaped. Now, a team from France's National Center of Scientific Research (CNRS), led by award-winning physicist Ludwik Leibler, has developed an inexpensive and easily-produced material that is not only reshapable (like glass), but also repairable and recyclable, again, like glass. That's a potential boon for the auto body industry alone, and the possibilities for other uses are seemingly endless. Read More

Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) has developed a highly flexible electronic paper that's both re-writable and re-usable, and like the Boogie Board electronic memo pads, the technology doesn't need electricity to retain the screen image. The institute is currently in licensing talks with manufacturers at home and in the U.S., and has taken first prize in the Materials and Basic Science and Technology category of the Wall Street Journal's Technology Innovation Awards. Read More

We've seen the cardboard record player and cardboard USB sticks, now another design that thinks outside the (cardboard) box - the foldable phone concept. Created by Chengyuan Wei, the Origami phone handset comes flat and like a pop-up book, transforms into a 3D handset with a few simple folds ... oh, and it's recyclable. Read More

Joining products like the Life Straw, the Bobble and the Katadyn Vario in the portable water filtration market, the Revolve filter bottle is designed to remove up to 99.99% of all contaminants found in tap water and one filter will produce the equivalent of 800 single use 16 oz bottles of water. Read More

This one-size-fits-all packaging concept delivers an efficient way to send an item by reducing bulk and cost while keeping your goods safe from bumps and scrapes in transit. The clever Universal Packaging System (UPACKS) system – not be confused with UPS (United Parcel Service) – from designer Patrick Sung uses perforated sheets made from recyclable corrugated cardboard that can snugly pack almost any shaped item, whilst reducing the need to pad-out empty spaces. Read More

Girls rejoice! Salvation has arrived in the form of biodegradable ballet flats dispensed from venue vending machines as an antidote to the agony of wearing heels on a Big Night Out. As we breathe a collective sigh of relief, we ask “Why did no one think of this before?” Read More

How do you get a heavy box across town without using a delivery truck, car or taxi? That’s where the Move-it could help – it’s a cleverly designed kit, made of self-adhesive cardboard parts that stick on your box and transform it into a lightweight trolley. And would you believe it’s entirely made of cardboard – including the wheels, axle and chassis? Read More

What do you do if you want to draw attention to the threats faced by the world’s oceans, in particular the huge amount of plastic waste that ends up in them? Easy, you sail across the Pacific Ocean, visiting and documenting environmental hot spots along the way. That, at least, is what the crew of the Plastiki are in the process of doing. The group of six adventurers set out from San Francisco on March 20th, with Sydney, Australia as their final destination. Three and a half months into the 11,000 nautical mile journey, they’re currently about 4,000 miles from the finish line. What makes their odyssey particularly remarkable is their sailboat, the Plastiki – a craft made almost entirely from recycled and/or recyclable plastic that gets the majority of its flotation from approximately 12,500 two-liter plastic bottles. Read More

There are many pens on the market today that claim to be biodegradable, or ecologically sound – but are they really? DBA in New York wanted to produce a responsible alternative to the vast numbers of wasteful and toxic pens we use and dispose of unethically every day, and claims to have designed not only a pen that looks good and writes well, but is also the world's only 98% biodegradable pen. Read More