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A dilemma recently faced Daniel Phillips and Kim Karlsrud of Los Angeles’s Commonstudio design firm. “A family member had a vending machine hobby for years, and we we're lucky enough to inherit a handful of them,” Phillips says. “[But] it didn’t feel right to just fill them up with candy.” Then they lit upon a new version of an old idea: seedbombs.
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Cleaning gum off pavement takes money and energy. It’s usually done with high pressure steam, which can end up eroding the surface and shortening its lifecycle, taking up more money and energy in repairs and replacement. A new chewing gum recycling campaign has started and if it takes off perhaps it will mean the end of those unsightly gum spots on paved surfaces.
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According to the EPA, about four billion pounds of carpet go into the waste stream every year in the USA alone - much of it is used, some is new carpet left over from building construction. A lot of that carpet (and carpet backing) is made of cheap, durable polypropylene fiber, which makes up about 80% of the sales for commercial carpet.
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It’s like finding money on the street: the average tire contains the same energy as seven gallons of oil, and it has a heat content up to 16% higher than coal. That’s one reason why tire recycling is starting to catch on in a big way. It’s finally starting to put a dent in the notorious tire dumps in the U.S., many which are illegal.
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Windshields take a lot of landfill space. And new glass manufacturing contributes to global warming. New glass requires energy and transportation-intensive mining. Manufacturing new glass uses intense heat in an already warming climate. Recycling windshields saves valuable and declining landfill space, releases zero CO2 and cuts the carbon footprint.
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The The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has identified marine debris as a significant problem, contributing to stress on fisheries and even interfering with navigation. The Pacific Garbage patch is only the surface manifestation of a marine debris problem that extends to the ocean floor.
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Many businesses are discovering that they can reduce disposal costs, save paper costs, earn money, and preserve our natural resources by reducing, reusing, and recycling office paper. Paper is probably the biggest source of waste in most offices and usage is rising by around 20% every year, with the average office worker using approximately 50 sheets of paper every day in the typical office. That is aside from other paper waste such as newspapers and magazines that they may read.
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Selling billions of gallons of water in everlasting plastic bottles to people that already have access to clean water is turning our planet into a gigantic garbage dump. 60 million plastic bottles are thrown away each day in the USA alone. Only 14% actually get recycled, meaning 86% become garbage roaming our planet or cluttering landfills. It will take 700 years to begin composting, 24 million gallons of oil are needed to produce a billion plastic bottles, bottling and shipping water is the least energy efficient method ever used to supply the liquid, and it is the second most popular beverage in the United States.
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Hundreds of climbers have been drawn to Mount Everest by the challenge of climbing to the top of the world. All these hikers rely on oxygen because the air at the summit has only one-third of the oxygen found at sea level. Over the years, hundreds of bottles piled up along with discarded climbing gear and other trash. It was common practice for climbers to dump gear to save weight on the way down.
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Much like "Act Naturally" or "tax cut," “landfill recycling” seems contradictory and an oxymoron, but if you think of it, landfill operations are consistently concerned with maximizing space and extending landfill life—so why not recycle the landfill? This is exactly what Salem County Utilities Authority (SCUA), New Jersey, did after being faced with a legal issue and dwindling landfill space.
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