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Showing posts from October, 2017

Mapping Global Pollution

This interactive map below provides data on air, water and soil pollution globally. Sources are credible, government approved datasets, updated on a regular basis.

Average daily plastic waste production per capita

Plastic is ubiquitous in our everyday lives – so much that we cannot imagine living without it, nor see how dependent we have become on it. Plastic is in almost everything. Plastic production exceeds 300 million tonnes annually and if current trends continue, another 33 billion tonnes will have accumulated around the planet by 2050. Over two-thirds of plastic consumption comes in the form of packagings such as containers and bags, and building products like plastic pipes and vinyl siding. Massive amounts of electronic and electrical products are made out of plastic. While we may not be aware of it, we also wear a lot of plastic. For example, the soles of shoes are often made of polyurethane or similar materials. One way or another all these items will eventually create plastic waste. Plastic waste has huge potential to be recycled into new products. Millions of tonnes of plastic waste are traded around the world every year. The global trade in scrap plastic involves many different pl

The Crowbar

Cigarette filters, you find them in the park next to you in the grass, in dirty ditches and under your shoes. What if we could find a way to collect these butts from all corners of our city and precious parks? With crows, that have become perfectly adapted to city life, we can! By training crows to recognize and pick up cigarette filters we can solve this tenacious problem of city pollution. In the Netherlands every year more than 6 billion cigarette filters are tossed onto the street. It’s easy to toss, but it’s not easy to pick them up. Since each filter takes 12 years to degrade we realized it’s time to take action. 1. The crows bring a cigarette filter to the Crowbar, where they drop it into the bottom funnel to get it checked. 2. After the camera has recognized the cigarette filter as a filter, it returns a bit of food to the table in front of the crow. 3. The crow goes out telling the others. Source: crowdedcities.com ... Joshua Klein from the United Stat