Category: sustainability

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Ford Is Making Headlights from McDonald’s Coffee Bean Waste

This is pretty cool!

Coffee beans and headlights don’t seem like a natural pairing, but McDonald’s and Ford are working to change that.

The two historic American companies have come together in a joint effort to drive sustainability initiatives in quite a unique way. This year, Ford began utilizing coffee chaff—the coffee bean skin that comes off during the roasting process—as a key component of its plastic headlamp housing. Naturally, the iconic car manufacturer turned to McDonald’s to steer them in the direction of the fast-food giant’s coffee bean suppliers.

As data showing the harmful effects of plastic pollution and carbon emissions makes its way into the public consciousness, there has been a trickle-down effect into the business world as well. Environmentally-conscious consumers continue to push for products that are comprised of sustainable materials.

Hence: coffee bean waste into plastic alternatives.

Debbie Miewelski, Ford’s senior technical leader of materials sustainability, explained that the coffee-containing version of the company’s headlamps is more sustainable than its traditional plastic and talc-based models due to its lighter weight. Additionally, talc is not a renewable component, whereas coffee chaff is widely available and has typically been discarded.

The coffee chaff innovation is just the latest in a long line of sustainability projects by Ford. Ford vehicles have featured soy-based foam in their cushions since 2011, and waste from wheat, coconut, tomato and other plants has been utilized in other Ford car components.

“If you came to our lab, it looks somewhere between a landfill and a farm,” Miewelski said.

When Ford decided coffee was its next fix, its team reached out to McDonald’s due to its scale and similar sustainability goals.

The gigantic fast-food restaurant chain achieved its goal of sourcing all of its U.S. coffee sustainability a year ahead of schedule in 2019. Their partnership with Ford will hopefully lead to more opportunities for crafting environmentally-friendly, sustainable products.

As Ian Olson, senior director of global sustainability at McDonald’s, said, “This is just scratching the surface of trying to understand what’s possible.”

Cheers to that!

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Coal Miners Are Becoming Beekeepers in West Virginia

Many miners remain out of work in West Virginia as coal mines have shut down. To combat jobless in coal territory, a new nonprofit has stepped in offering training in beekeeping and assistance in selling any resulting honey. It’s good income and good for the environment!

The program is offered by the Appalachian Beekeeping Collective.

In West Virginia, high levels of poverty and lack of jobs make survival for rural families a struggle. But keeping bees and harvesting the honey for selling is a sweet way to make ends meet.

Photo Credit: Flickr

Coal mining was a major part of the economy until 2005, when the rate of mine closures began to tick up, leaving many workers without a steady paycheck. Employment in the coal industry decreased by 27 percent according to a study conducted by West Virginia University.

And it’s not just West Virginia; Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Wyoming all felt the economic loss of energy going green.

The Appalachian Beekeeping Collective was formed within the nonprofit Appalachian Headwaters, which is working to develop sustainable economic opportunities there. The collective operates over 17 counties in WV and offers classes in beekeeping basics and bee biology. Upon graduation from courses, new beekeepers become part of the collective, where they can receive more training, bees, supplies and resources to start their own honey businesses.

Photo Credit: Max Pixel

Because the collective offers free and reduced-cost beekeeping training and supplies, what once was an opportunity with a high cost of entry is now completely doable for many low-income families.

That’s how White Oak Bee Company started. John Young and his daughter enrolled in classes and received 12 hives. Now, he is a part of West Virginia’s robust honey industry – Young even has his own signature honey roasted coffee for sale.

We've got more honey! Local pickup only. Order yours at this link: https://www.whiteoakbee.com/collections/honey-bee-products/products/raw-honey

Posted by White Oak Bee Company on Monday, July 29, 2019

The bees also benefit local forests; as the farmed bees collect nectar from the forest’s flowers, they are pollinating their surroundings and helping them diversify and grow.

But for the rural families that share the forests, the bees are chance at growing a business and fueling sweet hope. Because an economy that leaves so many people behind isn’t really flourishing at all.

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A Scientist Proposed Eating Human Flesh to Combat Climate Change — and It’s Not a Joke

Let’s get the good news first: scientists are coming up with creative ways to battle the effects of climate change. The bad news is that one of them involves cannibalism.

The NY Post reports that a Swedish scientist suggested eating human flesh to combat climate change at a recent summit in Stockholm.

Magnus Soderlund of the Stockholm School of Economics believes that people should consider eating meat derived from already-dead human bodies. Indeed, he presented an entire panel on the topic called “Can You Imagine Eating Human Flesh?”

In the talk, Magnus asserted that “conservative” taboos against cannibalism could change if people simply tried it. He also questioned whether humans are too selfish to “live sustainably” and claimed that cannibalism is the solution to sustainability.

As for himself, Magnus said he’d consider eating human flesh.

“I feel somewhat hesitant but to not appear overly conservative … I’d have to say … I’d be open to at least tasting it,” he told Sweden’s TV4.

Cannibalism is a risky proposal, however. It’s not like history isn’t FULL of examples of people resorting to eating each other, and scientists know that the practice is a health hazard. It can, and has, led to the spread of scary infectious diseases.

In other words, there’s a very good reason why cannibalism is taboo in most societies.

And there’s a very good reason why this scientist’s proposal is now being clowned on Twitter. Thankfully, he did have some more reasonable solutions in mind, such as eating insects.

Yum.

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Women in Africa Are Recycling Plastic into Bricks for a Schoolhouse

Tthe world produces over 300 million tons of plastic every year, much of which quickly goes into the trash where it takes centuries to decompose. In Abidjan, Ivory Coast, women are putting plastic garbage to good use by turning it into bricks to build schools, New York Times reports.

Many women in Abidjan make a living by gathering plastic waste from city streets and selling it to recycling centers. Those same women are now working with a Colombian company to convert the waste into bricks to build schools.

The project will result in hundreds of classrooms to serve about 26,400 students — plus, it’s an opportunity for the women to make a better living.

Many schools in the area are built out of traditional mud-bricks and wood. These buildings require a lot of upkeep, as they easily erode in the sun and rain.

The buildings made out of recycled plastic, on the other hand, will last practically forever. In this context, plastic’s slow decomposition is a benefit.

Also, the country’s classrooms are severely overcrowded, with up to 90 students in each class. Additional classrooms are desperately needed.

Since Abidjan produces about 300 tons of plastic waste a day, there’s plenty of plastic to use. Each classroom takes about five tons of plastic waste.

The company converting the waste, Conceptos Plásticos, initially produced the bricks at a factory in Colombia, but they are now building a factory in Abidjan, which will make the classrooms much cheaper to produce.

Several classrooms are already up and running, and the project plans to deliver 528 total, each of which will fit 50 students.

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Big Apple Goes Green: New York State Just Banned Plastic Bags

Consumers have had the option of getting their groceries in resuable grocery bags for some time now, but sadly, plastic bags still reign supreme. A lot of folks are just forgetful, and buy the reusable bags but keep forgetting to bring them along when they go out.

Residents of New York state may not be able to use that excuse for long, however: New York State is officially banning plastic bags, and some counties will impose a fee on paper bags too.

New York is the second U.S. state to ban plastic bags after California.

Photo Credit: iStock

Governor Andrew Cuomo first proposed the plan last year, and it goes into effect in March 2020. Goodbye, single-use plastic bags! Mostly, anyway. Some types of plastic bags – like newspaper bags or trash bags – will be exempted from the ban.

Instead, customers will have to use either paper bags or reusable bags. Individual counties can opt into a 5-cent fee on paper bags, though it’s not a mandatory part of the new law. The idea, it seems, is to encourage people to use reusable bags as much as possible, rather than paper or plastic.

Photo Credit: iStock

Environmentally speaking, this new law definitely marks progress. Plastic bags are basically the bane of the planet’s existence. They’re hugely wasteful, non-biodegradable, harmful to wildlife, environmentally costly to produce…the list goes on and on.

“These bags have blighted our environment and clogged our waterways,” Governor Cuomo said in a statement. He said the new plan will be a way to “protect our natural resources for future generations of New Yorkers.”

And the rest of us benefit, too.

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The Medals for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics Will Made Entirely from Recycled Metal

Are you a fan of the Olympics? The long wait is almost over, because the Olympic games are coming back in 2020! The games, which will be held in Japan, are made even more special by a new sustainability initiative, thanks to which every single medal at the Tokyo Olympics will be made from recycled metal.

Photo Credit: iStockPhoto

The plan has been in place since 2017, when organizers in Japan began collecting electronic waste for the project. People donated old smartphones, laptops, and other items. Businesses and industry organizations also contributed.

Now, Olympic organizers say they expect to reach their targets in March. As of November, they’d collected 47,488 tons of discarded electronic devices.

Photo Credit: Pexels

“It is estimated that the remaining amounts of metal required to manufacture all Olympic and Paralympic medals can be extracted from the devices already donated,” the organizers said in a statement.

In total, they’ll collect 30.3 kilograms of gold, 4100 kilograms of silver, and 2700 kilograms of bronze.

It’s a major move towards sustainability for the Olympics. In 2016, only 30% of the silver and bronze in medals came from recycled materials.

Later this year, Tokyo 2020 will release the official designs for the medals.

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