With bamboo-based products on the rise, we wanted to see how they compared to their plastic and paper counterparts.
Each year, coffee companies like Keurig and Nespresso produce almost 50 billion single-serve coffee pods, which are notoriously difficult to recycle. Keurig even says so on its labels.
Conventional recycling techniques don't work on wind turbine blades. Now, an Ohio startup is turning them into park benches and planters. But how much trash will the wind energy industry create?
Worshippers in India buy thousands of tons of flowers every day to give as offerings in temples. The rituals leave behind mountains of flower waste that often end up contaminating already troubled rivers.
About 20 years ago, Bangladesh became the first nation on Earth to ban single-use plastic bags. Since then, plastic pollution has gotten worse. To find a biodegradable replacement, the government turned to jute, a cash crop grown here for centuries.
The Philippines is the second-largest producer of coconuts in the world. An estimated 9 billion husks are burned or left to rot here every year. Fortuna Cools makes coolers out of that waste instead of the commonly used expanded polystyrene foam, often incorrectly called styrofoam.
More than 50 billion shoes are made every year. The biggest manufacturers, like Nike, Adidas, and Asics, make them durable enough to run hundreds of miles. But this also makes them incredibly expensive and difficult to recycle.
Waste tires can act as breeding grounds for malaria and cause fires. One Nigerian aims to recycle every one of her country's discarded tires.