Recycling & Waste

DENTON, Texas, Feb. 8 (UPI) — University of North Texas scientists say they’ve found a way of using eco-friendly proteins to capture carbon dioxide from industrial smokestacks.
The researchers said their technique might also be used to discover new, environmentally friendly materials for fighting global warming.
Michael Drummond and colleagues Angela Wilson and Tom Cundari said [...]

BURLINGTON, Vt., Feb. 5 (UPI) — The use of winter cover crops to reduce phosphorus runoff into Lake Champlain could be applied to other U.S. watersheds, Vermont scientists said.
Phosphorus acts as a fertilizer in soil and water, boosting weed growth and algae blooms.
Scientists at the University of Vermont, Burlington, found that 80 percent of [...]

BRUSSELS, Feb. 3 (UPI) — The European Union needs a separate agency devoted to the problem of waste removal in member nations, an official of the European Commission says.
A new report prepared for the commission found as much as a fifth of waste shipments inspected in the bloc are illegal, the EUobserver reported Wednesday.
The EU [...]

SYDNEY, Feb. 1 (UPI) — A $1.7 billion desalination plant has opened in Sydney, expected to supply up to 15 percent of the area’s water needs.
The seawater reverse-osmosis facility in the southern suburb of Kurnell has been driven by concerns about climate change, Sydney’s inconsistent rainfall patterns and a rapidly growing metropolitan area that attracts [...]

CHENNAI, India, Feb. 1 (UPI) — Researchers in India report fungi might provide an eco-friendly way of decomposing polycarbonate plastic waste that contains bisphenol A.
Mukesh Doble and Trishul Artham of the Indian Institute of Technology in Chennai, (formerly Madras) said manufacturers produce about 2.7 million tons of plastic containing BPA each year. Polycarbonate is [...]