Eben Bayer: Are mushrooms the new plastic? Eco-Friendly Urban Center: Sustainable City of the Future. MVDRV is an (post)modern architectural and urban design firm well-known for their surrealistic interpretations of city living and fantastic visions for the future of urban design, but few of their conceptual designs see the bright light of day – or the cool layered lights of night, shown above in their winning design for a new city center in Korea.
The mixed use set of mounded towers are at once clearly artificial but also layered with organic material, each level having its own green terrace to the outside world and exposure to the surrounding environment, natural hills that ring the new development. Live, work, shopping, entertainment and educational spaces are all built into the layers of this futuristic urban design. Exterior homes ring interior atrium spaces that are filled with institutional uses from stores and restaurants to museums and theater spaces. Garbage City: An Unbelievable Real-Life Urban Wasteland. More amazing than the trash-strewn architecture and garbage-stuffed city streets is the strange fact that this place is fully occupied and abuzz with activity.
People live, work, eat and sleep within this object graveyard outside the city center of Cairo, Egypt. Spaces not occupied by people are given over to livestock (fed with trash scraps) and guerrilla urban gardens. Officially known as Manshiyat Naser, this district has shops and apartments like any other, but its residents earn their keep by specializing in collecting, sorting and recycling specific types of trashed materials. A group of children can be found sifting for plastic bottles while an organized team of women scours the remnants for cans or glass. Other items are burned locally as fuel.
While it might not meet any health standards on Earth, the unique urban phenomena is arguably sustainable in a certain sense – even ‘green’ in a some ways. Sustainability. The Don Q Rum in your glass is renowned for its clean finish; the way we make rum has a clean finish, too.
With an enthusiasm rivaled only by our passion for quality, we’ve invested significant time, knowledge, and resources making our distillery one of the cleanest and greenest in the spirits industry. Not only do we reap the benefits of real energy return and useful post-production materials, we get to do what’s best for the people and wildlife of our lovely island, Puerto Rico. Win-win Solutions Water reclamation facility We approach sustainability as the challenge of finding ecologically responsible solutions within the context of an economically viable enterprise. Leading the Industry View from new distillery towers.
Future of Clean Energy. 23. Worldwide Movement To Ban or Charge Fees For Plastic Bags. Shoppers worldwide are using 500 billion to one trillion single-use plastic bags per year.
The average use time of a plastic bag is 12 minutes. Plastic bags pollute our waters, smother wetlands and entangle and kill animals. This eventually affects our health because larger animals eat small, plastic-laden creatures and plastics work their way up the food chain until eventually, humans consume animals that have eaten some form of plastic. Plastic is non-biodegradable and is made from a non-renewable resource: oil.
An estimated 3 million barrels of oil are required to produce the 19 billion plastic bags used annually in California. As of this writing, 35 countries have already banned the use of plastic bags, 9 countries have passed levies and fees on use, 12 countries are considering bans or fees and 26 states in the US have introduced a form of legislation concerning plastic bag use. Sources: Environment + Sustainability. Biofuel Guide - Ethanol and Biodiesel as alternative energy.