The New World Of Recycling

I spent the night browsing through entries and winners in 2008’s IDEA competition in search of a few green ideas from some of the brightest minds of our time. Here’s a look at three ideas that could change the way we look at the three R’s that have been engrained in our brains (and yet, so rarely used) since elementary school.

The Barcode Trashcan utilizes a scanner mounted within its lid to detect items that can be recycled - separating them from average trash to allow its users to easily practice the art of recycling without the hassle of necessarily pre-sorting items beforehand. While the system doesn’t appear to sort everything that passes through its lid, it seems to restrict the items inserted to only those that match a certain set of barcodes. The idea, of course is simply to make sorting recyclables an easier task to take on but, with a little tweaking, the idea could easily evolve into a system that automatically sorts, bags, and lights up when full - automating much of the process and allowing public service officials to deliver the items to their appropriate locations.

On the home front, Woongjin Coway’s Natural Cycle (Food Waste Treatment System) puts the less-than-friendly idea of a compost heap inside a much friendlier and more attractive box that works to convert food waste into new fruits, vegetables, plants, and more. By crushing and drying its contents, Natural Cycle produces a highly potent fertilizer that can efficiently be used to grow new, healthy, and tasty foods within the confines of your very own kitchen. Even scent is taken into consideration, prompting the inclusion of an odor filter that supposedly filters out the smell of composting food and the resulting fertilizer almost entirely. One the system has enough fertilizer, it is dropped into a small container full of seeds and moved to a nearby, sunny location with new food delivered right to your fingertips in a matter of weeks.

Of course, while you can recycle things that you already have, it’s good to keep in mind the impact of bringing new things to your home to begin with. By now, I’m sure you’re well aware of the horror stories of plastic bags. In fact, many of you may even have a small army of reusable shopping bags nestled within the trunks of your cars. Still, despite the positive impact generated by reducing plastic bag consumption, these reusable cotton, plastic, and non-woven bags aren’t exactly suited for all situations and all products. Heavier and larger items usually fall just outside the realm of the relatively small reusable bags available from most retailers (unless you’re at IKEA) - often sending you back to the stoneage of the bag world in acceptance of a dreaded plastic bag. REUSE Sustainable Shopping Bags have a number of different concepts that have presented a variety of solutions to this very problem by introducing a few easily-recyclable or reusable options. The first imagines a compostable bag that can simply be returned to a central location in an effort to develop potent fertilizer (and, possibly, allowing grocers to grow certain fruits and vegetables in a fresher setting on-site). REUSE also showcased a design the integrated recycled rubber to create a bag that is durable, stylish, and reusable for extended periods of time - building on the existing prevalence of fabric bags with a material that is stronger and, ultimately, more usable. The group’s final design highlighted small portable storage containers filled with a number of nylon bags. Though less exotic than the first two, their third idea is perhaps the most feasible and most likely to see the light of day in the near future.

Keep on the look out for leaps ahead in the world of recycling and feel free to give me a shout if you find something that’s cool, stylish, or unique. Have a great Thursday!