Environment
Need some good news about the environment? The Optimist Daily is your go-to herald of positive environmental news, highlighting eco-friendly solutions and scientific progress around climate action, circularity, conservation, and more. Learn about everything eco in our Environment section.
This apparel company wants to recycle your old socks into dog beds
While consumer awareness about the urgency of transitioning the textile industry towards circularity is growing, socks remain one of the most frequently discarded pieces of apparel. A new initiative from clothing company Smartwool wants to change that by encouraging you to donate your old socks — Read More...
This zero-waste body wash is a pouch that dissolves in your shower
Water is a key ingredient in most body wash products that come in plastic bottles. This poses two key environmental challenges: On top of the sustainability issue that comes with fossil fuel-derived packaging, shipping water also comes at a high environmental cost. Seeking to deliver a product Read More...
Dutch citizens are using a “doorbell” to help fish pass this canal gate
Every year, thousands of spawning fish swim through the canals of Utrecht in the Netherlands. When they reach the Weerdsluis lock though, they often cannot travel further because the barrier — which acts as a dam — is rarely open. A new initiative, however, is now allowing regular citizens to Read More...
5 Easy ways you can conserve more water
Water conservation is an important endeavor that we all play a role in. Some experts say that the world could face a 40 percent global water deficit in under a decade if humans continue to increase water consumption. Here are five small changes you can make in your day-to-day life to start saving Read More...
Electric future: Why we need to make all stoves gas-free
A third of Americans cook with natural gas in their homes and many, especially kitchen-savvy chefs, seek out these appliances over electric versions, but the health and environmental effects of gas raise the question: Why are we still using these cooktops? What's wrong with gas stoves First and Read More...
This dragonfly-inspired robot could help monitor environmental disasters
Scientists from Duke University have engineered a completely electronics-free soft robot that can fly across bodies of water to perform long-range environmental monitoring such as detecting oil spills and assessing the level of acidity in water. Dubbed DraBot, the robot is modeled after a Read More...
Eat more and waste less with The No-Waste Vegetable Cookbook
Recently we wrote about Ikea Canada’s Scrapbook, a cookbook with recipes that use food scraps to make delicious meals and snacks to promote zero-waste living. Now we present to you The No-Waste Vegetable Cookbook: Recipes and Techniques for Whole Plant Cooking by Linda Ly. In the preface, Ly Read More...
Protect your neighborhood insects this spring with amber-hued lights
Insects play a big role in our ecosystems. They provide decomposition and nutrient cycling services, pollinate crops, and are a food source for birds and other animals. In monetary terms, researchers have valued the services insects offer various ecosystems at $57 billion per year in the US Read More...
How recycled bottles could help restore Louisiana’s degraded coastline
The southern coast of Louisiana has lost areas of coastline equivalent to the size of Delaware as beaches and marshes erode away into the sea. Some environmentalists have a novel solution in the form of New Orleans’ party culture. Tulane students Franziska Trautmann and Max Steitz saw the Read More...
Soap is a big water polluter. This probiotic version does the opposite
We use soap to clean our dishes, clothing, and even ourselves, but this same soap that we use to clean isn’t so great for rivers and oceans. Especially in countries where many people still use rivers for washing purposes, soap can directly contaminate ecosystems and pollute water that communities Read More...