Recycling entrepreneur Tom Szaky is stubbing out the world’s cigarette problem — one butt at a time. The 30-year-old who dropped out of Princeton University to start his innovative company TerraCycle in Trenton, New Jersey, says there’s no such thing as trash, even when you’re talking about the contents of ashtrays. In a program started [...]
The Plastic Pollution Coalition visited the UAE last month and have posted about their trip and the groups and people they met here. I’m hoping for a longer report on their findings and hopefully some further collaboration. Plastic pollution in the UAE is diabolical. It’s everywhere and as much as street cleaners are deployed to [...]
Speaking with recent arrivals in Dubai, they are shocked (as was I) to see the use of plastic wrap for things like…bananas. Try as hard as we might it can sometimes be really hard to avoid plastic. It is thrust upon us at every cashier no matter the amount of items bought. The wrapped banana is [...]
There is a lot of data out there regarding waste, pollution and the amount of plastic and debris that enters our oceans. The numbers get bigger and bigger and the problem seems to get worse. Which is why I like a good infographic. It makes it all a lot easier to digest, and hopefully react. [...]
Man-made reefs made of melted down plastic bottles and processed into a wood like material have started being dropped off into the sea along Jebel Ali. The plastic came from residents who dropped off recyclables to Atlantis hotel as part of a call to action from the resort on World Ocean’s Day, this year. Corals [...]
Dubai – Your waste paper can be recycled into cardboard in just one hour. However so few people are handing in their paper to be recycled that the UAE’s first paper mill has to either buy from traders or watch it being shipped for recycling abroad. Other recycling facilities around the city are set up [...]
“And Man created the plastic bag and the tin and aluminum can and the cellophane wrapper and the paper plate, and this was good because Man could then take his automobile and buy all his food in one place and He could save that which was good to eat in the refrigerator and throw away [...]
A few years ago, without word or warning the recycling bins went up on Sharjah’s streets. Residents were not alerted, informed or incited but nevertheless, looked at the options put in front of them and started throwing their rubbish out accordingly. That’s the story Bee’ah – the Sharjah waste management company – told me during a visit this week. They [...]
According to a ‘global’ survey and 22,000 people who took it, including some folks in the UAE, women in the Emirates rank higher than men across all green behaviour categories. And perhaps surprisingly people aged 56 and 65 years ranked highest in recycling and buying ecological products. Those in the 16-25 age group scored lowest [...]
So Sunday is lightbulb recycling day, mark it in your calendars. Finally there is somewhere to take all your lightbulbs: neon tubes, energy efficient and incandescent bulbs you haven’t changed yet, and dispose of them properly. Throwing bulbs into the trash can release mercury vapour into the air. One lightbulb might not cause too much [...]
Illegal trade in wildlife products like ivory and rhino horn must be treated as a serious crime in order to end the devastating poaching of protected species, the head of UN wildlife trade regulator CITES said last week. “This is serious crime, and you need serious resources and serious penalties” to address it, said CITES [...]
South African authorities have been rounding up thousands of escaped crocodiles since Friday after floods gave them an escape route from a crocodile farm. Authorities attempted to reassure the public everything was under control. “A large number” of 15,000 reptiles at the Rakwena Crocodile Farm in the far north of the country had escaped last Sunday [...]
Brazil will undertake the massive task of cataloging the trees of the Amazon, in an effort to better monitor and protect the world’s largest tropical forest, the environment ministry announced Friday. The planned tree census, set to take four years, “will allow us to have a broad panorama of the quality and the conditions in [...]
Recycling entrepreneur Tom Szaky is stubbing out the world’s cigarette problem — one butt at a time. The 30-year-old who dropped out of Princeton University to start his innovative company TerraCycle in Trenton, New Jersey, says there’s no such thing as trash, even when you’re talking about the contents of ashtrays. In a program started [...]
