Fix combines creative storytelling with network construction and activities.

You sighed at the forgotten empty bottle on the kitchen counter. Your partner should go to the gas station after get off work. When you are about to send grumpy text...

Uh, all their types.

Don't buy more bottles, you wrote. You have many bottles, all you need is shampoo.

Shall we go together tomorrow? We also need to buy food, we can go to two places. You are very angry, but at least now you can go to the gas station-your favorite stop on the weekend. You start to list other things you can add: lotion, toothpaste, sunscreen...

— The witty of Claire Elise Thompson

You may be familiar with the scourge of plastic waste. At the end of its useful life, plastic is a nuisance and even a danger to marine ecosystems, urban infrastructure and our own bodies. But plastic was also an environmental disaster at the beginning of its life. More than 99% of plastics are produced from chemicals derived from fossil fuels, and these two industries are closely linked. According to the Center for International Environmental Law, the natural gas boom in the United States is driving an increase in plastic production, which increases the risk of pollution in first-tier communities and directly offsets the city’s efforts to reduce the flow of single-use plastics.

If this is not sober enough, according to a new report, greenhouse gas emissions from the plastics industry are expected to exceed that of coal by the end of the decade.

As we prepare for a consumption-centric holiday, the time is ripe to consider how to reduce plastic and related emissions. This is not just abandoning things, although reducing consumption will certainly help reduce our footprint on the planet. In this newsletter, we focus on three other emerging solutions that push us into a less flexible future.

In 2011, José Manuel Moller and some of his college classmates lived in a low-income community in Santiago, Chile. Under his limited student budget, he kept buying everything in the smallest size—"a quarter liter of coconut oil, a quarter of a kilogram of sugar," he recalled—each of which was packed in his own disposable In the container. After a while, comparing the notes with his mother, he realized that he was spending a lot more on household items than her. This is because the smaller size has a higher packaging-to-product ratio, and the cost per ounce is higher. The packaging itself can account for 40% of the cost, which creates a poverty tax for those who cannot afford to invest in more efficient bulk options.

"We are pushing the poorest households to pay for what they want to throw away. It's ridiculous and it pollutes the planet," Moeller said.

With a background in business management and funding for some local competitions, Mueller designed a company called Algramo-a technically supported supplementary system that can distribute food in batches and clean staple foods. The company has more than 2,500 sites in Chile and pilots in New York City and Jakarta, Indonesia. The BYORP (Bring Your Own Reusable Packaging) model opens up economies of scale for customers of all income levels.

Here's how it works: The Algramo container looks like a standard soft soap, pine sol, or bottle you own, and contains the same information, such as a list of ingredients. But they have a chip that supports RFID and can be synchronized to the application. You can recharge your account through the app and transfer it to the chip-making the container itself a kind of wallet. As Moller pointed out, you may sometimes forget to bring a reusable shopping bag to the store; you will never forget your wallet. [Read more about Moller and Algramo in this feature. ]

Algramo is far from the only company trying to use high-tech methods to deal with the refill economy. Supply depots are everywhere-there may already be a supply depot near you. But if you bring your own bag to the grocery store, bring your own thermos to Starbucks, or bring your own water bottle to...anywhere, congratulations! You are already part of the refill revolution. Next stop: everything.

Currently, less than 10% of virgin plastics are recycled in the United States, and the vast majority end up in landfills. What is recycled is more commonly "degraded recycling"-for example, plastics are usually not turned into another soda bottle, but are used in synthetic products, such as artificial wood or carpets, and cannot be recycled from these products again.

This is a problem that scientists and engineers have turned their attention to-including a group of laboratories that form the BOTTLE Consortium (Bio-Optimization Technology to Keep Thermoplastics away from Landfills and the Environment), which is a set of laboratories by the U.S. Department of Energy. A particularly neat area of ​​exploration is plastic-eating organisms.

There are more than 50 known carnivores, including bacteria, fungi, and a caterpillar called waxworm. Not only can these little animals digest plastic through some additional chemical steps, they can actually turn it into something better. In a study published earlier this year, scientists from the Colorado National Renewable Energy Laboratory demonstrated a process through which the common soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida can help convert polyethylene terephthalate Glycol esters (PET, the most common type of polyester) are "upgraded" as substitutes for nylon (a silk-like plastic that has many uses besides pantyhose).

The lead author of the study, biologist Alli Werner, and her team used chemical processes to break down PET into its components. Then, they fed these building blocks to specially designed bacteria that secrete a compound called β-ketoadipate, which can be used to make a nylon that is superior to the widely used today.

"This is the idea behind plastic recycling," Werner said, "turn waste into higher-value materials so that recycling plastic can be profitable." [Read more about plastic carnivores in this topic, and Fix The short story contest Imagine 2200 of this novel work. ]

Okay, we have covered reuse and recycling. However, one of the best things we can do is to first reduce the amount of plastic we make and consume to prevent plastic from entering our water and being discharged into our lungs. This may not be possible in all cases, but many companies are emerging to provide alternatives to ordinary plastic products. Fortuna Cools is one such company, which produces a coconut fiber cooler designed to replace one of the most annoying plastics: Styrofoam.

The company was originally a classroom project in the "Extreme Affordability Design" course of d.school of Stanford University. Tamara Mekler and her classmates (later becoming co-founders) collaborated with Rare, a conservation organization in the Philippines. The challenge they face is to improve the livelihoods of fishermen.

"In design school, they always tell you,'Look for tape,'" Mekler said-meaning small fixes that people use to make something last longer or more convenient, better design can solve for longer lasting Way. But what they saw in the Philippines was real tape. Once they start to crack, fishermen use it to hold dozens of styrofoam coolers together.

The tape will not last forever. "Food suppliers must replace their entire styrofoam inventory almost every month," Mekler said. This brings huge costs to workers and the environment.

She and her team started looking for locally available materials to help workers save money and reduce the waste of Styrofoam. They found the answer in the coconut farms found everywhere in the Philippines. These farms have their own waste stream: the husk. Piles of coconut husks were burned by farms, and these farms did not use them immediately.

"A lot of people have the experience of drinking coconut fresh water," Meckler said. "At least in my case, I am always surprised and surprised that it is so fresh and refreshing. This is because coconut shell is a good insulator." The team that became Fortuna Cools learned the lessons of nature and designed A more durable and effective cooler is made of coconut fiber insulation and 100% recycled polyester. According to feedback from pilot customers, they were also able to make the cooler foldable-which helps reduce transportation costs when the cooler is empty.

"Almost all of these performance requirements we are looking for in plastic materials have been solved in one way or another in nature," Mekler said. She and her team are particularly excited about the opportunity to use agricultural waste. From a sustainability perspective, this is a win-win situation and creates more income for farmers.

Mekler's work is just one example of how plastics have been replaced by alternative materials in the real world. Others are experimenting with algae or fungi that can make plastic-like materials. This means that if you have not encountered plastic alternatives in your life, you may soon encounter them. And they are more exciting than canvas food bags or (much criticized) paper straws.

"From a usability point of view and a performance point of view, there are many opportunities to build better products," Mekler said. "I think designers are more creative in this area and understand that we can get a lot of these technical capabilities from non-petroleum-based materials."

How else do you remove plastic from your life? Reply to this email and tell us about your efforts to reduce your plastic footprint this holiday (and beyond).

Is there anything else you want to say?

We want to hear your opinion. Send us an email to find out about the game-changing solution you are working on or the subject you would like to see on the cover of this newsletter-or try to write your own 100-word nonsense. Tell us what you think about the future of climate (maybe you will see it in the future of this newsletter).

This photo from the SOUP collection of photographer Mandy Barker shows a series of nurdle pellets collected from six beaches around the world-industrial raw materials used to make many plastic products. Nurdles is also commonly referred to as "the tears of a mermaid."

Vision: Repair/Getty Images/Unsplash

Spotlight: Provided by Algramo; Provided by Fortuna Cools

Parting shot: Photo © Mandy Barker

Fix combines creative storytelling with network construction and activities. Our work amplifies the story of hope and progress, illuminates the smart ideas and the people behind it, and gathers a growing and visionary community—we call it the restorer—and they are leading the way to a fit The path of the planet for all people. 

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