Young engineer develops game-changing solution to pressing global issue: 'Creates a full circular system'
Unfortunately, that means plastic waste is also everywhere.
Plastic litter has been found all over the globe. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a horrifying example of plastic excess. Plastic litter has even been discovered in remote areas of the Himalayas.
This is why any technological innovation that limits the amount of plastic we use is welcome. As Euronews detailed, a young Austrian engineer has developed a game-changing invention that could revolutionize the way electronics are packaged.
Franziska Kerber created PAPE, a paper-based alternative for the plastic used in the casings of small electronics. The product is sturdy, yet biodegradable, which means facilities don't need to employ shredding or chemical separation when electronics are discarded.
The brilliant 24-year-old designer approached the development of PAPE with the goals of creating circular systems and encouraging material reuse. The hope is that products such as Wi-Fi routers and smoke detectors, as well as the casing they come in, can be properly recycled.
This is just one innovation that could deal with the plastic problem. For example, researchers at the University of Texas A&M have created a biodegradable plastic made from soldier fly carcasses.
Elsewhere, a team from the University of Michigan is developing innovative ways to break down single-use plastics without the toxic effects.
This is great news because plastic waste is a multifaceted problem. First and foremost, plastic waste stays around for a long time. For instance, plastic straws take 200 years to break down, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
What's more, microplastics are so ubiquitous that they have been discovered in people's bloodstreams. This can lead to a myriad of health concerns that we are only beginning to understand.
Should companies be required to help recycle their own products?
Definitely
No way
It depends on the product
They should get tax breaks instead
Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.
There are many ways for us to limit plastic waste. We can support brands that are focused on circular use, and we can also recycle our old electronics. Perhaps most importantly, we can choose non-plastic options for everyday products.
Kerber was understandably excited about the potential of her idea.
"Electronic waste is the fastest-growing waste stream worldwide and most electronic products are not designed in a way for them to be recycled," she told Euronews. "So I was aiming to create a product that not only improves recyclability, but creates a full circular system around it."
Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Scientists Just Linked This Diet to a Lower Lung Cancer Risk
Reviewed by Dietitian Jessica Ball, M.S., RD At this point, you've likely heard about the Mediterranean diet, the DASH diet and the MIND diet. But there's one diet that might be new to you: the planetary health diet (PHD). The PHD was developed in 2019 by the EAT-Lancet Commission and focuses on promoting human health and environmental sustainability. The planetary health diet is primarily plant-based, focusing on fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, whole grains and unsaturated fats. It includes small amounts of animal-based proteins, including seafood, poultry and dairy, but these are eaten in much smaller quantities, as most protein comes from plant protein. Added sugars, refined grains and processed meats are limited or avoided. Research regarding the planetary health diet has been mixed, so researchers from Austria and Switzerland wanted to see what they could find out about the relationship between the planetary health diet and mortality, cancer and heart disease. They published their results in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. How Was This Study Conducted? Researchers drew their data from the UK Biobank, a long-running study that collects demographic, health and medical data from over 500,000 UK citizens. Baseline data were gathered between 2006 and 2010, with the average age at baseline ranging from 40 to 69. Assessments were repeated every few years and collected data on lifestyle, health status and diet. Researchers also had access to medical records and death registries. For this current study, researchers used varying numbers of participants for three different analyses: almost 205,000 were used in the mortality risk analyses, over 200,000 for the cancer risk analyses, and over 196,000 for the cardiovascular disease risk analyses. Adherence to the planetary health diet eating pattern was scored based on the inclusion of 14 primary food components of the planetary health diet. Participants scored one point for each food or food group they included, with a possible high score of 14. Scores for this study ranged from 1 to 11 points, which represents low to medium diet adherence. What Did This Study Find? After running statistical analyses, including adjusting for potential confounding factors (factors that might influence or change results), researchers found that: Every 1-point increase in the PHD score was related to a 3% decrease in all-cause mortality (risk of dying from anything). Every 1-point increase in the PHD score was associated with a 9% lower lung cancer risk. When all factors were fully adjusted for, no relationship was found in this study between the PHD and cardiovascular disease risk. There were several limitations of this study. Because comparatively few people in the Biobank were following a planetary health diet eating pattern, the confidence of these results is lower than it would have been had there been more people following it. Also, out of the five possible Biobank 24-hour dietary recalls, about 40% of the participants completed just one of them. Again, less data means less confidence in the results. And since the Biobank includes mostly white adults from Europe, it is unknown if the results can be generalized to other groups. How Does This Apply to Real Life? The term 'plant-based diet' can mean different things to different people. While some equate it to a vegan, all-plant diet, others see it more as making plants the foundation of your diet, while still including small amounts of animal-based foods, like eggs, dairy, fish and poultry. The latter is what the planetary health diet is about. It also limits added sugar, refined grains and processed meats. Eating more plants has many benefits, including reduced disease risk. This is in part thanks to plants' antioxidants and their ability to create a healthy gut microbiome by providing food for your gut's beneficial bacteria. A healthy gut can help lower chronic inflammation, which helps reduce disease risk. And while you can add helpful bacteria to your gut with fermented plants—like sauerkraut or kimchi—many people find it easier to get them in yogurt or kefir, which is where the animal protein can come in. It's easy to get stuck in a rut with fruits and vegetables, or to always turn to bread for whole grains. But there are lots of creative ways to use whole grains—like rice, quinoa, farro and oats—that don't include bread. Grain bowls are a delicious way to eat more plants, and they can be tailored to your taste and preferences. They're also easy to meal-prep for lunches throughout the week. We also love salads as meals. You can pack every food group into a salad if you want to. You'll love our filling, satisfying High-Protein Pasta Salad, Massaged Kale Salad with Roasted Sweet Potato & Black Beans or Salmon Salad with Crispy White Beans. If you want more guidance and are ready to go all in on increasing your plant intake, check out our 7-Day Plant-Based High-Protein Meal Plan for Beginners. It's loaded with a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and plant-based proteins, like peanut butter, edamame and beans, to keep you full and satisfied. Whether you use the plan as is or use it as inspiration, you'll find it fun and easy to get more plants into your meals and snacks. Our Expert Take This study suggests that eating more plants may reduce your risk of all-cause mortality and lung disease. While this study didn't show an association between eating a plant-based diet and reduced risk of heart disease, other studies have. Just remember that eating more plants doesn't have to be all or nothing. Start where you're at and be intentional with choosing plant-based foods more often. Snacks can be an easy way to start. Instead of reaching for your typical snack, try a handful of nuts and a piece of fruit, or dip fruit slices into nut butter or veggie sticks into guacamole or hummus. Read the original article on EATINGWELL
Gizmodo
8 hours ago
- Gizmodo
Our Neanderthal Cousins Were Big Maggot Eaters, Scientists Argue
Modern humanity's most famous cousins, the Neanderthals, may have had a clever, if unappealing, dietary trick for survival: maggots. Research out today posits these creepy crawly fly larvae provided Neanderthals an ample source of essential nitrogen and fat. Scientists at Purdue University, the University of Michigan, and others conducted the study, published Friday in Science Advances. Using both experimental and historical data, they showed that maggot-infused meat is rich in fat and nitrogen and that similar human populations have commonly included such foods in their diets. The team argues that maggots are the most reasonable explanation for why Neanderthals had very high levels of nitrogen in their system. 'Fly larvae are a fat-rich, nutrient dense, ubiquitous, and easily procured insect resource, and both Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans, much like recent foragers, would benefit from taking full advantage of them,' lead author Melanie Beasley, a paleoanthropologist at Purdue, told Gizmodo. Nitrogen is a much-needed nutrient; among other things, it's used to help create amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. Speaking of protein, dietary nitrogen is most abundantly found in animal meat (though certain leafy vegetables and legumes are also high in it). The excavated remains of Neanderthals are known to have high levels of nitrogen isotopes, indicating they had plenty of nitrogen in their diets. According to Beasley, most researchers have assumed this meant Neanderthals were hypercarnivores—predators at the top of the food chain that ate lots of freshly killed large animals, mammoths included. But in 2017, co-author John Speth put forth a different hypothesis: that Neanderthals were actually eating lots of stored and putrid meat filled with maggots. Both then and now, researchers note that some Indigenous groups in the Northern Hemisphere have regularly and intentionally eaten maggot-rich food—practically as a delicacy. In 1931, for instance, Knud Rasmussen, a polar explorer and anthropologist, wrote this anecdote about him and some members of an Inuit community coming across a cache of meat: 'The meat was green with age, and when we made a cut in it, it was like the bursting of a boil, so full of great white maggots was it. To my horror my companions scooped out handfuls of the crawling things and ate them with evident relish.' Beasley heard about Speth's argument and said she could help him test it out experimentally. At the time, she was pursuing a postdoctoral degree that involved studying muscle tissue decomposition in deceased people. This work also meant Beasley would spend much of her time around the maggots that feed on decaying tissue. Beasley and her colleagues documented the changing nitrogen levels in these samples of decaying tissue along with three different species of fly maggots. As the tissue decayed, levels of nitrogen inside changed modestly. The maggots themselves, however, were chock-full of nitrogen. Given the conditions back then, it would have been impossible for Neanderthals to avoid some maggots ending up in any animal meat they tried to store. Rather than a hindrance, though, these hominids probably made the most of the situation, using the maggots to turn their lean meat into a 'fat-rich, more complete food resource,' Beasley said. The researchers are still collecting more evidence to shore up their argument for maggot-eating Neanderthals, and they're also working to understand how the nutritional benefits of maggot-rich food change over time (exactly when is rotten meat too rotten, in other words?). However Neanderthals ate their meat, though, there are many people today still using insects and maggots to spice up their diet, the researchers point out. In Europe, for instance, there's casu marzu, a Sardinian sheep's milk cheese that's intentionally laced with cheese fly (Piophila casei) maggots. Much love to my Neanderthal brethren and casu marzu fans, but I think I'll still just stick to some classic sharp cheddar for my next cheese plate.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
Lyft to add autonomous shuttles in 2026 as Uber inks more self-driving deals
Lyft will add autonomous shuttles made by Austrian manufacturer Benteler Group to its network in late 2026, the company announced Friday. The shuttles will be deployed in partnership with U.S. cities and airports, according to Lyft, but could expand out from there if things go well. The partnership will let Lyft use urban electric shuttles made by Benteler's mobility division under the Holon brand. The shuttles will not have a steering wheel or pedals and will feature inward-facing seats for up to nine seated and six standing passengers, according to Bloomberg News, which first reported the Benteler partnership on Friday The tie-up comes amid a flurry of announcements from Lyft's main rival, Uber, which has recently added robotaxis from Waymo and WeRide in various cities around the world. Uber is also working on adding robotaxis from Baidu, Pony AI, Momenta, May Mobility, Volkswagen, Wayve, and just last week announced a deal with Nuro and Lucid Motors. Despite years of testing with various partners, Lyft is still working on adding autonomous vehicles to its own fleet of vehicles. The company plans to put AVs from May Mobility on its network in Atlanta later this year. It's also working with autonomy provider Mobileye, though it's not clear who would make those vehicles. Mobileye's tech is what powers the Holon shuttles, though Lyft told Bloomberg that these aren't the same deals.
