Can AI Help Cut Plastic Waste From the Food System?

Looking at what recycled phosphorus could do for corn in the United States, the country’s number one crop, a study found that we’d need just 37 percent of available recyclable domestic phosphorus to fertilize all of the corn in the country.

Each year the brown waters of the Gumani river swell during the summer monsoon, creeping over the surrounding fields to flood Charbhangura, a village of 2,500 people in the Pabna district of northwest Bangladesh - when the fields flood, the farmers have no work. Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha trains locals to create floating farms and provide work, money, and food in all seasons.

Clean water and healthy ecosystems are becoming increasingly difficult to come by. With floating islands and other inventions, eco-entrepreneur Bruce Kania thinks that biomimicry - such as reconstructing wetlands and growing biofilms - can tackle the toughest of water problems.

Property rights, circumscribed jurisdictions, and conflicts with neighbors exacerbate Native American efforts to restore tribal land and resources. Some tribes have found success by tapping into a trend of support from the government and conservationists.

Prescription drugs are greatly polluting the national water supply, causing researchers to begin looking for a method to better filter water and dispose of unused medicine.

For the past three years, water levels in the San Antonio Edwards Aquifer have decreased to uncomfortable levels and drought periods may continue as the population booms. The San Antonio Water System organization has set up rules to limit water use and has recycled water for conservation frugal innovation.

Throughout India, wastepickers – people who scour landfills for garbage they can sell to recyclers – live at the bottom of society. But the city of Pune did something radical: with the help of a collective, they did away with expensive garbage trucks, and now all household garbage is collected by wastepickers with pushcarts. Pune saves millions of dollars each year and recycles more – and the wastepickers have decent wages and social standing. The concept is now spreading globally.

Renovating and furnishing a home can be hugely expensive. Homeowners who are renovating on a budget, and want to do so in a way that is evironmentally friendly, can find recycled luxury kitchens and other lightly used fixtures at stores like Green Demolitions.

One in five seniors reports cutting back on basics like food or heat to afford prescription drugs - for many, cutting back on medicine led to faster health declines, increased hospitalizations and premature death. Sirum, a new nonprofit, was designed to make it easy for institutions to donate medicines with the assurance that they would be safely transported and dispensed to people who needed them.

Nationally, only about a third of municipal solid waste is recycled. An initiative to use simpler, standardized signs and labels is helping communities reap greater benefits from recycling.