The vegan leather made from India's waste flowers

The California-based startup Magrathea Metals is producing magnesium with renewable energy to make the process less expensive and material-intensive. The company aims to make the more environment-friendly metal competitive with steel and aluminum.

The startup Pipedream Labs is running small, electric vehicles in tunnels under Peachtree Corners, Georgia, to make last-mile deliveries for local restaurants. The aim is to reduce emissions, traffic, and delivery costs for businesses.

Marine carbon capture, a term for various methods that trap carbon deep in the ocean, can help mitigate climate change by reducing the amount of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Startups around the U.S. are advancing helpful technologies.

Two Texas-based companies are 3D printing homes in an effort to combat the housing crisis and produce fewer emissions than a typical home construction. The companies lay the foundation and rebar for support. Then, a machine with a robotic arm builds up the walls by printing layers of a cement-like material.

Gree Energy helps food processors in Indonesia overcome the financial barriers to installing anaerobic wastewater treatment plants. These plants turn methane emissions into biogas to be used as electricity or thermal energy. The company plans the builds, finds uses for the biogas, and establishes revenue to fund the projects.

The India-based company Phool collects floral waste from religious temples to keep it from being discarded in rivers. The flowers are used to make incense sticks, and the company provides employment for over 200 women from marginalized communities.

The Colorado-based company Biochar Now heats waste wood for hours to produce biochar. The charcoal-like material sequesters the carbon from the organic material it’s made of. And the company’s product has been used to clean up salts, toxins, PFAS, and heavy metals from oil spills and Superfund sites.

Joebliss Enterprise purchases and collects paper waste from homes, businesses, and collection agents in Abuja, Nigeria, and processes it for recycling, reducing the amount that produces methane emissions in landfills.

The new Global Plastics AI Policy Tool, developed by plastic waste and ecology experts, uses machine learning to predict how policy interventions like capping production and investing in recycling infrastructure would reduce plastic pollution by 2050. It could be of particular use as countries work on an international, legally binding treaty to address the plastic crisis.

The startup Ichthion created a system that skims plastic off of rivers in Ecuador to prevent it from reaching the ocean. A floating barrier stretches across the river to catch the plastic without disrupting fish, and a person manually guides the pollution onto the shore where it’s sorted for recycling.