Terrific Recycling and Sustainability ideas

Hayley Wong

Edited by Yujin Tchun

As technology advances, people are helping with recycling in different sustainable ways. 

Firstly, we have a natural alternative to plastic bottles. Water is undoubtedly everyone’s most important necessity since we can’t survive without it. Because it is so important, we often end up using and creating large quantities of plastic bottles to hold various drinks. This is, however, harmful for the environment and our world. Luckily, scientists have invented “Ooho”, a seaweed-based capsule that is completely biodegradable and edible without causing any trouble to the environment, while still doing the same job as any other plastic bottle. This genius invention was created by “Skipping Rocks Lab”. 

Next, in the Netherlands, a local park has created a floating park on the river made entirely of plastic debris. Many locals collected plastic and waste in the river and used it to create a floating park. It sits right on the surface of Rotterdam's Nieuwe Maas River, and its mission is to capture all the trash that has been dumped into the river. The plastic is recycled and made into modular building blocks, which act as secondary raw materials to be innovated, structured, and built. Ever since July 2018, it has been a popular tourist destination. 

Thirdly, everyone does exercise to keep fit and healthy, and while it certainly doesn’t cause any damage to the environment, why not make it even better? In Sacramento’s Eco Fitness, their indoor cycling classes have their students “powering” the gym. Each of the bicycles has a micro-inverter, which turns the kinetic energy into electricity that powers the gym’s lights. One cycling class in the gym produces enough energy for two fridges for 24 hours. For once, members and participants can appreciate how much work is put into producing power and light, a very good idea for both doing exercise and saving energy.

We should try to help our world, our home, and make it even better. Others have been doing an outstanding job — it’s time now that we help as well. We have to clean up the mess we made.