Project Blu turns plastic bottles into sustainable pet products

Project Blu is a U.K.-based startup company that is creating sustainable pet products made from recycled materials such as plastic, textiles and leather. Each Project Blu product is made using anywhere between 1 and 300 plastic bottles, and each sale comes with a company pledge to clean yet another pound of plastic from oceans and coastlines through its partnership with the nonprofit Plastic Bank.

“Our oceans bear the brunt of our plastics epidemic, with up to 12.7 million tons of plastic ending up in them every year,” said Geryn Evans, founder of Project Blu. “We are working to collect and manufacture high quality pet products from the mounting number of plastic bottles and discarded fishing nets already in our oceans, rather than make more.”

Related: 7 ways to be a sustainable and eco-friendly pet owner

The plastic is broken down into flakes and melted into pellets before being converted into polyester yarn, while fibers are extracted from fabrics to be made into cotton yarn. The yarn combination is then used to fashion sturdy pet toys and beds. Leather is a bit trickier; pieces of discarded leather waste destined for landfill are broken down into leather fiber and made into a composite using a hydroentanglement process. This allows the leather scraps to be transformed into one single roll of material that is then handcrafted by Italian artisans into stylish leashes and collars.

The process uses no harmful chemicals, less water than traditional pet product manufacturing and is carbon-neutral. Project Blu also works with a tree-planting organization in Africa to help counteract any carbon emissions from transportation. Most of the plastic used for Planet Blu’s products is collected in the Maharashtra state in India, one of the world’s countries that is most impacted by plastic pollution.

Project Blu recently partnered with Mars Petcare, a globally-recognized pet health and nutrition manufacturer with a $200,000 investment to help jump-start the business. The startup has already delivered more than 80,000 products to international distributors and was voted “Best New Product” at the PATS exhibition, U.K.’s popular pet industry event.

+ Project Blu

Images via Project Blu

from INHABITAT https://ift.tt/2UxkFz6
via Inhabitat

Sperry introduces shoes made with ocean plastic

Undoubtedly, one of the world’s most pressing issues is the massive amount of plastic waste that is clogging our oceans and waterways on a daily basis. Thankfully, some companies are converting this ocean plastic into useful products for the everyday consumer. Already well-known for its attractive boat shoes, American footwear company Sperry has just launched Bionic, a new type of eco-friendly boat shoe that is made with textiles spun from ocean plastic.

Dating back to 1935, Sperry is an American shoe line that specializes in stylish and durable boat shoes. Its shoes are beloved by professional and amateur sailors, who also have a front-row seat to the shocking amount of plastic waste that is suffocating our planet’s water systems.

Related: New line of men’s swimwear is made from recycled ocean plastic

Working under its motto of “Look Good. Do Good.”, the footwear company has just unveiled a new line of eco-friendly boat shoes that are made out of recycled plastic waste. Working in collaboration with the teams from Water Keeper Alliance and Bionic Yarn, Sperry created the new Bionics collection, which features various boat shoes that are made with fabric spun from recycled plastic bottles.

Once the plastic waste is collected from marine and coastal environments, it is then sent to be turned into eco-friendly yarn and fabric. Each shoe has the same rugged structure as Sperry’s regular collections, but the Bionic boat shoes feature that eco-friendly twist. In fact, according to Sperry’s calculations, each pair of shoes is made out of the equivalent of five recycled plastic bottles.

Each item in the collection varies in cost, ranging from $30 to $100 per pair, with a range of styles and colors to choose from for both adults and children.

+ Sperry

Images via Sperry

from INHABITAT https://ift.tt/33Q9WT9
via Inhabitat

MVRDV designs a sustainable urban living room for Shenzhen

Dutch architecture firm MVRDV has unveiled its competition-winning designs for the Shimao ShenKong International Centre, a new “three-dimensional urban living room” for the heart of Shenzhen’s Longgang district. Selected from nearly 30 competition entries, the winning proposal, also known as the Shenzhen Terraces, will introduce over 20 programs to a thriving university neighborhood. The project also focuses on sustainability and will integrate passive design principles, native landscaping, recycled materials and solar panels. 

Named after its architecture of stacked plateaus, the Shenzhen Terraces project references forms of the nearby mountains while its predominately horizontal lines and curvaceous shapes provide a visual contrast with the vertical lines and hard edges of the surrounding high-rises. The terraced design also creates opportunities for large overhangs to mitigate solar gain as well as spacious terraces filled with plants and water basins for cooling microclimates. Bridge elements link various buildings to create a continuous elevated route. 

Related: ZHA unveils LEED Gold-targeted OPPO headquarters in Shenzhen

“Shenzhen has developed so quickly since its origins in the 1970s,” said Winy Maas, founding partner of MVRDV. “In cities like this, it is essential to carefully consider how public spaces and natural landscape can be integrated into the densifying cityscape. The urban living room of the Shimao ShenKong International Centre will be a wonderful example of this, and could become a model for the creation of key public spaces in New Town developments throughout Shenzhen. It aims to make an area that you want be outside, hang out and meet, even when it is hot — a literally cool space for the university district, where all communication space can be outside. It will truly be a public building.”

As a sustainable hub, the 101,300-square-meter Shenzhen Terraces will be home to a pedestrian-friendly landscape, a bus terminal and a mixture of functions — such as an art gallery, library, conference center and outdoor theater — conveniently placed near high-rise housing, commercial complexes and educational facilities. The landscaping, designed in collaboration with Openfabric, will mimic the curvaceous architecture and will feature native sub-tropical plants and recreation zones. 

+ MVRDV

Images by Atchain via MVRDV

from INHABITAT https://ift.tt/39pm9zk
via Inhabitat

Everloops sustainable toothbrush comes with replaceable bamboo bristles

Mexico City-based NOS has come out with a design to address one of the many causes of plastic pollution that consumers tend to overlook: toothbrushes. The company’s Everloop toothbrush combines a reusable, recycled plastic handle with replaceable bristles made from compostable bamboo.

The sheer number of plastic toothbrushes that end up in landfills every year is a much larger problem than most people realize. Most dentists, as well as the American Dental Association (ADA), recommend replacing toothbrushes every three or four months or whenever the bristles begin to fray. Seeing as there are over 300 million people living in the United States, that means there are about 1 billion plastic toothbrushes tossed into the garbage every year in this country alone.

Related: Tooth — the eco-friendly toothbrush made from recycled and biodegradable materials

The plastic handles on typical toothbrushes are regularly found during beach cleanups, and the tiny nylon bristles have the potential to contribute to microplastics in the ocean. Some modern designs aim to take the plastic out of disposable toothbrushes and replace it with bamboo handles. This is a step in the right direction, but it still leaves the issue of regular pollution every three months when it’s time to replace the toothbrush, especially considering many bamboo toothbrushes still have nylon bristles.

NOS aims to stop this endless toothbrush pollution with its unique redesign of the bristle component. The head and base of the Everloop toothbrush is made of recycled plastic from other discarded toothbrushes, with a clipping mechanism that easily opens and closes to replace the bristles (made entirely out of natural bamboo) when it’s time to change them. The disposed bamboo bristles are 100% compostable.

Each toothbrush comes with a set of eight bamboo bristles to be replaced every three months, enough for at least two years. Even the packaging, made from thermoformed paper pulp, can be safely composted.

+ NOS

Images via NOS

from INHABITAT https://ift.tt/3anuTay
via Inhabitat

Open-source CURA to turn shipping containers into emergency COVID-19 units

Hospitals overwhelmed by the COVID-19 pandemic could find a much-needed capacity lifeline in retrofitted shipping containers. An international task force, comprised of designers, engineers, medical professionals and military experts, has unveiled designs to convert shipping containers into plug-in Intensive-Care Pods as part of an open-source design dubbed CURA (Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments). The first CURA biocontainment pod prototype is currently being built in Milan, Italy.

Designed by Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) in collaboration with an interdisciplinary group of professionals, CURA was developed with an open-source, non-profit framework with the support of the World Economic Forum. For quick deployment, the plug-in units will be repurposed from 20-foot-long shipping containers that can be easily transported anywhere around the world using existing transportation infrastructure. According to the designers, CURA “could be as fast to mount as a hospital tent, but as safe as an isolation ward, thanks to biocontainment with negative pressure” created from an extractor that complies with the standards of Airborne Infection Isolation Rooms (AIIRs). 

Related: Air pollution could make COVID-19 more dangerous

Cargotecture also offers the benefit of modularity. Individual pods work autonomously but can also be joined together with inflatable structures to create multiple configurations ranging from four beds to over 40 beds. The flexible design allows pods to be installed in close proximity to the hospitals in areas such as parking lots or as standalone, makeshift emergency hospitals in open fields and town squares.

As a ready-to-use solution, each CURA pod is equipped with all the medical equipment needed for two COVID-19 intensive-care patients — including ventilators and intravenous fluid strands — before deployment. The first CURA prototype is currently being built for testing at a Milan hospital. The open-source project is sponsored by European Bank UniCredit and invites suggestions and improvements on CURApods.org.

+ Carlo Ratti Associati

Images via Carlo Ratti Associati

from INHABITAT https://ift.tt/2y2J1Yv
via Inhabitat

Floating ICEBERG creatively confronts global warming

In summer 2019, a surprising sight popped up on a New Hampshire lake — ICEBERG, a floating, iceberg-shaped pavilion made of locally sourced wood and recycled plastic. Created to raise awareness on the issue of polar ice melt, the temporary installation was the work of Bulot+Collins, an international architecture firm that guided over a hundred Beam Campers to build the project on-site. The environmental installation also doubled as a play space with a resting area for sunbathing and a staircase that leads to a diving platform. 

ICEBERG was designed and built for Beam Camp, a summer camp in Strafford, New Hampshire that teaches campers hands-on skills and creative thinking through large-scale collaborative projects selected through an annual worldwide design competition. In 2019, Bulot+Collins’ ICEBERG project was chosen and built in three weeks by 104 campers between the ages of 10 to 17. 

Located in the middle of Willy Pond, the 700-square-foot ICEBERG pavilion features a slanted wood frame buoyed by a series of empty barrels. The structure is covered in locally sourced plywood panels clad in recycled HDPE tiles manufactured on-site by the campers with a process exclusively developed by the architects for the project. Recycled plastic was melted and molded into triangular shapes and then covered in a mix of resin and thermochromic paint to simulate the appearance of a melting iceberg: the hundreds of tiles turn from different shades of blue in the cold to a polar white in the heat. 

Related: ICEBERGS immerse visitors in a beautiful underwater world in Washington, D.C.

In addition to its striking visual appearance, ICEBERG served as a play space with a sunbathing area and a 10-foot-tall diving platform. “As architects accustomed to working in an environment where the designer, the client and the users are often three distinct parties, we were stimulated to have the future users play an active role in the building process of the project,” note the architects. “This blurring of boundaries familiarized campers with the subtle implications of building a space, and allowed them to evolve in a structure that they constructed with their own hands.”

+ Bulot+Collins

Images via Bulot+Collins

from INHABITAT https://ift.tt/33NK2iS
via Inhabitat

Stunning home on Spanish island built partially underground

Formentera-based Marià Castelló Architecture has become known for creating incredible homes that deftly combine contemporary design with nature-based inspiration. The firm’s latest project is the Bosc d’en Pep Ferrer, a family home that was partially built deep underground into the rocky terrain to use the landscape as natural insulation to reduce its energy usage.

Local architects have used the natural beauty of Spain’s Balearic islands as inspiration in their home designs for years. In addition to the spectacular scenery, the island’s Mediterranean climate allows designers to use several passive features to create energy-efficient buildings that blend into the natural landscape.

Related: This earth-sheltered Australian hobbit home stays cozy all year

Located in the beach town of Migjorn, the Bosc d’en Pep Ferrer was built on a rocky landscape overlooking the expansive coastal views. Although the terrain would be normally considered a challenge for any type of construction, the team from Marià Castelló Architects used the rocky topography to their advantage, “burying” part of the home deep underground.

The underground floor of the home was created by digging an elongated cavity reminiscent of a stone quarry. The shape of the tunneled space is horizontal, which was strategic in providing a base to create several transversal walkways and hovering patios on the upper floors of the design. Walking up from the underground level, the home design features several indoor/outdoor spaces lined by natural rock as the main walkway leads up to the home’s main courtyard.

The upper levels of the home, which sit perpendicular to its underground base, are comprised of three light modules in cubical volumes. These bright white cubes with large glass facades give the home an undeniable contemporary feel, but once inside the light-filled space, an array of natural features speak to the home’s incredible setting.

Throughout the open-plan living space, there are walls of sculpted rock, locally-sourced limestone, pine and fir wooden elements, recycled cotton panels and several more natural materials. Even the rocky gravel was saved from the excavation process to be repurposed into the outdoor spaces around the home.

Using the landscape also allowed the home’s design to take advantage of several bioclimatic passive systems that not only insulate the home, but add substantially to its energy efficiency. Additionally, the Bosc d’en Pep Ferrer is equipped with an integral rainwater collection system that reroutes, collects and filters rainwater for reuse.

from INHABITAT https://ift.tt/2UOzyfp
via Inhabitat