The recycling technology being embraced by manufacturers

More and more of us are recycling our waste at home in a bid to save resources - but could manufacturers do more themselves, by using recycled products as their raw materials in the first place?

First up, a recycling bicycle, or 'The Ingenio', as its creator, Victor Monserrate calls it. The Puerto Rican design student at London's Royal College of Art has created a customised bicycle that turns discarded plastic containers into a plastic thread. This is more valuable to the people who scour scrap yards in developing countries, because it can be sold on to craftsmen to make objects like chairs and baskets. He hopes NGOs will help him to roll out the device.

When he found out that carpet producers waste about 7% of the wool they use, New Zealander Dan Mclaughlin was inspired to create something new with it: he calls it 'BioWool'. It is a polymer created by combining waste wool with a bioresin. With funding from the James Dyson Foundation, he has begun work on putting this into production, with a range of applications possible.

Finally, Rob McDougall of Italian lighting manufacturers Artemide showed off his company's collaboration with Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake and his Reality Lab. Together they have created a range of lights called 'IN-EI'. The fabric of the lights looks like paper, and the lights themselves appear constructed like origami - but they are in fact made from recycled plastic bottles.

Video Journalist: Dougal Shaw

From BBC magazine

Australia's Great Barrier Reef in 'poor' health

Australia's Great Barrier Reef is in trouble according to the country's government.

It says the conditions are 'poor' and that extreme events in recent years, such as cyclones and flooding, and the effects of climate change are to blame.

Scientists also say chemicals, used in farming, which find their way into the water have also had a big impact.

Poor water quality is bad news for the fish and sea creatures that live in this the world's largest coral reef.

But wildlife charity WWF say the reef can get back on the right track if the Australian government does more.

"Solutions do exist," said WWF's Nick Heath, "...we just need more investment, more targeted action in the most dangerous pollution hotspots."

The Australian government has already tried to improve conditions in the reef, but hasn't achieved as much as it had wanted to.

The 2013 scientific consensus statement, released at the same time as the report card, concluded that coral cover of inshore reefs had declined by 34% since 2005. ( From CBBC News)

Extreme weather conditions have been largely blamed for the Great Barrier Reef's poor health in 2011. Photograph: Grant V. Faint/Getty Images

The new environment minister Mark Butler said: "In spite of solid improvement, data tells us that poor water quality is continuing to have a detrimental effect on reef health.

"To secure the resilience of the Great Barrier Reef it is critical that we build on the momentum of the previous reef plan with a focus on improving water quality and land management practices through ambitious but achievable targets."

The federal and Queensland state environment ministers announced that they would invest a total of $375 million between 2013 and 2018 under a new Reef Water Quality Protection Plan, designed "to guide initiatives to ensure that runoff from agriculture has no detrimental impact on the health and resilience of the Great Barrier Reef".

The Queensland minister for environment, Andrew Powell, praised those landholders in the region who were improving their practise. "We are working closely with industry, landholders, natural resource management bodies and community groups to accelerate the uptake of practices that maximise reef water quality while maintaining and enhancing profitability and environmental performance," he said.

But Greenpeace spokeswoman Georgina Woods was critical of the bi-annual meeting between the two ministers. She said neither minister had engaged with the key issue of coal export and mining within the region, particularly at a controversial new dredging proposal at the Abbot Point coal terminal.

"One day after the new environment and climate change minister deferred a crucial decision on the future of Abbot Point, the Great Barrier Reef Ministerial Forum has failed to tackle the problems that every Australian knows are eating away at the Great Barrier Reef: global warming and ocean acidification. Hopefully, today's missed opportunity is just a dress rehearsal for the main event in August, when the new minister will be called upon to choose between safeguarding the Great Barrier Reef and letting the coal industry dredge, dump and develop Abbot Point.

"It is pretty clear that the Queensland government is not going to stand up to the coal industry and protect the reef in the interests of the broader community and future generations. Mark Butler now has 30 ays to make a decision about Abbot Point. To safeguard the Reef and fulfill his climate change brief, he has no choice: he must say 'no' to the coal industry," Woods added. (From the guardian)          

World's largest offshore windfarm opens in Thames estuary

The London Array, the world's largest off shore wind farm in the

Thames Estuary off the coast of the UK.

With enough capacity to power two-thirds of the homes in Kent, the set of 175 turbines rising out of the Thames estuary officially became the largest offshore windfarm in the world on Thursday.

David Cameron was on hand to cut the ribbon on the London Array, a massive renewable energy project, in a move that industry sources hoped would herald renewed enthusiasm from the government for renewable power after the animosity to windfarms on the Tory backbenches.

"This is a great day for Britain and a big win for renewable energy," Cameron said at the opening ceremony. "London Array shows you can build large-scale renewable energy projects right here in Britain. This is because when it comes to clean energy, the UK has one of the clearest investment climates globally."

The project is owned by Denmark's Dong Energy, Germany's E.On and Masdar, of Abu Dhabi. Its 630MW capacity, enough to power 470,000 homes, has been fully operational since April, but on Thursday it was officially opened, by the prime minister alongside the climate change minister, Greg Barker. The consortium predicts that the windfarm will save 925,000 tonnes of CO2 a year.

"Such a strong signal from the very top of our political establishment will help to put an end to the siren calls from the naysayers who have failed to appreciate the scale of the opportunity Britain has here," said the RenewableUK chief executive, Maria McCaffery, in a statement. "We need to maintain our pole position in offshore wind energy to reap the full economic and environmental benefits."

The London Array has taken the crown of the world's largest offshore windfarm from the 500MW Greater Gabbard project off the East Anglian coast. The UK currently has more than 3.6GW of offshore wind powercapacity, but is expected to have around 18GW by the end of the decade.

The news was welcomed by Greenpeace's executive director, John Sauven, who said the London Array demonstrated the UK's ability to deliver large-scale renewable energy projects.

From The Guardian