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Heat Pump Clothes Dryers: Low-Impact Laundry
CategoriesSustainable News Zero Energy Homes

Heat Pump Clothes Dryers: Low-Impact Laundry

By Zarkon Group,

If you’re interested in shaving off perhaps 10% of your household energy use (and your electric bill) with a single purchase, it’s time to look into heat pump clothes dryers. “An electric dryer can use anywhere from 700 to 1000 kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. That’s about a tenth of the average American’s electricity usage,” said Joe Wachunas, electrification advocate for Electrify Now and Project Manager at New Buildings Institute. “You can cut that by 75% or more using heat pump dryers.”

With options on the market that use as little as 200 kWh of energy in a year, it’s not hard to see why their market share is increasing. “Heat pump technology is critical here in America, especially,” Wachunas says. “And heat pump dryers are an exciting, relatively new technology.”

Traditional vented dryers

Vented dryers can be either gas or electric, and they require venting to the outside of the home through ducts. A heating element heats the air in the drum, evaporating the moisture from clothes. Then as the dryer runs, the hot, moist air is vented outside and replaced with air pulled in from your laundry room, basement, or wherever it’s located. This influx of fresh air must be heated to continue drying the clothes.

Ga-Young Park,  Residential Appliances Manager at ENERGY STAR, pointed out another inefficiency. “Because vented dryers pull in cooled or heated air from your home and vent it outdoors, your air conditioner or heater has to work even harder to maintain the indoor temperature.” Also, vented dryer drums get very hot during operation, which—aside from the fire risk—can overdry clothes and potentially damage fabrics.

Heat pump clothes dryers

Electric-powered heat pump dryers (aka ventless or condensation dryers) dry clothes without using a heating element or vent. Instead, heat pump technology pulls air into a condenser, heats it, and sends it into the drum, where it absorbs moisture from the wet clothes. Then, the air cycles to an evaporator, where it’s cooled. As the air gets colder, it loses moisture, which is either drained or collected in a removable tray.

That same air is then pulled from the evaporator into the condenser to be reheated while it’s still warm. In other words, heat pump dryers recycle warm air instead of venting it to the outdoors. Not having to heat fresh, cold air leads to big energy savings. Park added, “Heat pump models dry laundry at lower temperatures, which is much gentler on clothes. And unlike vented dryers, there’s basically no fire risk.”

Hybrid heat pump dryers

Hybrid heat pump dryers combine the heat pump cycle with the heating element of a vented dryer. This pairing helps the dryer drum get hotter, so clothes dry faster. Hybrid heat pump dryers are much more efficient than vented dryers, but because of the heating element, they’re less efficient than pure heat pump dryers.

Bosch heat pump dryer in butler's pantry setting; white tile and gray cabinets

Bosch WTG86403UC 300 Series 24 Inch Smart Electric Dryer, ventless. Images courtesy Amazon.

Size, price, and dry time

“People often think heat pump dryers take way longer to dry clothes because they use lower temperatures,” said Park. In reality, heat pump models can have dry times comparable to many vented dryers on the market today. All models with the ENERGY STAR label meet an 80 minute maximum dry time for a “typical” cycle, and some newer models demonstrate dry times as low as 50 to 35 minutes.

Historically, heat pump dryers have been compact in size, smaller than typical US household dyers. Things are changing, though. Park reported only ten options for standard-size dryers with heat pump technology, but expects that more standard-size heat pump dryers will continue to come on the market, particularly as hybrid models become more available.

Heat pump dryers are definitely more expensive than traditional vented dryers, but more and more, utility-sponsored rebates are available to offset the cost differential. Owners may also save on installation. Heat pump dryers do not require venting ductwork, which makes them simpler and less expensive to install. Homeowners can install the dryers nearly anywhere, provided the condensed water is allowed to collect or drain along with the washer.

Of course, you’ll also see major savings on your monthly energy bill.

Finally, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will provide additional rebates and tax credits for homeowners looking to make energy-efficient home upgrades. (This savings calculator can help you estimate how much money you can save on a heat pump dryer through the IRA.)

Note: European households use an average of 3,700 kWh of electricity each year, just a third of what Americans use. Not coincidentally, while most of the world saves big money and energy by hanging clothes outside to dry, the practice is restricted or completely banned by many communities across the United States!

ENERGY STAR’s 5 Most Efficient Dryers

ENERGY STAR, run by the US Environmental Protection Agency, has overseen testing and labeling of quality, energy-efficient products for more than 30 years. The blue ENERGY STAR label signifies brands and models that are leaders in energy efficiency.

ENERGY STAR ranks dryers based on their Combined Energy Factor (CEF), a measure of energy efficiency. The higher a dryer’s CEF, the more energy efficient it is.

ENERGY STAR’s five most energy-efficient clothes dryers (unpaired units) are all heat pump dryers (as of January 1, 2024).

Blomberg – DHP24404W 

  • Combined Energy Factor (CEF): 11.0
  • Estimated Annual Energy Use: 217 kWh/yr
  • Estimated Energy Test Cycle Time: 67 minutes
  • Additional Features: Sanitization cycle, Filter cleaning indicator, Steam cycle, Drum light, Time remaining display

Beko – HPD24414W 

  • Combined Energy Factor (CEF): 11.0
  • Estimated Annual Energy Use: 217 kWh/yr
  • Estimated Energy Test Cycle Time: 67 minutes
  • Additional Features: Sanitization cycle, Filter cleaning indicator, Steam cycle, Drum light, Time remaining display

Miele – PDR908 HP

  • Combined Energy Factor (CEF): 9.75
  • Estimated Annual Energy Use: 245 kWh/yr
  • Estimated Energy Test Cycle Time: 53 minutes
  • Additional features: Filter cleaning indicator, Drum light, Wrinkle prevention option, Time remaining display

Asko – T411HS.W.U

  • Combined Energy Factor (CEF): 9.1
  • Estimated Annual Energy Use: 263 kWh/yr
  • Estimated Energy Test Cycle Time: 80 minutes
  • Additional features: Filter cleaning indicator, Drum light, Wrinkle prevention option, Time remaining display

LG – DLHC5502*

  • Combined Energy Factor (CEF): 9.0
  • Estimated Annual Energy Use: 266 kWh/yr
  • Estimated Energy Test Cycle Time: 68 minutes
  • Additional features: Wrinkle prevention option, time remaining display, drum capacity 7.8 cu-ft

This article springs from Electrify Now’s webinar on Heat Pump Dryers. Their followup, Heat Pump Dryers – Update on Brands and Options, compares units from Bosch, Miele, GE, and LG:

The author:

Catherine Poslusny is a freelance writer and content marketing specialist based out of Norman, OK. You can find her at catherinerosewrites.com.

Reference

Food-waste dyes bring colour to mycelium leather by Sages and Osmose
CategoriesSustainable News

Food-waste dyes bring colour to mycelium leather by Sages and Osmose

By Zarkon Group,

Two British materials companies, Sages and Osmose, have collaborated to dye sheets of mycelium with natural food waste, mimicking the appearance of tanned leather and suggesting a colourful future for the biomaterial.

Osmose is a company making a leather alternative from mycelium – the fibrous underground root network of mushrooms – while Sages makes natural dyes from food waste such as avocado pits, blueberries, red cabbages and onion skins, which are normally applied to textiles.

The two believe they’ve achieved a world first with their collaboration, combining two emerging areas of sustainable material development to colour mycelium without resorting to petroleum-based synthetic dyes, thereby keeping the product non-toxic and able to biodegrade safely in soil.

A small square piece of leather-like material, in a mottled hue of caramel brown A small square piece of leather-like material, in a mottled hue of caramel brown
Sages and Osmose have developed a natural dying process for mycelium leather

“There are lots of different types of vegan leather alternatives to traditional leather but the majority of them use either synthetic colourations or they use plasticisers, so they’re non-biodegradable,” said Sages CEO Emily Taylor.

“We wanted to explore an option where we could have a fully biodegradable leather that has also been coloured in a biodegradable and sustainable manner,” she continued.

Companies that prioritise biodegradability have offered mycelium in its natural shades of white and brown or black, which Osmose CEO Aurelie Fontan says is much easier to achieve naturally.

“I think the challenge for mycelium leather was that the offering just wasn’t there in terms of aesthetic,” she said. “When you’re presenting for brands and you’re like ‘we can only do brown’, it’s a little bit boring for them.”

Photo of swatches of mycelium dyed in different shades of tan, pale violet and mulberryPhoto of swatches of mycelium dyed in different shades of tan, pale violet and mulberry
The companies experimented with different food wastes in the dyeing process

“The colour sector is somewhere where you can develop your USP, essentially, which is why working with Sages is so interesting,” Fontan added.

Osmose and Sages have created tan-coloured mycelium sheets using avocado waste, which Sages sources from an importer and guacamole factory in Milton Keynes, where tens of tonnes of leftover pits and skins are produced each week.

It was a new area for both companies, as the food waste dye takes differently to mycelium leather than it does to the usually cellulose-based textiles that Sages has worked with.

The duo collaborated with materials science researchers at the UK’s Cranfield University on the project, for which the researchers focused on how to transfer and fix the dye to the material using “green chemistry” – an area of chemistry that aims to cut out hazardous substances.

In this case, the researchers sought to replace the formic acid and fluorinated acids that are often used in tanning to dissolve the polymers of the leather so it can be infused with dye. Instead, the team developed a method, which they say is significantly less toxic.

After working with Cranfield University, Sages and Osmose expanded the experiment and trialled other waste streams such as blueberries and onion skins to see what colours they could get, producing mycelium swatches in shades of violet and bordeaux.

Taylor and Fontan say they are trying to develop a process for mycelium that is akin to leather tanning, where both colour and durability properties are added in one or two steps. Their equivalent, they say, would be to dye and waterproof the material at the same time.

Close-up of vegan mycelium sheet showing its similarity to the texture of tanned leatherClose-up of vegan mycelium sheet showing its similarity to the texture of tanned leather
The tan colour was created by using waste avocado pits and skins

Osmose’s focus now is on developing a waterproof coating for their mycelium that, like the dye, is bio-based, non-toxic and able to biodegrade safely in soil. This is notoriously a challenge for plant-based leather alternatives, which almost always rely on a protective synthetic coating.

“It’s really hard to design a solution that fits all materials, which is basically what everyone is struggling with,” said Fontan. “Someone might have pineapple leather and they have their own coating but it doesn’t mean it’s going to work on mushroom and so on.”

Unlike some companies, however, Osmose says it does not want to bring a product with a non-biodegradable coating to market.

“If you’re doing a composite, it will not biodegrade at the end of life, which is compromising all the good work that you’ve been doing before that step,” Fontan said.

Mycelium is one of the most popular emerging leather alternatives. It has already appeared in luxury goods such as a bag by Hermes, clothing by Stella McCartney and trainers by Adidas.

Reference

Is AI the secret ingredient for tastier alt meat?
CategoriesSustainable News

Is AI the secret ingredient for tastier alt meat?

By Zarkon Group,

Using AI for tastier plant-based meat

Spotted: Despite a well-publicised difficult year in 2023, plant-based meat is on the rise, with the global market forecast to reach revenues of $24.8 billion by 2030. But while the long-term drivers for plant-based meat look promising, many in the industry feel that the ‘mouthfeel’ of the products available today is holding the market back, as is the high cost of production.

Now, Israeli non-profit GreenProtein AI hopes to tackle both problems at once by consolidating the knowledge of alternative protein innovators to help companies find the perfect ‘extrusion’ settings for meat-like plant-based protein.

In the context of plant-based meat, extrusion is the process through which various protein sources are converted into an output that has the sinuous texture of meat. Today, the process is unpredictable due to the number of parameters involved, and optimising outcomes through trial and error is expensive, particularly for smaller companies. GreenProtein’s artificial intelligence (AI), could prove a game-changer in making the process more efficient and predictable.

Key to the organisation’s approach is the collation of a diverse dataset from across the entire industry through the pooling of insights from individual manufacturers and facilities. All this data feeds GreenProtein’s algorithm, enabling it to simulate the texture produced by different combinations of ingredients and parameters, identifying the optimal approach. The AI can also help minimise production waste and energy consumption, leading to more sustainable manufacturing and reduced production costs.

GreenProtein works through collaborations with plant-based meat manufacturers, laboratories, extrusion facilities, and manufacturers of extrusion equipment, all of whom stand to benefit from unique insights and the maturation of the market as a whole.

Plant-based proteins are an important part of the puzzle for providing sufficient protein to a growing world population, and Springwise’s library contains several examples of innovations seeking to make them more affordable and delicious. This includes a company that is ‘spinning’ protein fibres like textile threads, and a company eliminating inefficiencies in plant protein production.

Written By: Keely Khoury and Matthew Hempstead

The post Is AI the secret ingredient for tastier alt meat? appeared first on Springwise.

Reference

We Are the Rare, Repeat Heat Pump Water Heater Customers
CategoriesSustainable News Zero Energy Homes

We Are the Rare, Repeat Heat Pump Water Heater Customers

By Zarkon Group,

The word is now out, and sales of heat pump water heaters (HPWHs) are taking off. New rebates, mandates, and tax credits will likely drive sales through the roof by the end of this decade. Heat pump water heaters use a fraction of the energy of legacy technologies, with great performance, which means lower utility bills along with reduced carbon emissions. We’ve embraced the technology on our journey to electrify two different properties, and we were among the first in the US to buy and install a 120V plug-in heat pump water heater at our family home in Ohio.

Why do we sing their praises?

Cost!

The heat pump water heater is among the most affordable climate-saving technologies available. While solar panels and electric cars are vital tools for climate warriors, a heat pump water heater saves the energy equivalent of seven solar panels while costing only one-sixth the price. They run approximately $1600 for the appliance, plus $1000 to $3000 for installation, depending on the fuel your current water heater uses. This cost is higher than traditional gas or electric-resistance water heaters, but many utilities offer rebates to bring down the price. And then add the 30% tax credit from the Inflation Reduction Act, if the property is your primary residence.

If your current water heater is gas, you may need to run a 240V electrical line, unless you get a new 120V plug-in model (for more info on this option, read about our fourth install below). If your current water heater is electric-resistance, it should already have a 240V line running to it, likely allowing a simple swap.

Efficiency

Hot water accounts for a substantial share of energy use in buildings—17% in single family homes and up to 32% in multi-family—hundreds of dollars a year. Heat pumps move heat rather than create it. So heat pump water heaters are three to five times more efficient than standard water heaters. They look just like a legacy water heater, but a bit taller because the heat pump sits on top of the water tank.

They cost very little to operate: $100 to $150 a year for a family of four, saving $550 compared to an electric resistance water heater and $200 less than a gas water heater. A new heat pump water heater can pay for its higher upfront cost in just a few years. And then it’s saving you money each year after that.

Graphical image depicting carbon savings of heat pump water heater; text reads "A heat pump water heater saves 1 ton of CO2 per year. That's like planting 17 trees"; imagery includes trees and water heater plus logo of Advanced Water Heating Initiative

Source: Advanced Water Heating Initiative.

Carbon

Sure heat pump water heaters are super energy efficient, but they also run on electricity, which means they can use renewable electricity. Replacing a single gas water heater with a heat pump unit will save around 1 ton of CO2 annually.

And the word is out. While heat pump water heaters currently account for only less than 2% of new water heater sales, they jumped 26% in 2022 as sales of natural gas water heaters fell. Heat pump water heaters could increase to half of all water heater sales by 2030.

Propelling electrification

Electricity is the only widely-available, scalable fuel option that is quickly decarbonizing. So reducing climate change involves converting everything to highly efficient, clean electricity. A common critique of the electrification movement is that the electrical grid can’t handle the additional loads to replace fossil fuels used in buildings and transportation. Enter heat pumps. Widespread deployment of heat pumps in HVAC and hot water production will save tremendous energy: enough to power new electrical loads, like electric cars (EVs), on the existing grid.

Graphic showing electricity required for home EV charging can be net-zero due to energy saved by installing heat pump water heater

Heat pump water heaters (HPWH) will likely save nearly all the electricity a household needs to operate an EV.

As Americans transition to EVs over the next decade, heat pump water heaters alone will likely save nearly all the electricity that a household needs to operate an EV. This statistic shows how much energy we currently waste in heating our water. And this EV electrical load is replacing carbon-intensive gasoline and diesel fuels.

About half of the US currently has electric resistance water heaters, so as those homes switch to heat pump water heaters, we won’t have to worry about finding more electricity for EVs. Their utility bills will likely stay constant, saving them all the money they currently spend at the gas pump.

The other half of homes heats water with fossil fuels, so we will need to find added clean electricity for those water heaters and vehicles. (But transitioning electric-resistance space heaters and clothes dryers to heat pump units produces savings similar to switching out water heaters.) Most heat pump water heaters run on 240V (the same as conventional electric water heaters and dryers), but if your old water heater runs on gas, you may have to install a new power line from the panel. But a 120V plug-in model is the newest option. If your current water heater is electric, it will likely be an easy swap: no need for an electrical panel upgrade or service upsize from the utility.

heat pump water heater installed in residential closet surrounded by various tools and clothing items - photo

2017: HPWH replacing an aging water heater

Our old gas water heater was nearing its end of life, and Joe was excited about the technological advance of heat pumps for water heating. Though we still had questions about installation and performance.

It’s easiest to install a heat pump water heater in a basement or garage, because they exhaust cool air. But our heat pump water heater resides in a coat closet in the middle of our living space, venting into the attic. There it draws the warmest air in our house and exhausts to an unconditioned space. (Note that there are lots of options for locating heat pump water heaters in living spaces without ducting.)

Of course there were no local installers familiar with heat pumps back then, but after watching YouTube, Joe felt OK working with a trusted handyman. Even though it was a gas conversion, an existing 240V electrical line made things much easier. Ever since, this unit has consistently provided our family plus an Airbnb with plentiful hot water.

2019: HPWH replacing a functioning gas hot water heater

We did not get the full life out of the existing gas hot water heater in the accessory dwelling unit on our property. We chose to replace a perfectly good appliance (only 7 years old) with a heat pump water heater powered by clean solar energy. Our goal was to eliminate fossil fuels from our home. We used the same attic-ducting technique as the water heater in the main house, locating the unit in a closet. This mighty unit provides plenty of hot water for the tenant and runs the radiant floor heating system as well. (We don’t recommend heat pump water heaters for floor heating, as it is not a proven or scalable application.)

2020: HPWH replacing a decrepit gas water heater

During COVID, we undertook an interiors and sustainability renovation of a duplex in Cleveland, OH, that has been in our family for 75 years. In transitioning to all-electric, we replaced an almost 30-year-old basement water heater with our favorite heat pump. In addition to reducing our energy bill by $200 a year, it provides great dehumidification: about 2–4 quarts of water per day. If you currently run one or more dehumidifiers in your damp, Midwestern basement, you may save hundreds more.

The plumber added a new 240V power line, and ran the condensate tube to the floor drain. The basement maintains about 60 °F all winter, and we’ve never needed to engage the less-efficient backup electric-resistance heating elements.

Plumber works to install 120 V heat pump water heater - photo

2023: The new 120V heat pump water heater

This past summer, we replaced the other 30-year-old gas water heater in the basement of the Cleveland duplex. This just-arrived-on-the-market 120V unit eliminated the need to run 240V power from the panel. As heat pump enthusiasts, we were excited to test the latest tech. Perhaps the most difficult step was placing the custom order with Home Depot. Though now it’s readily available!

The installation was the easiest part. It took the plumber (who had never heard of a heat pump water heater) only 2.5 hours to complete the job, about the same as a standard gas water heater. The 120V heat pump water heater plugs right into a standard outlet. But he did have to run the condensate tube into the floor drain nearby and cap the gas line.

The 120V unit has been humming along for months—it’s very quiet—using a mere 65 kWh in the first month of operation. We monitor its performance through the manufacturer’s app, so we know it remains ridiculously efficient and almost always completely full of hot water. At a total of $3,258 installed and estimated savings of $208 a year. The 120V  models usually eliminate the backup electric-resistance heating elements by using a larger tank with more hot water stored, or by storing water at higher temperatures and then mixing in cold water to avoid scalding. Our 120V unit uses the latter strategy; see it in action.

If this were our primary residence, we might have taken advantage of the 30% tax credits for heat pump water heaters, lowering our cost to $2,281. That comes so close to the $2,000 average installed cost of a standard gas or electric water heater. And you’re still saving hundreds of dollars a year on energy costs. This proves that almost any of the 60 million US homes with a gas water heaters can easily and cheaply move towards a cleaner, decarbonized home that is less expensive to operate.

We’re big fans of making a long-term decarbonization plan, so you’re not rushing to replace broken equipment and being forced to install new circuit breakers or even a new panel or expensive electrical service upgrade. So before checking the cost of a heat pump water heater, understand your home’s installation requirements and identify a contractor or two. Then when the time, and rebates and tax credits, are right, you’re ready to switch. Because they save so much on utility bills, proactively replacing a functioning, but inefficient, water heater with a heat pump water heater may make sense—for the sake of our changing climate.

Decarbonize your life logo

This article springs from several posts by Naomi Cole and Joe Wachunas, first published in CleanTechnica. Their “Decarbonize Your Life” series shares their experience, lessons learned, and recommendations for how to reduce household emissions.

The authors:

Joe Wachunas and Naomi Cole both work professionally to address climate change—Naomi in urban sustainability and energy efficiency and Joe in the electrification of buildings and transportation. A passion for debarbonization, and their commitment to walk the walk, has led them to ductless heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, induction cooking, solar in multiple forms, hang-drying laundry (including cloth diapers), no cars to electric cars and charging without a garage or driveway, a reforestation grant from the US Department of Agriculture, and more. They live in Portland, OR, with two young children.

 

Reference

Tech scales up reforestation in the wake of wildfires
CategoriesSustainable News

Tech scales up reforestation in the wake of wildfires

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: In the US, approximately seven million acres of land are burned by wildfires each year, and global warming is increasing the risk of very large fires. At the same time, not enough resources are being allocated to reforesting the areas that are lost to the flames, and there is an overall lack of seeds, nursery capacity, planting capacity, and funding. Mast Reforestation is tackling all of these issues with a first-of-its-kind innovation in carbon financing.

Woolsey McKernon, who is the Chief Revenue Officer and Head of Capital Markets at Mast Reforestation, explained to Springwise that the startup is “the only vertically integrated reforestation company that combines cutting-edge technology and traditional forestry practices to restore forests lost from wildfire, funded through the sale of carbon credits.”

Through its subsidiaries Silvaseed and Cal Forest Nurseries, Mast manages the majority of tree seed supplies and seedlings in the western 11 states of the US, effectively streamlining the forestry supply chain for over 30 million seedlings. Mast’s end-to-end solution provides everything from cone collection and satellite mapping of a burnt area to carbon credit financing, making it possible to significantly scale reforestation efforts.

McKernon told Springwise that the company is currently focused on the sale and deployment of its reforestation-based carbon removal credits, which enables the company to pay for reforestation and generate a financial return for landowners. Over the next three years, Mast hopes to create thousands of jobs and plant millions of trees. 

Forests have been called the “lungs of the planet”, but there is growing concern about their rate of loss. This has spawned a number of innovations, including the use of satellites to prevent wildfires and a programme that pays people to plant and maintain trees.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

Reference

Helping local, green products reach shop shelves
CategoriesSustainable News

Helping local, green products reach shop shelves

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: This year will see several changes designed to bring the EU closer to its climate-neutral goal for 2050. The first report of the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is due at the end of January 2024, and the region’s Deforestation Regulation comes into effect in December 2024. Back in December 2023, the European Council and Parliament also reached an agreement on ecodesign requirements for sustainable products. 

For companies with sustainable products to sell, these changes are creating opportunities to expand into new markets or make new designs commercially available. However, inflation in the prices smaller businesses pay their increasingly globalised suppliers is making it difficult for them to build their inventory – even if they have developed a great product and built an effective production process.

Belgian company Shiperise helps with this challenge by buying companies’ inventory in large volumes at factory prices. By receiving a price for its goods from Shiperise, a business can optimise production runs and negotiate better procurement prices with its suppliers. And by investing in the company’s inventory, Shiperise is taking on some of the risk associated with new products that conventional banks are unwilling to bear.

The funds from Shiperise are transferred to a company as soon as its goods arrive from its suppliers. The company then has 18 months to resell the products at wholesale prices before ‘repurchasing’ the inventory Shiperise has acquired at its own pace. Businesses sell the Shiperise-funded portion of its inventory first and it only pays for the goods that are sold in each period. Shiperise is compensated for its service through a minimum margin on its inventory purchases and an admin fee.

At the start of the process, Shiperise offers a free product score, working with most types of items except food. The maximum score on a product review is 50, with questions covering topics such as item sustainability and the sales history of the company. For those scoring below the maximum, Shiperise offers advice on score improvement. The product scores determine how much funding Shiperise is likely to offer for the product.

On the other side of the equation, shops and resellers can register on the platform as ‘professional buyers’ to acquire sustainable goods from the Shiperise ecosystem and benefit from discounts.

Reducing e-waste with upgradeable parts and using artificial intelligence (AI) to assess products’ sustainability credentials are two examples from Springwise’s library of innovations that are helping consumers cut through the greenwashing and find products that really make a difference.

Written By: Keely Khoury and Matthew Hempstead

Reference

Recycling plastic waste into multi-purpose chemicals
CategoriesSustainable News

Recycling plastic waste into multi-purpose chemicals

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: The COVID pandemic shined a spotlight on the huge amount of plastic waste produced by disposable Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). While PPE such as medical masks, respirators, and surgical gowns are essential health equipment, most of it is highly unsustainable, made using petroleum-based, non-biodegradable polymers. These materials, along with other post-consumer plastic, are not biodegradable and often end up incinerated.

In 2021, as part of the Innovative Solutions Canada programme, which began as the Canadian government’s drive to find new solutions to COVID-19 challenges, Canadian startup GreenMantra was tasked with recycling this PPE waste.

The startup has developed an efficient and cost-effective system for recycling plastics – including bottles, food boxes, film, as well as PPE – into feedstock that can be used to produce speciality waxes and polymers. These, in turn, are used as additives in construction materials like asphalt, roofing shingles, and plastic piping.

GreenMantra’s process operates at relatively low temperature and pressure, making it energy efficient. The system involves depolymerising waste plastics and shortening the length of the polymer chains to produce the wax additive. The company claims that construction products made from its additives outperform fossil-based equivalents.

Creating circular processes that recycle plastic waste into new products is the goal of a huge number of recent innovations Springwise has spotted. These include converting used nappies into pet products and roof tiles made from post-consumer plastics.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

Reference

Seagrass regeneration backed by science
CategoriesSustainable News

Seagrass regeneration backed by science

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Seagrass is the only flowering plant that grows in marine environments, living in shallow, sheltered coastal areas and forming dense, underwater meadows. These meadows support thousands of marine species, provide vital sources of food for human communities, store carbon, prevent land erosion, and help keep coastal waters clean.

But seagrass is also under significant threat — almost 20 per cent of seagrass meadows have been lost since the late 19th century. Working to turn this around is non-profit Project Seagrass. Founded in 2013 by four scientists, the non-profit works to protect seagrass around the globe through research, conservation action, education, and collaboration with local communities and stakeholders.

The organisation recently worked with the WWF in the UK’s first substantial seagrass restoration project, alongside Swansea University, North Wales Wildlife Trust, and Pen Llyn. Up to 92 per cent of UK seagrass has been lost, and the Seagrass Ocean Rescue Upscaling Project (SORUP) in Wales involved trialling various techniques to restore seagrass meadows at scale. These include the use of a robot developed by San Francisco-based Reefgen called Shack, that helped plant seagrass seeds on site. Shack can hold up to 20,000 seeds mixed with mud, which it injects into sediment within the seabed.

The results of the trials will inform SORUP and others on how to improve the cost and time efficiency of seagrass restoration, including whether it is more effective to plant new meadows by hand or using robots like Shack. The aim is to create a restoration blueprint that can be applied to other countries.

Project Seagrass and SORUP are not the only ones working to restore ocean plants. Springwise has also spotted seagrass grain being used for sustainable feed production and the use of AI-powered robots to farm seaweed more efficiently.

Written By: Lisa Magloff

Reference

Satellites predict extreme weather in the tropics
CategoriesSustainable News

Satellites predict extreme weather in the tropics

By Zarkon Group,

Spotted: Rainfall affects many aspects of a farmer’s work. Deciding when to sow seeds, where to pasture cattle and other animals, and when to harvest are some of the many daily, weather-dependent decisions farmers make. For smallholder farmers, a miscalculation leading to crop failure could severely impact an entire family’s health. 

For farmers living in the tropical regions of the world, forecasts are often of little help as rainstorms come and go quickly and can be very localised. Seeking to make weather forecasting more predictable for these regions, Swedish technology company Ignitia has developed a new method. The results are proving to be far more accurate than current global climate forecast models, something that Ignitia achieves by focusing on hyperlocal climates and analysis based on high-resolution satellite imagery. 

Ignitia’s forecasts are detailed enough to provide farm-level predictions, and because the company uses satellite data, they do not require information from ground stations – infrastructure that is frequently unavailable in tropical regions. For farmers, adjustments that range from when to move heavy machinery to when to hire additional workers have direct financial results.   

The startup’s insights are available in four different packages, starting with a mobile app for seven-day weather forecasts that include wind, heat, rain, and humidity for a three-kilometre area. Ignitia Smart adds in customised alerts for farm-specific needs, suggestions for possible actions, and rainfall predictions up to six months in advance.   

Ignitia API provides regular updates on the client’s platform of choice and allows larger producers, distributors, and others in the agricultural supply chain to better predict crop yield and forecast risks. The most substantial service the company offers is Ignitia Enterprise, gathering climate intelligence from multiple locations for business-wide insights and information for decision-making.  

Satellites are helping farmers in a number of ways, with innovations featured in Springwise’s library including using imagery to help unbanked growers access loans and to provide real-time yield predictions.

Written By: Keely Khoury

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We need to design for human behaviour to get rid of single-use plastics
CategoriesSustainable News

We need to design for human behaviour to get rid of single-use plastics

By Zarkon Group,

Packaging designs aimed at boosting recycling rates and reducing the prevalence of single-use plastics are destined to fail unless they help to change people’s behaviour, writes Matt Millington.

No one is particularly happy when they find out there’s plastic waste on Mount Everest, or in the deep oceans, or in human blood. It’s not controversial to say that we need to stop churning the stuff out and throwing it away.

One way for businesses to tackle single-use plastics is to design their packaging to be reusable, but so far efforts have not succeeded at scale.

For example, reusable McDonald’s cups are only getting a 40 per cent return rate from customers in Germany, despite consumers paying a €2 deposit. When Starbucks trialled reusable cups in the closed environment of its Seattle HQ, where returning them is presumably straightforward, the return rate still didn’t exceed 80 per cent.

We weren’t exactly succumbing to dehydration on the streets before coffee shops designed takeaway cups

It’s not that we don’t care: research suggests consumer motivation towards environmentally positive behaviour is high. It’s that as a society we have developed an expectation of convenience: to have what we want, when we want it, without any consequences.

This is entirely unreasonable – we weren’t exactly succumbing to dehydration on the streets before coffee shops designed takeaway cups – but while it persists, consumers are very unlikely to switch to reusable alternatives if it puts them out. And without a high return-and-reuse rate, reusable packaging is usually worse for the environment, owing to the much higher quantities of plastic involved.

This is why we need to design for human behaviour if we’re ever to get rid of single-use plastics. You cannot control what people will do with packaging once it leaves your premises, but you can influence them by factoring behavioural psychology into the design of the packaging itself.

The first step is understanding how consumers interact with the pack, throughout its lifecycle. Where are they and what are they doing when they open it? What’s their headspace? How about when they’re finished with it? There’s a big difference between how someone interacts with a reusable plate after a meal in a cafeteria, and how they interact with the reusable salad bowl they’re gobbling from on the lunchtime rush back to the office.

Then it’s about understanding the levers you can pull to nudge people towards more planet-positive decisions. Behavioural psychology shows there are three factors that work together to drive behavioural change: increasing consumer motivation to recycle or reuse, raising their ability to do so, and providing a trigger to remind them.

Take plastic bags. While usage of single-use bags has dramatically decreased in the UK since legislation requiring retailers to charge for them came into force in 2015, reusable alternatives have had mixed success. According to a report by the Environmental Investigation Agency and Greenpeace, 57 “bags for life” were sold for each household in the country in 2019 – more than one a week.

It’s possible to go too far in signalling that a pack isn’t disposable

Online grocer Ocado uses recyclable bags instead, but it has had success in achieving returns because it pulls all three behavioural psychology levers. Consumers are happy to receive bonus reward points for each bag they give back (motivation).

The bags are straightforward to return and customers know not to throw them away because of their clear messaging and distinct off-grey colour, which follows from not using harmful bleaching agents (ability). And because the driver usually asks for old bags after delivery, they’re unlikely to forget (trigger).

Ability is the key consideration. If you wanted to return the packaging from a takeaway burger meal, it would mean washing and then carrying around a bulky burger box, fries box and cup, and either making a special trip to the restaurant or waiting until you happen upon another branch.

New Zealand start-up FOLDPROJECT has done some interesting work here, trying to make boxes more portable. It’s a simple idea: a machine-washable lunch kit that packs down to a flat sheet. The challenge is that because it is so minimal, its form and material make it look disposable.

One way to ensure a reusable design communicates its intended purpose is through material choice. For example, using explicitly post-consumer recycled plastic could be a visual shorthand to communicate a planet-positive intent, as could using longer-lasting materials like glass or stoneware.

Interestingly, it’s possible to go too far in signalling that a pack isn’t disposable. When McDonald’s introduced reusable packaging in its restaurants in France, it found the packaging kept disappearing, only to reappear on eBay. It looked reusable and on-brand, but was too novel for some, defeating the object.

So long as we have bins on every street that lead directly to landfill, we are going to struggle

Businesses cannot just switch to reusable packaging – even when intelligently designed – and expect results. So long as we have bins on every street that lead directly to landfill we are going to struggle.

We therefore need to think beyond just designing the packaging to be sustainable, and think about how we design systems to be sustainable. In a circular economy that means service and experience design, packaging, industrial design, marketing, data, artificial intelligence and logistics all working hand-in-hand to keep the pack “in the loop”. It will therefore need to be an ecosystem effort.

We’re already seeing innovations that can help make reuse and return viable in the age of convenience. For example, when is a bin not a bin? When it’s a Bjarke Ingels Group-designed TURN system – a remote, digitally connected, RFID-enabled, packaging-asset reclaim and sorting network, which rejects unwanted trash.

Similarly, we’re seeing nudge messaging along the pack journey, and even packs that communicate their status themselves. Scottish start-up Insignia has designed colour-changing labels that reveal how long a pack has been exposed to the environment. Imagine taking this further, with reusable packaging telling you what to do with it, and offering prompts or rewards to encourage you.

Reusability hasn’t hit scale yet, but we should be optimistic that it can, not least because we’ve been there before. Milk deliveries were once the norm, with bottles returned, not discarded.

There’s no reason that we can’t get back to this more sustainable approach across the board, without having to endure too much inconvenience. All that’s required is a little ingenuity, and a lot of collaboration.

The photography is by Jas Min via Unsplash.

Matt Millington is a sustainable-design strategist at PA Consulting.

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