Designers are increasingly using different kinds of materials to produce products that do not harm the environment. Reused plastic bottles, wood, plant fiber, and even seaweed are being used in place of traditional materials for household goods and clothing.

Unusual materials

Nina Edwards Anker’s candleholder and ceiling lamp look like ancient pieces of paper placed around electronic lights known as LEDs. But a closer look shows that they are made of algae (藻类). Anker came up with the idea while working on a doctoral research project at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design.

A show for new materials in Germany

Heimtextil is an international trade show, or fair, for new textiles in Frankfurt, Germany. This year’ fair placed attention on making new products that came from reused materials.

“We’ll see companies demonstrating how inorganic materials like nylon, plastic and metal can be reused,” Olaf Schmidt, Heimtextil’s vice president of textiles and textile technology, said.

He added, “And there’s seaweed, used to produce sound pad and panels that provided great insulation (隔音), are fire-resistant and regulate humidity (湿度) well.”

Many companies using other materials

Patagonia, North Face and Timberland are among the companies now using natural materials to produce goods. Italian company Frumat has developed a plant-based leather made from the waste created by apple juice makers. Pinatex helps support farms in the Philippines by using waste from the pineapple harvest to create material that is sold to makers of shoes, clothing and other products.

Mario Cohn-Haft remembers the sinking feeling he had when he realised the parrot he had come to see would probably not appear before him again. He had taken a bird-watching tour to the area where the very last wild Spix’s macaw(金刚鹦鹉), a blue parrot native to Brazil, was known to show itself. But that tour was the first he had led that couldn’t spot it. “I was one of the first people to experience it being extinct in the wild,” says Cohn-Haft, an ornithologist (鸟类学家). That was 20 years ago. No wild Spix’s macaws have been seen since.

But today there is hope. Spix’s macaws still exist. A small number of breeding pairs are currently living in captivity ( 圈 养 ). Conservationists are in the middle of a project to raise healthy birds and prepare them for release into the wild. The Association for the Conservation of Threatened Parrots (ACTP) is leading current efforts.

Cromwell Purchase, a director at the ACTP, explains that the group plans to send 50 Spix’s macaws to rehabilitation facilities in Brazil, which are currently under construction. If all goes well, the birds will be shipped from Germany soon. The conservation team will first practice a technique for releasing the birds on a small flock of Illiger’s macaws. Then, in 2021, the Spix’s will be released with a small group of the Illiger’s, which will hopefully help them to adapt to the forest of Caatinga.

The real test will be whether the birds take to their native surroundings and whether they successfully breed and raise chicks in the wild. But Brazil wants the plan to work. “We know how to reintroduce parrots. There are now many publications and case studies that show we can get birds out into the wild and have them survive,” says Don Brightsmith, an expert in parrots. Brightsmith notes one important point — the birds must be shown how to raise chicks independently. Otherwise, any reintroduced population will quickly collapse.

Happily, Purchase says this is something he and his colleagues are working on. Should the birds flourish, the blue flash of a Spix’s wings might one day be seen again by locals and, perhaps, fascinated groups of bird-watchers.

“If you think the oil wars are bad, wait until the water wars begin.”

Ron Jones, president of Green Builder Media, recently made this alarming prediction. With severe drought conditions expanding across the globe, the future water crisis he warns of may become a reality more quickly and acutely than we think. Fortunately, many entrepreneurial companies are in hot pursuit of solving water crises and reducing water use in homes.

WaterFX, a company in Fresno County, uses solar thermal technology to turn salty and polluted irrigation runoff into pure water. Its pilot system produces about 14,000 gallons per day for its customers, who are mostly local farmers, and the company has plans to significantly increase production to 2 million gallons daily in the next few years.

Advances in water purification are encouraging, and residential (住宅的) water conservation also plays a role in meeting water-efficiency goals. Homebuilding company KB Home recently built its first Double ZeroHouse in Lancaster, Calif, one of the most water-challenged areas of the country. It’s a net-zero-energy building (potentiallyyieldingan electric bill of $0) that reuses greywater, and saves water with ultra-efficient appliances.

KB Home estimates that the structure can conserve 150,000 gallons of water each year when compared with a typical home, which is an average reduction of approximately 70 percent. The Double ZeroHouse’s advanced greywater system first pipes greywater from sinks, tubs, showers and washing machines into a heat-recovery system. As hot water runs through the system, the heat is extracted (提取) and used to preheat fresh water in the tankless water heater. This heat exchange results in about a 30 percent savings on water heating. Next, the greywater is channeled into a collection tank, where it’s stored for watering the landscape or garden.

As the cost of water rises, employing creative conservation solutions is not only vital to addressing our water crisis, but also important to keeping monthly utility (水电费) bills affordable for homeowners.