Tag: TRASH

Warning to our Cleveland Switched readers: be extra vigilant about separating your recyclables. A new program being launched in the Ohio city will distribute 25,000 RFID-equipped recycling bins to residents. The tagged cans will be used to track how often a household takes its recycling to the curb. Fail to toss the recycling often enough, and you'll trigger a garbage audit. Your trash will be ...

A boat constructed from thousands of plastic bottles has completed its journey across the Pacific Ocean, from San Francisco to Sydney Harbor. According to Popular Science, the Plastiki, which is a catamaran made from about 12,500 plastic bottles, sailed more than 9,000 miles in four months to raise awareness of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch -- a pile of waste the size of Texas that's floating ...

What happens to your old electronic device when you upgrade to a newer model? Do you dump your cell phone in the trash? Toss that old desktop into a dumpster? Many people do, but they don't consider where this waste eventually ends up. According to BBC News, much of this "e-waste" finds its way to developing nations, and it could lead to major problems in the future. A U.N. report stated that ...

In 2008, Hong Kong authorities stopped 41 U.S. ship containers trying to carry 1.4 million pounds of "e-waste" and 82,000 pounds of lead into the region for disposal, according to USA Today. While governmental authorities can prevent some of this technological refuse from entering their country, Jim Puckett, the head of non-profit, watchdog group Basel Action Network (BAN), says that they cannot ...

Over the last few days, NASA officials have issued warnings that pieces of a 1,400 pound ammonia refrigeration unit will hurtle through the atmosphere and towards the earth's surface today, the Daily Mail reports. Although shards as heavy as 15 pounds could survive the fiercely hot temperatures of their journey, NASA officials insist there is "a very low likelihood that anybody will be ...

London will be the first city to test out new bomb-proof garbage cans, which are also going to multitask as recycling bins with LCDs that stream travel info and news. Security concerns (AKA fear of terrorists dropping bombs in them) have kept rubbish bins out of subway stations and many of the city's streets since the mid-'80s, causing frustration among citizens, not to mention what amounts to ...