Andreas Noe gave himself an ambitious and scenic mission ahead of the UN Ocean Conference kicking off June 27 in his home of Lisbon, Portugal: Bicycle 1,500 miles around the picturesque country over two months to raise awareness for bottle bills.
The plastics pollution and sustainability activist chronicled it on his website and said he had more than 800 people join his daily actions to bring attention to a proven way to increase recycling of cans and bottles.
In total, Noe said, 4,600 bottles were collected that will be "transformed into awareness art to demonstrate the need for a deposit system."
Noe will attend the UN conference, where there are several side events planned around plastic and packaging waste.
True to his message of reuse, reduce and recycle, Noe said he did the entire trip with a single reusable bottle and on a bike he built from second-hand parts.
(Thanks to PN's Steve Toloken for this item.)
Yoga mats show up in a lot of trendy exercise classes, videos and, of course, in yoga studios. They also are part of a very big potential market.
Consulting group Grand View Research says the yoga and exercise mat business is expected to grow 5.8 percent annually, with a total global market hitting $17.3 billion by 2025.
The mats, made to grip both the floor and a user's body, are made with a variety of polymers including PVC, thermoplastic elastomer, polyurethane and rubber. PVC holds 40.3 percent of the market.
With more gyms, athletic classes and individuals adopting some type of yoga in their exercise routines, the number of Americans adopting the practice has gone from about 5 percent of the population in 2008 to 11 percent in 2018.
The competition to replace leather with a vegan-friendly alternative has another entry: pineapples.
Piñatex uses fibers from pineapple plants after the fruit is already harvested and combines that with polylactic acid in a non-woven mesh that goes into shoes, furniture coverings and other products that would normally use leather or other plastics.
Fruit giant Dole Sunshine Co. developed Piñatex with technology company Ananas Anam. Marketing for the material took home the Grand Prix award for Creative Business Transformation at Cannes Lions, an international advertising competition.
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