Have you heard of 'Library of things'?
Instead of books, it allows you to rent something else
The Better Good store in Saskatoon, Canada has come up with the concept of a Library of Things.
Instead of books, they keep items that someone might use only a couple of times a year. This could be games, puzzles, kitchen appliances, tools, sports equipment, and camping gear.
Residents of the city can sign up and take these on rent. And when they are done, they can give it back to the library.
This would prevent them from buying new products, storing them in their houses and eventually throwing them in landfills.
A beautiful way to build a shared economy!
Moving onto this week’s content. So today, we have👇🏽
A startup that’s making secondhand shopping easier
Another startup that’s making a low-carbon statement
Some good news
👖 This browser extension wants to make secondhand shopping easier
Can’t give up on convenience…Most of us know about the amount of waste fast fashion creates. And we feel guilty about it. Some of us go to second-hand or thrift stores to buy used clothing but end up being disappointed. Reasons vary from lack of size and shape to limited options. Compared to buying new clothes in a few clicks, it’s not the most convenient alternative.
Let’s look at some other options…Beni is tackling this inconvenience. Through a browser extension, it shows you resale listings of items that you are shopping for online. So imagine you’re shopping for a hoodie at an online retailer, the browser extension would search through 1000s of secondhand/resale marketplaces and suggest similar or identical secondhand hoodies in a pop-up box. This way, you can help the planet without giving up on convenience. Here’s how it works-
Users download the Beni browser extension on their browsers like Chrome and Safari.
They shop like they’ve been doing on different retailer websites.
If Beni finds a similar or identical product that a user is looking at, it suggests the alternatives in a pop-up box.
The business model…Beni has partnered with more than 1,000 fashion and accessory sites and shows suggestions from marketplaces like The RealReal, Rent the Runway, Vestiaire Collective, eBay and Kidizen. On every sale of a second-hand product through its extension, it earns a commission.
🏘️ This startup is building a low-carbon cement
Did you know?… Everything around you- houses, offices, sports complexes, bridges are made out of concrete. It’s the foundation of the built environment and one of its major components is cement. Cement production is a carbon-intensive process. For every 1000kg of cement produced, 900 kgs of CO2 is emitted. No wonder it’s responsible for 8% of GHG emissions. It’s made in ovens that burn at over 1400 °C and this temperature is achieved by burning coal and gas.
There’s more…2 battery scientists at MIT decided to do something about it. They developed a proprietary process at Sublime Systems that replaces energy and fossil fuel-intensive ovens with an electrolyzer. This produces cement at ambient temperature. Apart from the carbon-intensive process, lime, a key ingredient of cement, is also carbon-intensive and produces 1.2-1.8 kg CO2 per kg of lime manufactured.
Sublime's approach has the potential to decarbonize the cement as well as lime making process.
They are building this while keeping the costs economical.
The cement contains both low embodied CO2 and low embodied energy.
What’s ahead…Right now, they are building a pilot plant which would be ready by 2025. Once that is up and running, they plan to build a full-scale, million-tonne-per-year cement plant in 2026/2027 which would be operational by 2028.
😹 Some Good News
🚗 Cruising Ahead…French parking lots to generate as much electricity as 10 nuclear plants
🐝 Mind your beesness… Ecological corridor for bees underway in Europe to ensure safe flight
🦱 Circulhair economy… Human hair to be recycled to clean waterways in Belgium
Shoutout to Aakanksha for making this punny
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Have a great weekend and see you next week😊