Pictures of streets and landfill sites in developing countries often show overflowing piles of rubbish, creating the impression that more waste is created in poorer countries than in developed nations like New Zealand, where our waste is often out of sight. But the truth is, it’s the other way around. Research from organisations like the IMF shows that wealthier countries like ours often produce at least double the amount of waste per person … ...

Despite the proliferation of recycling schemes in recent decades, human error sees to it that a large portion of these materials actually end up getting burned or buried in landfill: it’s estimated that only three quarters of what goes in the recycling is recyclable, and worldwide only 16% of rubbish ends up getting recycled . But as for many other human-created problems, AI may be coming to the rescue. Various initiatives have shown that mac… ...

The lockdowns around the world in response to CO-VID 19 seem to have had a beneficial effect on the environment. Pictures of usually hazy cities gone smog-free, and even big game wildlife wandering into deserted city centres, began to appear as planes, trains, cars and buses ground to a halt globally, and spaces normally occupied by masses of people were emptied. But despite reduced emissions and restricted opportunities for material consumpt… ...

As far as Auckland goes, the Junk2Go team are happy to handle most of the junk that people throw our way. There are a few junk conundrums out there, however, that we would probably think twice about before trying to tackle. One of the latest of these is China’s sudden surplus of bikes. By the end of 2017, at least two million bikes were believed to have been abandoned throughout China’s city streets and junk heaps. In Xiamen city, one such ju… ...