Big business in support of the environment
June 28, 2018 | 22:07 |2266
At present, ecology and entrepreneurship are difficult to separate. In all spheres of the economy, most business giants have long established funds in support of the environment and gradually reorient their business to use “green” technologies. So, the McDonald’s chain of restaurants is gradually abandoning the use of plastic. The global fast food chain McDonald’s is set to replace its plastic straws with biodegradable paper ones across all of its restaurants from September this year. What is the difference? In the period of decomposition in nature. The tubes are made from plastic that takes a hundreds of years to be decomposed. Although straws can be recycled, they rarely are. Instead, the petroleum-based straws end up in landfills, in sewage, and where they do the most harm, in our oceans. They are not the biggest polluter of our waterways, but they can be some of the most hazardous to marine wildlife. McDonald’s has already taken steps in all its restaurants in the UK and Ireland to put plastic straws behind the counter to reduce waste. The fast-food company will also conduct before the end of the year trial runs of this concept in the US, France, Sweden, Norway and Australia.Altyn ASHYROVA
The BMW brand, the German manufacturer of cars, motorcycles, engines, and bicycles has long embarked on a “green” path. Having joined the production of environmentally friendly cars, the European giant has created an incredible BMW 740Le xDrive iPerformance – a hybrid sedan that works both on diesel fuel and on electricity.
iPerformance is a “plug-in” hybrid, that is, the driver can, if desired, drive either on diesel fuel or on electricity. In addition, the most important feature of it is recuperation. This is the kind of electric braking, in which the electric power returns to the electric network. The electric motor takes on the role of a generator, which – depending on the hybrid function selected – is powered either by recuperating braking energy or by efficiently raising the engine’s load points. It then feeds the energy it generates into the high-voltage battery.
Fashion is another eco-arena, where famous designers and fashion houses stand for the environmentally friendly technologies. So, designers widely use safe and processed materials such as recycled glass beads and sequins, organic ECO-leather, natural organic silk. Many of them have already taken steps not to use natural fur and suede.
In construction, the “green” technologies are still used exclusively as start-ups and pilot projects, because it takes a long time to check the construction for strength, environmental friendliness and durability. However, the fantasy with which eco-activists approach the issue of construction is amazing.
Not so long ago, the biologist Philip Ross suggested using mushrooms as a building material. To be more precise, not the mushrooms themselves, but the mycelium. Beneath the surface of the ground, fungi form a wide network of thin, rootlike fibers called mycelium.
Ross discovered that when dried, it can be used to form a super-strong, water-, mold- and fire-resistant building material. The dried mycelium can be grown and formed into just about any shape, and it has a remarkable consistency that makes it stronger, than concrete.
“Generally, when fungus creeps out on our wet walls, that’s highly undesirable. It looks unhygienic and, well, gross. However, the mycelium can be used in almost everywhere, like furniture and building materials, or organic batteries of energy.”
The production of “mushroom” bricks is cheap too - you only need some nutrients and often anything from sawdust to pistachio shells will do. It is because the mycelia grow together with the feedstock material that Ross is able to turn the mushrooms into any shape. And don’t worry – every building block is baked to kill the organisms, so that if it ever got wet, mushrooms wouldn’t start sprouting again. Further, on request of the customer, bricks from the mycelium can be covered with paint or varnish, after which they become indistinguishable from ordinary building materials.
