Since 1959, the General Assembly of the United Nations has designated specific years as United Nations International Years to acknowledged important fields of international endeavor and their contributions to society. Learn about a recent initiative spearheaded by the International Commission on Glass to have 2022 declared the International Year of Glass.
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Recycling plastic into bricks is an emerging industry in some developing countries that are looking to clean the environment while addressing affordable housing concerns. Gjenge Makers Ltd. in Kenya is one example of a company pursuing this production platform.
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Ceramics Expo Connect, the virtual version of Ceramics Expo, took place Sept. 21–25, 2020. Panels, interviews, and roundtables covered a wide range of new and emerging ceramic applications across the five days.
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The October/November 2020 issue of the ACerS Bulletin—featuring an overview of research and markets in Latin America—is now available online. Plus—remembering Ted Day
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The August 4 port explosion in Beirut killed dozens, injured thousands, and caused billions of dollars in property damage. As the city looks to rebuild, volunteers, nongovernmental groups, and entrepreneurs are trying to salvage some of the wreckage by recycling at least part of the tonnes of glass littering the streets.
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Toilets are likely one of the last technologies people associate with innovation, but creating high-tech toilets is big business in Japan. And innovating the bathroom experience is not just limited to personal and private settings—the new Tokyo Toilet project looks to dispel perceptions that public toilets are dark, dirty, and smelly.
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For more than 50 years, the Apollo-era Laser Ranging Retroreflector experiment helped scientists track the moon’s orbit and distance from Earth. The efficiency of the moon-based reflectors decreased over time, though, so NASA scientists looked to reflect light from a spacecraft-based reflector instead—a feat they recently achieved for the first time.
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In the 15th and 16th centuries, the village of Chu Dau in Hải Dương Province, Vietnam, produced unique ceramic pieces that were shipped throughout the world before war put an end to the practice. This history was only recently uncovered in the 1980s, and a recent documentary details the story.
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In 2017, a report on global e-waste predicted the amount of e-waste would increase to 52.2 million metric tonnes by 2021—but we already passed 53 million metric tonnes in 2019 alone, according to a new report released this month. Learn more about why e-waste amounts are surging, why current recycling systems are not keeping up, and what can be done to combat the problem.
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Humans’ voracious sand consumption for infrastructure activities threatens global supply of this critical natural resource. But do we even know how much sand we are consuming worldwide? New research shows that we’ve been calculating the basic unit all wrong.
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