NSFW: Plastics: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

I know, I know.

I've promised that I would only post videos and articles that are safe for work.

This one definitively breaks that self-imposed rule. This one should NOT be shown to students at school unless you have a really good relationship with your Board of Education and some pretty mature students.

The video mentions - as comedic asides - sex toys, numerous f-bombs, loads of s-bombs ('shot' but with a different vowel), and cheapshots at the blobfish.

But there's a whole lot of actual content about the environmental horrors of our plastic obsession, our lack of recycling in the face of more and more claims of recycling, the advertising push from the plastics industry to convince us all that the lack of recycling is our individual faults (including the famous crying Italian-American commercial, the route that plastics take into our stomach and body, the US's refusal to sign onto plastic waste reduction treaties, the movement to pass extended producer responsibility bills.

The video is well worth watching. There's good content in there. And I'll admit to enjoying the crass humor.

Bike tires that last a lifetime without any puncture or degradation are inspired by NASA's rover technology

 

I've posted about the NASA rover's memory metal ties on the blog before, and we certainly know that technology developed for the space program often makes its way into our everyday life. So it's not a total shock that those tires would be finding their way into use here on the Earth.

But I wouldn't have bet that the first Earthly use for this tire technology would be on bicycles.

Who knew?

As this article writes, "The airless METL bike tires are crafted out of the Shape Memory Alloy Radial Technology (SMART) – made from strong (like titanium), lightweight yet ultra-elastic material (like rubber) known as NiTinol+."

The METL tires come from The Smart Tire Technology Company and aren't available just yet, though they are taking names for the waitlist. I'm really curious how much those tires would cost and whether they would adaptable from one bike to the next one that a cyclist would purchase. Otherwise, it might not necessarily be a great investment.

How Used Chopsticks Are Turned Into Tables, Tiles, and Other Furniture | World Wide Waste

 I think we're all aware that we use too much stuff. 

Admittedly, the wood that we're using probably isn't the worst of that stuff. If we could use a little less wood and maybe reuse some of the wood that we are using, it might be a little better for our planet, though.

This video shows the process through which ChopValue turns used chopsticks - primarily around Vancouver - into floor tiles and tabletops. It's actually fascinating.

Columbia's Lego Homes - earthrise

They aren't Lego bricks at all.

They're interlocking bricks made of recycled plastic collected on the streets of Columbia.

That doesn't make them Lego-brick-built houses any more than me strapping rubber mats onto my feet mean I'm wearing Nike shoes.

Semantics aside, the interlocking bricks look pretty cool. I am curious about their R value, but that's a different question.

The above video, by the way, was accompanied by an article with a more information and still photos.

Meet Stephanie Kwolek, the woman who gave us bulletproof vests and yoga pants

Source - https://twitter.com/SpringerNature/status/1156489739903676417

Stephanie Kwolek, inventor of Kevlar

It's a pretty outstanding title for a chyron.

It's pithier than "the fourth woman inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame."

It's more widely understandable than "only female winner of DuPont's Lavoisier Medal" (as of 2020, at least).

It's far pithier than "inventor of poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide", the actual chemical name of Kevlar.

In my world, though, all of those are less important than "invented the nylon rope demonstration" that I use in the classroom every year and throughout the summers.

Read some more about Stephanie Kwolek

• from Massive Science
• from Forbes
• from the Smithsonian
• from Wikipedia