Can We Unearth the Wealth Within E-Waste?
William Sheard is a PhD student at the University of Auckland and holds a scholarship from Ngā Ara Whetū. William’s research hopes to transform how we see e-waste and save billions of dollars of rare metals lost yearly. Some of the rarest and most expensive...
Is Biodegradable Plastic the Answer to Consumerism and Climate Change?
Biodegradable plastic could change the future of consumerism and its impact on climate change, thinks Dr. Heon Park, a Senior Lecturer in Chemical and Process Engineering at the University of Canterbury. While acknowledging that petroleum-based plastic poses long-term...
Can New Zealand’s Geothermal Wells Solve Our Carbon Dilemma?
Words by David Dempsey, University of Canterbury; Karan Titus, University of Canterbury, and Rebecca Peer, University of Canterbury Photo by Federica Bisso on Unsplash We know putting carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere is bad for the climate. But should...
Is our best weapon against climate change buried in the depths of our fiords?
Words by Rebecca J McLeod, University of Otago and William Austin, University of St Andrews Photo by Yoann Laheurte on Unsplash Cyclone Gabrielle has highlighted forestry slash as a problematic aspect of relying on plantation forests to draw down carbon dioxide...
Can prehistoric droppings help uncover a new world of conservation?
By Jack Marshall Photo: Stella the kākāpō on Codfish Island/Whenua Hou Image: Sabine Bernert | DOC The nocturnal flightless kākāpō is something of a difficult bird. They were once rife in New Zealand, found throughout the North Island and the South. Today, the species...
Plastic action or distraction? As climate change bears down, calls to reduce plastic pollution are not wasted
Ocean Image Bank / Naja Bertolt Jensen, CC BY-NC Yolanda Lee Waters, The University of Queensland and Angela Dean, The University of Queensland Climate change, pollution and overfishing are just a few problems that need addressing to maintain a healthy blue planet....
What do you mean we are running out of sand?
Photo by YoTuT, licensed under CC BY 2.0. By Annalise O’Sullivan-Moffat Although the importance of water as a resource is well accepted, fewer people know that sand is the second most consumed resource globally. Why is sand so important? Sand is a...
Avoiding climate breakdown depends on protecting Earth’s biodiversity – can the COP15 summit deliver?
Photo by Tomas Sobek, Unsplash Nathan Cooper Thousands of delegates have gathered in Montreal, Canada, for a once-in-a-decade chance to address the accelerating pace of species loss and the dangers of ecosystem breakdown. COP15 brings together parties to the UN...
From farming to fermentation: Could New Zealand ‘brew up’ new foods to reduce agricultural emissions?
Photo by Delphine Ducaruge on Unsplash Ian Mason, University of Canterbury New Zealand agriculture contributed 50% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, an unusually high proportion by world standards. Dairy farming was responsible for about half...Subscribe by Email
Completely spam free, opt out any time.
This form is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
