MIT is a school known for pumping out some of the worlds’ top businessman and technologists whether at a high level or the genius engineer types that go build the globe’s top innovations. One interesting thing they are doing now is making Trash and recycling more fun for people to help encourage the this practice which is definitely a Global Good. We only have so many resources on this planet and making sure that they are recirculated and reused in new sustainable products is absolutely essential. A company called Greenbean Recycle is trying to promote the act of bringing in bottles and cans for recycling a much more fun practice to encourage the activity. They recently won an award this week from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and are already starting to make some real numbers jump with their MIT launch of the service.
They are so innovative in fact that they are even allowing people to track their progression of recycling overtime online so that they are even more encouraged to do Global Good by recycling. We definitely think this is a great strategy and it should be incorporated into more lower, middle, and high schools as well as colleges and universities. Having attended Santa Clara University, one of the top promoting education centers for Sustainability and Ethical business practices, I can say that my community here in Silicon Valley would definitely appreciate these sorts of technologies. In fact the online system adds a competitive dynamic to the recycling process because students and other faculty can compete on who is recycling the most making it fun and something long term that still benefits society as a whole.
We recently wrote another Global Good article on some cool innovations out there that turn trash to energy.
Read more on CNN: http://whatsnext.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/09/mit-project-tries-to-turn-trash-into-a-game/