recycled materials Archives

Cow dung for biomaterials

Cow dung could be used to create a next generation sustainable material, according to a new report.

Colonel microbrewery built with recycled materials opens in Lebanon

While many Muslims don’t drink alcohol, the people of Batroun, Lebanon love their beer. At least according to Jamil al-Haddad, the visionary behind Colonel beer and a new microbrewery built out of recycled materials.

Plastic for kibble – vending machines for stray animals in Istanbul

There are roughly 150,000 stray cats and dogs in Istanbul alone, and with so many other problems to deal with, city officials aren’t likely to make them priority. One Turksih company came up with a brilliant solution to feed some animals and recycle plastic at the same time.

Turkey’s Designnobis turns plastic bottles into solar-powered lanterns

If you live in the Middle East, surely you are accustomed to seeing plastic bottles lining city streets and even far-flung desert areas. While a tiny fraction of these might be recycled in some countries, most of them will languish for years in informal and formal landfills.

A shipping container village to rescue “shooting” city

As part of an effort to rescue certain Israeli cities from urban decay, the Ayalim Association has built a series of ‘student villages’ throughout the country. The latest in the hard-scrabble city of Lod, not far from Israel’s interntional airport, has been constructed out of recycled shipping containers, and will be inaugurated on 8 July, 2014.

Tires upcycled as Arabian stools

Rubber tires are pure nastiness, especially when they’re no longer useful for cars. They languish in landfills, provide habitat for mosquitoes and rats, and often cause horrendous fires – like this one in Kuwait that was visible from space. Hit the jump to find out how Hala Smadi is putting them to good (re)use in Jordan. A graphic designer, Hala Smadi also has a way […]

HA Schult arrives in Israel with an army of 500 ‘Trash People’

German artist HA Schult has spent the last 18 years traveling around the world with his own army of ‘trash people.’ Like a modern version of China’s terra-cotta warriors, the exhibit recently landed in Israel.

World’s largest trash mural makes life in Syria a little less awful

Anyone who hasn’t been to Syria in the last few years can’t possibly grasp the full extent of the horrors Syrians have endured, but we do know it has been unspeakably hard. To take the edge off, a handful of artists in Damascus built what the Guinness Book of Records recently confirmed is the world’s […]

Powerful scrap sculptures depict life in Beirut’s Shatila refugee camp

The nearly 10,000 Palestinian refugees packed into southern Beirut’s Shatila camp live in makeshift homes of corrugated tin, and many long to return to their homeland. In order to depict life in the camp, artist Abdulrahman Katanani used the only materials he had available to him – scraps.