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

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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. Jamil has been brewing beer for a very long time, and took several classes abroad in order to hone his craft. “I was 17 […]

The post Colonel microbrewery built with recycled materials opens in Lebanon appeared first on Green Prophet.

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. Pugedon approached the city with an idea to install vending machines throughout […]

The post Plastic for kibble – vending machines for stray animals in Istanbul appeared first on Green Prophet.

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 young firm from Turkey, Designnobis wants to turn them […]

The post Turkey’s Designnobis turns plastic bottles into solar-powered lanterns appeared first on Green Prophet.

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. Many communities in Israel are in various […]

The post A shipping container village to rescue “shooting” city appeared first on Green Prophet.

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 […]

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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. First built out of all manner of recycled junk in 1996, Trash People has since awed audiences in  Xanten, Paris, […]

The post HA Schult arrives in Israel with an army of 500 ‘Trash People’ appeared first on Green Prophet.

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 […]

The post World’s largest trash mural makes life in Syria a little less awful appeared first on Green Prophet.

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. Originally displaced from villages near Amka, Majd al-Krum and Yajur in northern […]

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The current road linking Abu Dhabi and Dubai, E111 is said to be one of the most dangerous, which killed roughly 9 out of 100,000 people in 2012, but the new state of the art E311 highway will be one of the world’s greenest. Just three years ago, when I started writing for Green Prophet, […]

The post The new road to Dubai will be recycled and green appeared first on Green Prophet.

Israelis are well known for being industrious – especially when it comes to turning innocuous every day materials such as tomato cans, or in Naama Arad’s case, paper into beautiful works of art. Arad creates entire scenes with recycled Xerox paper shredded into hundreds of long strips. That she has devised a clever way to […]

The post Hundreds of Xerox Paper Strips Make Extraordinary Recycled Curtains appeared first on Green Prophet.

So many countries in the Middle East and North Africa rely way too much on concrete for their building needs, but Libya Design bucks the trend with Doshma – a new creative hub built in part with a used shipping container. Opened in June, 2013, this striking new arts center is the talk of Tripoli. […]

The post Tripoli’s Doshma Creative Hub Has a Recycled Shipping Container Core appeared first on Green Prophet.

When Israeli soldiers killed her son Bassem in 2009, Sabiha Abu Rahman faced the impossible task of being alive without him. She has since turned her grief into balm with a beautiful garden full of repurposed tear gas grenades. Israelis and Palestinians clash every week along the separation barrier in Bil’in, a Palestinian village located roughly […]

The post A Grenade Garden Helps Palestinian Mother Move On appeared first on Green Prophet.

Meb Rure’s latest line of furniture is so bright, stylish and unique that it’s hard to believe they are made with almost all recycled materials. The Istanbul-based designer uses American oak and recycled silk yarn from Nepal to weave together these kaleidoscopic, fluffy silk furniture pieces. Comprised of a chair, stool and ottoman, Rure’s new […]

The post Gorgeous Recycled Silk Furniture from Turkey’s Meb Rure appeared first on Green Prophet.

Whereas most people would scarcely give a pile of old keys a second glance, the Vanina girls from Lebanon see in these disused materials new life as glittering jewelry.

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HUSH is a brilliant seating pod designed by Freyja Sewell that creates a small tucked away spot anywhere – even in the most crowded cities. A Brighton designer who finished her studies at Nagoya University in Japan, Sewell knows what it’s like to crave a quiet space that makes her feel comforted and safe. There […]

The post HUSH: A Seating Pod that Creates Privacy Anywhere appeared first on Green Prophet.

Design is an often overlooked aspect of any social protest movement, but the organic nature of its occurrence is of great interest to the Turkish collective Herkes İçin Mimarlık. Translated as  Architecture for All, this group collected photos of shelters built from scrap materials during Turkey’s recent uprising and then made drawings of them. “The protests […]

The post #occupygezi In-Situ Architecture Made with Scrap Materials (Photos) appeared first on Green Prophet.

When news of a $10 bicycle made of recycled cardboard first reached our desk, we didn’t think it would ever see the light of day, but in two days, Cardboard Technologies has already raised a whopping $16,070 on its Indiegogo campaign to mass produce what Popular Science Magazine called one of the best inventions of 2013. Designed […]

The post $10 Recycled Cardboard Bike Indiegogo Campaign Raises Nearly $20,000 in Two Days appeared first on Green Prophet.

We were so excited to learn that an Israeli pair transformed an old bus into an attractive luxury home, until we saw what materials they used. Looking for an opportunity to make some money, Tally Saul and Hagit Morevski used such carbon-intensive and toxic materials as cement, concrete and formica to complete their ungreen conversion. Neither […]

The post Long Public Bus Converted into $300,000 Un-green Luxury Home appeared first on Green Prophet.

When “Biggest Loser” coach Orly Hoffman Bar approached Toledo-Lifschitz Architecture & Design with an idea to convert a vacant space north of Tel Aviv into a sweet new gym, she offered two major constraints: time and money. Another firm might have walked away, but Ariel Lifschitz and his partner used the opportunity to put their […]

The post “Biggest Loser” Coach Builds a Recycled Materials Green Gym in Israel appeared first on Green Prophet.

Every three years, the Aga Khan Architecture Award acknowledges projects relevant to Islam that are culturally, environmentally and socially superior. Accompanied by a generous $1 million prize, it is among the world’s most prestigious architecture awards. Apartment #1 by Tehran’s Architecture by Collective Terrain is one of 20 projects nominated, and though it faces stiff […]

The post Iranian Recycled Stone Apartment #1 Among 2013 Aga Khan Architecture Award Nominees appeared first on Green Prophet.

If we only listened to mainstream media, we would know Beirut as a city full of bullet holes, terrorists and Syrian refugees – all of which are unfortunate realities in the densely populated capital of Lebanon, which borders both Israel and Syria. But it is also home to some of the world’s most interesting artists, designers, […]

The post Beirut-Based Bokja Design’s Migration Sofa Rocked Milan Design Week appeared first on Green Prophet.

Images of Tadashi Kawamata’s extraordinary installation entitled Chairs for Abu Dhabi has been circulating the blogosphere the last few days. A follow up of a similar project featured in France, the piece consists of hundreds of chairs – mostly vintage and recycled – stacked on top of one another like a giant hollow mountain of […]

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Despite the many stereotypes about residents of Gulf countries, many people prefer creative, sustainable boutiques to shopping in big glitzy malls, though their options are typically fairly limited. Which might explain why Bahrain’s Market 338 has become such a popular destination. Inaugurated by Al Riwaq Art Space, the temporary souq in Manama’s Adliya district started with […]

The post Bahrain’s Temporary Market 338 Beats Out Glitzy Shopping Malls appeared first on Green Prophet.

Nobody wants to see rubbish littering the magical Sahara desert, unless of course it belongs to WE MAKE CARPETS.  The Dutch collective has been arranging ordinary household objects into dazzling carpets for a few years now, but their most recent installation commissioned by the Taragalte Festival in southern Morocco is among their finest. Made entirely out […]

The post Dazzling Carpet of Plastic Bottles Adorns the Moroccan Desert appeared first on Green Prophet.

Concerned to reconnect hands and minds and make a worthwhile environmental impact, a few women from Saudi Arabia are crocheting recycled plastic bags into colorful bean bags and other quality crafts. The founder of Ateeq, which is Arabic for vintage, Diane Rayyan teamed up with crochet master Ishrat Khawja to hold a two day “trocheting” […]

The post Fruitful Fusion “Trochets” Bean Bags from Trash appeared first on Green Prophet.

Izhar Gafni and the same team behind the already world-famous cardboard bicycle have added a few other items to their repertoire, including a cardboard wheelchair. After news of the dirt-cheap cardboard bicycle raced around the globe, an international non-profit organization contacted Israelis Nimrod Elmish and Izhar Gafni of I.G. Cardboard Technologies about developing a cardboard wheelchair […]

The post Israelis Design Cardboard Wheelchairs for Africa appeared first on Green Prophet.

It’s easy to poke fun at Dubai for all of its insane excesses, but because we’re big-hearted greenies, we also want to give the Emirate a giant high-five when it does something worthwhile. And the Green Bus is certainly that. Although the merits of bio-fuel are still debatable (depending on the source), this pilot bus, […]

The post Bio-Powered Green Bus Fitted With Recycled Materials Cruises Dubai appeared first on Green Prophet.

It’s inevitable that even the best of automobiles will eventually find their way to the junkyard, but to Ronen Tinman, that needn’t be a death sentence. Determined to make use of “every ounce” of the materials that went into making BMWs, Citroens, Toyotas and Kawasakis, the Israeli designer relies on his mechanical engineering background to […]

The post Ronen Tinman Turns Junkyard Automobile Parts Into Bespoke Furniture appeared first on Green Prophet.

Some of the most fashionable people on the planet, the Lebanese are also very concerned about what people think of them. But the lovely Yasmina Sawma of Tchensol is shaking things up a bit with an intriguing new line of re-purposed accessories. The trained interior architect converts LEGO pieces into chunky earrings and rings, strings stuffed […]

The post Tchensol’s LEGO and Pop Art Jewelry Shakes up Lebanese Fashionistas appeared first on Green Prophet.

The most creative design solutions are often spurred by the tightest restrictions and this is definitely true of the new loveat branch in Jaffa, Israel. Commissioned to transform a 20th century orange-packing plant just south of Tel Aviv into a hip new coffee shop, Ronen Levin and Eran Chehanowitz faced several challenges. Not only were […]

The post Loveat Jaffa: a 20th Century Orange-Packing Plant Turned Rustic Cafe appeared first on Green Prophet.

Ugandan eco-artist Ruganzu “Bruno” Tusingwire gave up art that is hung on walls in favor of doing work that actually makes a difference. Now that lofty ambition has received a substantial financial boost that will allow the 29-year-old to improve life for hundreds of children who live in the slums of Kampala. The first of […]

The post Ugandan Eco-Artist Wins TED Prize for an Amusement Park Made of Plastic Bottles appeared first on Green Prophet.

Let’s face it, eco-friendly clothing is hard to come by in the Middle East. Desire to own the top brand names at whatever financial cost often trumps planetary-consciousness, so there’s little incentive for designers to go green. But for those who still want to look their best without hurting the earth, there is light at […]

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23.2 is only the second house that Jerusalem-born Omer Arbel has parented since opening his own practice in 2005, but the Vancouver-based architect demonstrates a natural flair for projects of this scale. Keen to soften the edges between industrial design and architecture and gifted with a large stock of reclaimed Douglas Fir beams of varying […]

The post Omer Arbel’s Green-Roofed 23.2 House is Framed With Sacred Reclaimed Timber appeared first on Green Prophet.

  We are suckers for a good love story, especially when it has an eco-twist. Chafiq Ennaoui and Aimee Bianca met at the Djemaa el Fna square in Marrakech, where Aimee gushed over the unique quality of artisanal Moroccan crafts. The pair soon fell in love and eventually moved to New York, where Chafiq gained a new […]

The post Inspired by Love, BELDI Sells Planet-Friendly Artisanal Crafts From Morocco appeared first on Green Prophet.

The Israeli government continues to process a bill that will regulate, for the first time, management of the country’s electronic waste. If it gets approved by the Knesset, the bill would require manufacturers to finance the proper recycling of their materials. The bill would also stipulate that by 2020 it would be illegal to send […]

The post Israel Introduces E-Waste Management Bill appeared first on Green Prophet.

As urban trash threatens to bury city dwellers in environmental and financial ruin, recycling materials is becoming not only a progressive design technique but also a necessary one. That doesn’t mean that an economy of materials has to be boring, mind you. Often, quite the contrary is true. By using either recycled or inexpensive materials, […]

The post Israel’s Shumis Pizza Joint Features Row Upon Row of Recycled Tomato Cans appeared first on Green Prophet.

Today Egyptians stood in line for hours to vote in the first real, competitive presidential election in the country’s history. And our favorite bakery, the only one in Egypt to recycle their own packaging into attractive notebooks, bookmarks and other stationary, is encouraging voters to play a role in the future of their homeland. As […]

The post Eco-Friendly Bakery Gives Historic Presidential Voters in Egypt Free Pastries appeared first on Green Prophet.

After a full year of planning, O*GE’s hard curatorial work at the Castro street art project in Jaffa has finally paid off. In one of the most surprising marriages of fashion, design and urban art we’ve seen to date, the Israeli-based clothing company invited more than a dozen internationally-acclaimed street artists to work with their […]

The post Street Art Meets Castro Fashion in Shipping Containers appeared first on Green Prophet.

Raising the profile of Morocco's talented artisans and putting money in their pocket, this fantastic project also has unsung environmental benefits as hundreds of pounds of rubber has been diverted from the city's already overburdened landfills.

The post Dirty Rubber Recycled into Unbelievably Beautiful Decor in Morocco appeared first on Green Prophet.

Determined to make a positive environmental contribution, the UK-based clothing manufacturer DGrade perfected a method that converts recycled plastic into yarn. They use 20% less water, 50% less energy, and produce 55% less carbon emissions than the cotton manufacturing process requires, and they have recently opened a branch in the Dubai mall. (As of 2022 it […]

The post DGrade’s Hipster Trash Clothing is Made Cheap in China appeared first on Green Prophet.

All suited to the Middle East climate and budget, here are 6 green buildings that just about anyone can build without a mortgage. People often say of green building projects that they aren’t affordable. This is true if you’re shooting to live in a glittering LEED certified urban high rise in Dubai or Saudi Arabia, […]

The post 6 Green Buildings That Won’t Break the Bank appeared first on Green Prophet.

A retired Saudi teacher has built a now-coveted guesthouse using discarded materials from nearby construction sites. Hadram Bin Shalan was the object of neighborly scorn when he announced plans to build a guesthouse out of recycled materials in southwestern Saudi Arabia. Seven years later and the former science teacher earns a healthy sum each time […]

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Libyan sculptor Ali Al-Wakwak has transformed the charred remnants of war into inspiring creations Around a week ago, Libyans celebrated the first anniversary of the uprising against Muammar Gaddafi. It’s certainly been a turbulent year for Libyans and although the future isn’t as certain as some would hope, thousands took to the streets to celebrate […]

The post Libyan Artist Turns Weapons of War Into Amazing Sculptures appeared first on Green Prophet.

Environmentally-friendly designed straw bale houses are energy efficient and earthquake resistant. Pakistan's poorest groups rebuild lives through Pakistan Straw Bale and Appropriate Building (PAKSBAB) micro-financed project.

The post Micro-Financed Straw Houses For Pakistan Are Quake-Proof appeared first on Green Prophet.

We are big fans of reusing perfectly good materials like waste glass, which can be turned into beautiful glasses, and this incredible pavilion in Bat Yam, Israel is a shining example of just how creative it is possible to get. Many Israeli artists love to recycle ordinary objects into beautiful, magical art. Ecco Ukka turns […]

The post Upcycling soup cans into forts and shelter appeared first on Green Prophet.

A Ph.D student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Shaul Lapidot has designed an industrial bio-foam made from paper mill waste. You would be forgiven for thinking that Green Prophet has some kind of illicit connection with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem given all the attention we’re giving them this week. Professor Oded Shoseyov from […]

The post Axing Paper Waste and Nasty PET in One Fell Bio-Foam appeared first on Green Prophet.

Dror Peleg’s recycled plastic bike will set you “Frii” from flat tires. You won’t be able to do the Tour de France with this colorful bike designed by Israeli student Dror Peleg, but you will definitely capture everyone’s attention. Like this green toilet also developed in Israel, and Hashim Al Sada’s solar generator developed specifically […]

The post The Recycled Plastic Bike that Never Gets a Flat Tire appeared first on Green Prophet.

Environmental and human rights go hand in hand in Lebanon. Winning recognition from the Guinness Book of Records last October for the world’s largest hand painted cloth, 12,000 Lebanese joined hands for environmental and social peace. Spearheaded by Lebanon’s Red Cross and Timol Paints, 7,000 volunteers and 5,000 concerned citizens pledged to observe tolerance and […]

The post World’s Largest Canvas Turned Into 5,000 Reusable Bags appeared first on Green Prophet.