Beginning in May 2010, Knowaste Ltd., will open a new recycling facility in the England. Hopefully other countries will take notice and build their own dirty diaper recycling plants. Why? The average baby goes through 5,000 to 6,000 diapers by the time they are potty trained? That’s almost one full ton of waste per baby. Disposable diapers can take up to 500 years to decompose.

As well as baby diapers, the new UK plant will also accept adult hygiene waste from nursing homes and hospitals. The Birmingham facility is the first of five proposed plants in the UK.

Established in 1989, Knowaste recycles other absorbent hygiene products besides diapers – bed-liners, adult incontinence and feminine hygiene products. Disposable diapers consist of three parts: wood pulp, gel polymers and mixed plastic. According to the Knowaste, 98% of the disposable diaper can be recycled.

The best way to reduce office waste is not to produce it in the first place. Before buying any kind of supplies for your office, ask yourself if you need to buy the goods or materials, or if you are simply buying too much. Use electronic communication whenever possible to reduce printing and faxing, and try to encourage staff not to print out documents or emails if possible. Reuse or recycle paper, printer toner and ink cartridges that you would normally just toss out. If you are replacing computers, look into computer recycling. The amount of office paper currently sent to landfills is huge, and totally unsustainable for the planet.

Here are some startling numbers:

A typical business office will produce about 1.5 pounds of paper waste per employee each day.
The paper industry ranks 4th in contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, and contributes 9% of the manufacturing sector’s carbon emissions.
For every ton of recycled paper it can save up to 17 trees.
40% of the solid mass in landfills is paper and paperboard waste 14.

Companies that use well-thought out waste reduction and waste management strategies eventually will see better financial and environmental benefits. Minimize the amount of waste you do produce, and recycle what you can after items have been reused. This will allow you to make save money on office waste disposal costs and reduce your business’ impact on the environment.

David de Rothschild is taking recycling to a whole new level. Taking thousands of plastic bottles, which de Rothschild says are a symbol of global waste, and constructing a boat that he plans to sail from California to Australia, a journey of 11,000 miles.

“It’s all sail power,” de Rothschild said. “The idea is to put no kind of pollution back into the atmosphere, or into our oceans for that matter, so everything on the boat will be composted. Everything will be recycled. Even the vessel is going to end up being recycled when we finish.”

The boat, appropriately named the Plastiki, is currently being built on a San Francisco pier and is scheduled to set sail from San Francisco in April. Plastiki’s twin hulls will be filled with 12,000 to 16,000 bottles. Covering the hulls will be panels made from recycled a woven plastic fabric called PET.

“This actually is the same material that is made out of bottles,” said de Rothschild of the PET fabric. “We actually wrap the PET fabric over the PET foam and then basically put it under a vacuum, heat it, press it and create these long PET panels. So that means the boat is, technically, one giant bottle.”

Plastiki will also have a watertight cabin, which sleeps four. Two wind turbines and an array of solar panels will charge a bank of 12-volt batteries, which will power the onboard electronics.  The ultimate goal of the Plastiki voyage is to draw attention to waste as a renewable resource while encouraging people to embrace clean, renewable energy.

One of the most important factors in making your home more energy efficient, and therefore cutting your energy bill bin half, is having your house properly insulated. Thoughtfully ans sustainably designed homes that utilize insulation, thermal mass design and sustainable energy alternatives, such as solar panels, can save some homeowners up to 50% on their yearly energy consumption.

There are lots of great, green alternatives when looking for home insulation. See if you can find ceiling insulation made from sustainable materials, such as Goldenfleece wool insulation. All natural wool fibre has great insulating properties, with the CSIRO claiming, “wool insulation performs better because of it’s ability to rapidly absorb moisture from the air.”

A company called Bonded Logic has developed an eco-friendly insulation that is made from 85% post-industrial recycled denim leftover from the manufacturing of blue jeans. This scrap material is collected and layered into panels and then treated with a solution that acts as a fire retardant, mold, mildew and pest blocker. This eco-friendly insulation is a zero-waste product since it requires very little energy to make and uses materials that were likely headed for a landfill.

There are also many do-it-yourself add-ons you can consider during the colder months to conserve heat and save money on those energy bills. Seal draughts with door snakes or utilize thicker curtains on your windows to keep out the cold air. If you live in a particularly cold climate, installing and maintaining your caulking and weatherstripping is an easy and affordable way to keep heat in, and energy costs low. In one bedroom apartments, direct your heat with the use of room dividers.

Properly designed and well installed insulation is a key factor for an energy-efficient home. With a recently heightened awareness of the global economic recession and of the importance of reducing our carbon footprint, eco-friendly insulation will be one of the ways homeowners upgrade to ensure their home meets these new eco standards, and, as an added bonus, save them money during these difficult times in our economy.

According to a recent study done by the Pacific Institute, which conducts interdisciplinary research on three main programs of research: Water, Community Strategies for Sustainability and Justice, and Globalization,  bottled water requires almost 2,000 times as much energy to produce than comparable amounts of regular tap water. The study also covers the transportation costs of bottled water, and how much energy this consumes up and above normal bottled water production. This study furthers the growing realization of just how terrible the culture of bottled water has become, and highlights the disastrous consequences on the environment.

Americans purchase close to 30 billion bottles of water a year. Bottled water produces up to 1.5 million tons of plastic waste per year. According to Food and Water Watch, the manufacturing of that plastic requires up to 47 million gallons of oil per year to produce, and pumps 3 tons of carbon dioxide into the air. While the plastic used to bottle beverages is of very high quality and in demand by recyclers, over 80 percent of plastic bottles are just thrown away.

There’s a simple alternative to bottled water: Use a stainless steel thermos. Don’t like the way your local tap water tastes? Inexpensive carbon filters will turn most tap water sparkling fresh at a fraction of bottled water’s cost, which costs more per gallon than gasoline. If you don’t give up your plastic disposable water bottles for the environment, then at least do it as a response to the collapsing economy.

Want to show her you love her in the greenest way possible? Forget wrapping that cheap perfume in paper that will just be thrown out anyway. Here are some tips to have an environmentally friendly Valentine’s Day that will show her you love her – and the planet too.

Does your better half drink from plastic water bottles? Here’s a trendy and eco-friendly solution that she’ll totally dig. The Sakura Scents Botanical Water Bottle from Sigg is made from a single piece of aluminium, making it crack-resistant and completely reusable and recyclable. Hey and if you’re jealous, they have some snazzy manly brands for guys too.

If she’s into handbags then Matt & Nat’s latest brainchild – a shoulder bag made from 100% recycled materials – might be just the ticket. Somehow this bag recycled bag still manages to be chic. Sure it will set you back $165 big ones, but man, once she sees the antique copper hardware, you’ll be getting lucky for sure.

Now here’s something really philanthropically rad you can buy. Pamela Tuohy Nesting Necklace is truly unique and made from discarded materials. Not only that, if you snag one of these necklaces, you’ll be helping women in developing countries create sustainable entrepreneurial businesses. For just $85 a pop, you can make your sweetheart happy and save the world while you’re doing it. Can I get a hoo raah? However, if you’re just a simple dude and don’t want to get crazy, you can never go wrong with eco-friendly underwear. You’ll both be happy.

If you simply toss out your old electronics, like computers, printers etc, not only are you taking up increasingly limited landfill space with valuable resources like plastic, metal and glass, you’re also putting toxic materials in the ground.

If you bought your TV, computer, or other electronic device in the last decade, it can be upgraded or refurbished and be of use to someone who doesn’t have the money to buy a new one. Or you can take the recycling route: many computers and other electronics are built to be easily demanufactured into their component parts for easy recycling. Some devices may require more energy to recycle, but it’s still better than just leaving them to a landfill.

The Electronics TakeBack Coalition provides several excellent Consumer Guides that walk you through just how you go about finding a recycling facility for your old electronics. One of these guides is A Consumer’s Guide to Recycling Your Old TV. All the info you’d need is summed up in this guide. They also have a TV manufacturer report card that highlights where a manufacturer ranks in their recycling programs. Also take a look at a listserv like Freecycle, and you’ll likely find some who at least wants it for parts.

An industrial design student in the U.K. has built a cheap, ecological transport – a cardboard bike. He designed the bike after learning that a bicycle is stolen every 71 seconds, so he decided to make a bike inexpensive enough that it wouldn’t matter if it got stolen. The prototype is made almost entirely from recyclable and recycled materials, using interchangeable mechanical parts. It costs about $30 to make. The body of the bike is environmentally-friendly and biodegradable industrial cardboard used in constructing particle boarding. Problems? Only if it rains!

General Motors says by the end of 2010, half of its major global manufacturing operations will be land-fill free. The facilities plan to achieve that goal when all production waste or garbage is recycled or reused. So far, the company says 33 of its operations recently reached that status for a total of 43. At the landfill-free plants, more than 96% of waste materials are recycled or reused and 3% of that is converted to energy at waste-to-energy plants.

This will, in the long run, help the company’s bottom line. GM says as a result of its global recycling efforts, recycled metal scraps are approaching $1 billion in annual revenue. In North America alone, selling off its recycled cardboard, wood, oil, plastic and other materials added $16 million in revenue. GM has approximately 160 manufacturing facilities globally. It plans to make 80 of them landfill-free.