A small Italian company called Bi-on has found a way to turn sugar beet molasses into plastic. They way it works is, they mix the molasses with a bacteria that feeds on sugar during fermentation. It creates lactic acid and polymers that can be used to create a biodegradable substance, a plastic called PHA.

The company’s offices are not far from Italy’s biggest sugar producer, so Bi-on has plenty of sugar beet molasses to pick up. There are other biodegradable plastics out there, but they’re often made up of food particles, not actual trash. The entire field is called bio-plastics, and the company’s new product could help the world become less dependent on the oil-based plastics we mostly use now. And one of the best features of Bi-on’s sugar beet plastic is that it can be destroyed in water, getting rid of the mounds of plastic and waste often seen floating in our lakes and oceans.

You can read more about the story on Deutsche Welle. Let us know what you think!

The International Center for Tropical Agriculture just released a report that shows that the cocoa supply in West Africa is under threat. As our climate gets warmer and warmer, the soil heats up, and the normal patterns of rainfall are also changing quickly. Why is that important? Because Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire are home to half of the world’s cocoa supply.

According to the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, which is based in Cali, Colombia, by the year 2050 the amount of land that’s now used for cocoa production will be drastically reduced, and instead moved to different plots of land that don’t offer suitable growing conditions. And since the demand for chocolate is on the rise but production is falling, we’ll probably end up paying a lot more for the sweet treat.

The study’s authors recommend finding cocoa plant varieties that are heat-resistant and can adapt to changing climate conditions.

Jeremy Rifkin is the president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, he has written seventeen books on the impact of scientific and technological changes on the economy, the workforce, society, and the environment. GLOBAL IDEAS talked to him about ways to stop global warming, his new economic visions and the way we maybe need to change our way of life.

It’s already called the world’s greenest museum…but it just got a little greener. The California Academy of Sciences in the U.S. opened in 2008 as a model of eco-friendly technology, and the U.S. Building Council gave it a platinum award. Now, the museum has won another – two times platinum, and as environmentally-conscious as ever.

The structure itself (right in the heart of Golden Gate Park) is an homage to sustainability and green living: it has a hilly, plant-covered living roof, insulation made of recycled denim, an entire canopy of solar panels and other green technology. And there’s a lot to see inside, too, like an aquarium, a planetarium and a natural history museum. National Public Radio in the U.S. did a report on the museum when it first opened, and they shared some amazing pictures here. Check them out!

She was the first woman who got the Nobel Peace Prizein 2004 for her campaigns to save Kenyan forests. Kenyan environmentalist, Wangari Maathai, died on September 25th while undergoing treatment for cancer at a hospital in Nairobi. She worked over the last decades to plant over 20 million trees throughout Africa. She always had to battle with the government of her country. She was imprisoned and brutalised, but she won.

In 1977 Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement. The organisation will outlast her. “You cannot protect the environment unless you empower people, you inform them, and you help them understand that these resources are their own, that they must protect them,” she said and she was definitly right.

Here you’ll find a video (“I will be a hummingbird”) that is worth watching to get a sense of Wangari Maathai.

At the organisations homepage you can share your condolences.