Ideas worth spreading

A plan to recycle the unrecyclable

1,507,238 views | Ashton Cofer • TED-Ed Weekend

From packing peanuts to disposable coffee cups, each year the US alone produces some two billion pounds of Styrofoam -- none of which can be recycled. Frustrated by this waste of resources and landfill space, Ashton Cofer and his science fair teammates developed a heating treatment to break down used Styrofoam into something useful. Learn more out their original design.

From packing peanuts to disposable coffee cups, each year the US alone produces some two billion pounds of Styrofoam -- none of which can be recycled. Frustrated by this waste of resources and landfill space, Ashton Cofer and his science fair teammates developed a heating treatment to break down used Styrofoam into something useful. Learn more out their original design.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

About the speaker

Ashton Cofer

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Ashton Cofer and his FIRST Robotics team won the Google Science Fair for developing a process to convert Styrofoam waste into activated carbon for purifying water.

Tom Szaky | Harper Design, 2015 | Book

Make Garbage Great: The Terracycle Family Guide to a Zero-Waste Lifestyle

This is a great book by an eco-entrepreneur who inspired me to think of ways to address the growing trash problem by making waste into something useful.

Tom Szaky | Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2014. | Book

Outsmart waste : The Modern Idea of Garbage and How to Think Our Way Out of It

This is another great book by the same author who explains the history of human trash in simple terms and provides ideas on how to re-think and re-use garbage

Melissa Breyer | Mother Nature Network, 2014 | Article

"50 Ways to Reuse Your Garbage"

This very interesting article offers 50 ways to reuse common items that you would throw in the trash. It is a great way to try to make an impact on a small scale and gets you thinking about other items that you can reuse.

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This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.