🌊 Cleaning up our oceans

Happy Friday! ☀️

We’re quickly Fall-ing into a new season and team Herby doesn’t know how we feel about it. The good news? Pumpkin Spice Lattes are officially available in Starbucks locations near you! 🎃 

Today we’ll be exploring ways that Airbnb is helping fish plastic out of our oceans (🐟️ , get it?), San Francisco is innovating on its water consumption, and mangroves are helping combat erosion. Stick around to learn more ⬇️!

Sustainable seas: The Ocean Cleanup’s mission to scale plastic collection 🌊

A decade after setting sail on a mission to rescue our oceans, The Ocean Cleanup project is taking plastic collection to a whole new scale! 📈

Since 2013, The Ocean Cleanup has been been on a mission to remove plastic from our oceans. This includes cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an enormous floating mass of plastic pollution twice the size of Texas!

Thanks to a groundbreaking $25 million donation from from Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia, the team is now getting ready to launch System 003, which will be 3x the size of their current system and capable of capturing more plastic, quicker, and at a lower cost.

Here’s a video of how the team cleans our oceans today!

A Beacon of Hope: Kenyan project is helping prevent floods and erosion 🙌

In Kenya, Youth Pawa (a conservation organization) is igniting change by restoring vital mangrove forests to combat coastal erosion, flooding, and carbon emissions. 🤗

Mangrove ecosystems, lost due to exploitation, hold remarkable potential – sequestering four times more carbon than land-based forests and serving as nature's defense against calamities.

Youth Pawa’s founder, Steve Misati, has rallied communities, raising awareness and introducing innovative livelihoods like beekeeping. The result: 13,521 mangrove trees planted with an impressive 94% survival rate.

Restored mangroves thrive with diverse birdlife, vibrant butterflies, fish, and marine organisms, showcasing the immense impact of local action in the global fight against climate change. Misati's journey stands as an inspiring testament to the transformative power of nature-based solutions.

San Francisco innovates: Recycling wastewater to tackle scarcity 💦

San Francisco is embarking on a transformative journey to counter water scarcity and the environmental harm caused by untreated wastewater. 🚰

The city plans to deploy on-site wastewater recycling plants in new buildings, converting used water from sinks, showers, and laundry into non-potable water for toilets and landscaping.

This innovative initiative, named the Onsite Water Reuse program, harnesses membrane filtration, ultraviolet light, and chlorine to purify the water. Expected to save 1.3 million gallons of potable water daily, this approach aligns with San Francisco's goal of creating self-sufficient buildings in a closed-loop system.

We hope San Francisco’s example of wastewater recycling proves to be a promising path to fighting water shortages in the U.S. and globally!

🦕 Herby’s climate-friendly finds

This week: some of Herby’s fav products to reduce waste 🗑

• Ecokitchen’s reusable mesh produce bags — an easy way to reduce single-use plastic bags 🍅

• Stasher’s reusable snack bags — an easy to clean, reusable alternative to Ziplocs 🥪

• Naturebee’s beeswax food wraps — a plastic-free, reusable alternative to saran wraps 👏

• Better Basics’ make up wipes — ultra soft, easy to clean, and waste-free 💄

🍂 Herby’s weekly roundup

Some quick hits of interesting articles, books, and events this week

• Bison have made a revival from the brink of extinction in Yellowstone National Park 🏞

• Singapore is taking big steps to bring repair and reuse to e-waste! 📺️ 

• Try any of these 9 food waste solutions at home to help make better use of what’s in your fridge! 🥬 

• Chicago is committing $15M to help lower-income individuals decarbonize their buildings 🏠️ 

• An effort is underway to reintroduce beavers to wetlands in the UK, here’s what makes beavers so special! 😊

• Mexico announced 13 new protected areas across six states, with more to come 🌲 

🤓 This or That?

Last week’s ‘This or That’: The cement industry is worse for global emissions than the aviation industry 😲. Cement manufacturing accounts for at least 8% of the world’s CO2 emissions (while aviation only accounts for about 2.8%). Surprised? Us too! Read more about it here.

🙏 Thank you for sharing!

A huge thank you to everyone who shared last week’s email. Thanks to you, we are 3 subscribers away from hitting our halfway goal of 500 (wild)🙏!