We’re back for your dose of positive news stories!

Sit back, relax, and take a look at these six stories to read some uplifting news about positive environmental projects going on all around the world.

Innovative ‘sand battery’ is heating a small city, storing green energy for months at a time

A town in Finland has started to use sand to store heat from renewable energy, to provide heating to homes in wintertime.

Water heating only stores 100 degrees celsius of heat, whereas sand can reach 500 degrees celsius. Lots of sand is heated through the generation of electricity through wind turbines and solar panels and then stored tightly in silos.

As the sand is packed into silos, the sand can store this heat for a long time without losing it. This is highly important in a cold, long Finnish winter.

(Source: Good News Network. Image credit: Polar Night Energy)

Revolutionary Filter Uses Moss to Capture Pollutants And Microplastics Before You Drink Them 

Design students in Colombia have harnessed the absorbing ability of moss to design a water filter that can trap microplastics. Over the two-month product life of the filter, it can trap 80 grams of microplastics, sparing the drinker from consuming the equivalent of 16 credit cards. The filter is designed to be used by poorer communities who don’t have access to a filter.

(Source: Good News Network, Image Credit: Universidad de Los Andes)

MIT scientists think they’ve discovered how to fully reverse climate change

Or, at the least, help slow it down. The idea revolves heavily around the creation and deployment of several thin film-like silicon bubbles. The space bubbles would be joined together like a raft. The bubbles would then give extra protection against the harmful solar radiation that comes from the Sun.

Researchers say they’d probably still need to put a spacecraft out there to help keep things on track. But it could give us a good chance at reversing climate change, or at least slowing down the changes.

(Source: bgr.com, Image Credit: MIT)

A sheet of ice in the Antarctic has been growing! 

We often hear about polar ice melting due to global warming, but one Antarctic ice shelf has grown in the last 20 years, new research has found.

A team of researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Newcastle in the UK and Canterbury University in New Zealand found that floating ice shelves on the eastern Antarctic Peninsula grew between 2000 and 2019.

Ice shelves are floating sections of ice that are attached to land-based ice sheets. They help protect the inland ice from eroding and breaking off into the ocean. This growth will help combat the rising sea levels!

(Source: Euro News, Image Credit: Scott Polar Research Institute)

Meet the man fighting climate change by cloning the world’s oldest trees 

David Milarch is on a mission, to clone the world’s oldest and largest trees and preserve them for humanity.

David set up the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive in 1994. The NGO clones the world’s most ancient trees, mostly giant sequoias and redwoods.

The archive studies the genetics of ancient trees, before cloning them and planting them back in their native forests. Their aim is to reforest the Earth with trees that are resistant to global warming. He believes it is possible to clone 5 million trees in four years, using one tiny piece of a healthy ancient tree.

(Source: Euro News, Image Credit: Scott Polar Research Institute)

Conservationist Jane Goodall honoured with recycled plastic Barbie doll 

A Barbie doll of Jane Goodall has been launched to inspire young girls, fulfilling a lifelong wish for the British primatologist.

Jane Goodall, 88, is known for her work as primatologist, anthropologist and conservationist. She is considered to be one of the world’s foremost experts on chimpanzees.

The toymaker says the doll is made from 75 per cent recycled ocean-bound plastic and is part of its Inspiring Women Series.

(Source: Euro News, Image Credit: Jane Goodall Institute)

Hopefully our Positive Planet newsletter has boosted your mood and given you some inspiration for your own sustainability efforts. Look out for the next instalment in two weeks’ time for more uplifting eco-news stories!

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