# data[].attributes.body
Using hair from barber shops to make mats that can clean up oil spills from ships in open sea.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Human Hair Mats Clean Oil Spills. Why Don't Big Companies Use Them? | World Wide Waste

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When considering traditional brick facades, we usually conjure up images of solidity and robustness. Solid ceramic blocks, recognized for their ability to withstand compression and offer strength and durability to structures, are materials frequently used in architecture. However, innovation in construction materials has made space for solutions that combine tradition and modernity, transforming the use of materials such as brick. In contemporary construction, the integration of solar control measures has become essential to improve the energy efficiency of buildings, especially in hot climates where the need to mitigate the effects of solar radiation is critical. This is one of the areas in which brick can play a significant role, aided by new technologies.

In this search for alternatives that combine structural efficiency and environmental concerns, systems such as Flexbrick have emerged, which unite ceramic blocks and metal trusses. This means combining the flexibility and lightness of the system to the translucency of the trusses, creating ventilated facades that improve architectural aesthetics, while also addressing sustainability issues-particularly in mitigating costs associated with solar control in hot climates. Essentially, the ceramic textile system consists of an interwoven steel wire mesh surrounded by a mosaic of ceramic pieces arranged in horizontal and vertical bands. The flexibility of this material allows it to be easily folded and stored on pallets, taking up little space and facilitating transport. Additionally, the long strips make installation quick, easy and economical, reducing emissions associated with transporting and installing conventional materials.

One of the system's main advantages lies in its proven ability to mitigate the impact of solar radiation, promoting significant improvements in thermal insulation, as the ceramic's thermal inertia and jali effect contribute to the passive regulation of the building's thermal conditions. Thermal inertia corresponds to the material's ability to absorb heat from solar radiation during the day and store it in its mass, which is subsequently released during times when there is no sun exposure. This allows the building to passively regulate the thermal conditions of the environment and reduce energy needs for thermal conditioning of the building. The jali effect, on the other hand, helps reduce temperatures by compressing air through the holes in the texture created on the facade. When air passes through these openings, its velocity increases, resulting in deep and effective diffusion of adiabatic changes. This is an element traditionally used in the architecture of India and Islamic countries, where its effectiveness has been proven over centuries. The presence of ceramics in the building envelope also plays a crucial role in reducing heat island effects, thus promoting greater energy efficiency by dissipating accumulated heat.

The Flexbrick system combines stainless steel and ceramics, which both offer significant environmental benefits. With up to 92% of its content coming from recycled materials, the stainless steel used can also be considered sustainable. On the other hand, the ceramics used-fired from biogas-offer additional environmental benefits, including reduced emissions, energy consumption and transport needs, contributing to more sustainable production practices. This also reflects the principles of the circular economy: minimizing waste and energy, increasing construction safety and allowing components to be dismantled when necessary instead of demolition, with recycling that can revalue materials through the dynamics of the circular economy.

Therefore, its flexibility and performance are comparable to traditional solar control methods, such as brises soleils or similar, but with the additional advantage of offering greater adaptability and customization to architectural projects. Flexbrick represents a new approach to using an ancient and extremely traditional material. Its integration into building facades provides a sustainable solution for solar control and allows architects to minimize costs and comply with certification requirements.
For more information about the product and its applications, visit the Flexbrick page in our catalogue.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Solar Control and Sustainability in Hot Climates with Ceramic Textiles

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn how the Flexbrick system unites ceramic blocks and metal trusses to create ventilated and sustainable facades.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Filipinos use around 212 million sachets and shopping bags every day. These numbers reflect the country's dependence on single-use plastics. The situation has not been improving in the Philippines as the country was tagged as a major contributor to the global plastic waste crisis. Advocates said that the problem is exacerbated by firms that sell their products in cheap, disposable packaging.

Envirotech Recycling Inc., an initiative in Davao City in Mindanao, aims to lessen the plastic waste that would otherwise end up in the country's oceans or landfills. To achieve its goal, the company collects single-use plastics from communities and big companies and recycles them into useful items such as school chairs. These products, according to Envirotech, are made of 100 % recycled plastic. The company's President and CEO, Winchester Lemen, said that they were able to process around 2.5 million kilograms (kg) of waste this year in their five plants located across Luzon and Mindanao islands.

"We are advocating to reduce plastic waste, and at the same time, create livelihood programs for everyone. And (we are) helping the Earth heal," Lemen said, explaining one Envirotech school chair was made from around 20 to 30 kg of plastics. He claimed that his company was the only one in the country that combined all sorts of waste in its plants. "So, name it- sachets, plastic cups, sando bags, candy wrappers, Styrofoam- we mix it up all together in our plant," he explained, adding that the finished products proved to be durable as they could not be broken. Based on Waste Ed's social media video, the plastics that Envirotech collects are shredded, crushed, sorted, melted, molded, and assembled. Lemen said that workers are equipped with safety gear, and the plants have buffers that filter out the steam or smoke produced during the melting process. Aside from chairs, Envirotech has ventured into making benches, trash bins, and pots, among other functional items.

Dr. Enrico Paringit, the Executive Director of the Department of Science and Technology's Philippine Council for Industry, Energy, and Emerging Technology Research and Development, welcomed Lemen's initiative.

"The gargantuan task of addressing the plastic pollution needs the concerted effort of all stakeholders - government, private sector, the general public. This effort of Envirotech is a boost to our efforts of making headway into finding innovative solutions to plastic pollution," the scientist said.

Although this recycling technology could be an answer to ongoing plastic waste problem for consumers and firms, environmentalist and co-convenor of War on Waste Negros Oriental, Merci Ferrer, thought otherwise. "No, it's not a solution... it actually encourages companies to create more (plastics)," she said, adding that the initiative was only handling the problem "from the end of the pipe." For her, it was important to consider the bigger picture. "We need to think of that on a bigger, broader environmental, sustainability issue. The toxicity of a certain material should be one of the top considerations," Ferrer said, explaining that more studies should be done on the emissions brought about by melting plastics of different types.

Despite the pandemic and lockdown restrictions, Envirotech's Lemen said that they had several projects in the pipeline for next year. One of them is the Envirohome, a housing project made entirely out of 3,000 kilograms of plastic waste, and it is scheduled to be rolled out by 2021.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Turning plastic waste into school chairs | One Earth

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Filipinos use around 212 million sachets and shopping bags every day. These numbers reflect the country's dependence on single-use plastics. The situation has not been improving in the Philippines as the country was tagged as a major contributor to the global plastic waste crisis.

# data[].attributes.body
Energy plant

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A coal billionaire is building the world's biggest clean energy plant and it's five times the size of Paris | CNN Business

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The scale of the project transforming swathes of barren salt desert on the edge of western India into one of the most important sources of clean energy anywhere on the planet is so overwhelming that the man in charge can't keep up.

# data[].attributes.body
can money stop deforestation: yes.

The world spends around $80 billion on protecting nature but around 5 times that amount on subsidies that harm it. There is an urgent need to reduce industrial emissions and prioritize policies to decarbonize economies to reverse climate change.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Climate change: can money stop deforestation?

# data[].attributes.body
It outlines how art is an essential part of the human experience, serving purposes beyond utility, such as the instinct for imitation and the pursuit of harmony and rhythm. The source also explores how art can be used for entertainment, to sell products, and to express social or political views, as seen in examples like graffiti art.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Art has had a great number of different functions throughout its history, making its purpose difficult to abstract or quantify to any single concept. This does not imply that the purpose of art is "vague" but that it has had many unique, different reasons for being created. Some of the functions of art are provided in the outline below. The different purposes of art may be grouped according to those that are non-motivated and those that are motivated (Lévi-Strauss).

Non-motivated Functions of Art

The non-motivated purposes of art are those that are integral to being human, transcend the individual, or do not fulfill a specific external purpose. In this sense, art, as creativity, is something humans must do by their very nature (i.e., no other species creates art), and is therefore beyond utility.

1. Basic human instinct for harmony, balance, rhythm. Art at this level is not an action or an object, but an internal appreciation of balance and harmony (beauty), and therefore an aspect of being human beyond utility.

Imitation, then, is one instinct of our nature. Next, there is the instinct for 'harmony' and rhythm, meters being manifestly sections of rhythm. Persons, therefore, starting with this natural gift developed by degrees their special aptitudes, till their rude improvisations gave birth to Poetry. -Aristotle

2. Experience of the mysterious. Art provides a way to experience one's self in relation to the universe. This experience may often come unmotivated, as one appreciates art, music or poetry.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. -Albert Einstein

3. Expression of the imagination. Art provides a means to express the imagination in nongrammatic ways that are not tied to the formality of spoken or written language. Unlike words, which come in sequences and each of which have a definite meaning, art provides a range of forms, symbols and ideas with meanings that are malleable.

Jupiter's eagle [as an example of art] is not, like logical (aesthetic) attributes of an object, the concept of the sublimity and majesty of creation, but rather something else - something that gives the imagination an incentive to spread its flight over a whole host of kindred representations that provoke more thought than admits of expression in a concept determined by words. They furnish an aesthetic idea, which serves the above rational idea as a substitute for logical presentation, but with the proper function, however, of animating the mind by opening out for it a prospect into a field of kindred representations stretching beyond its ken. -Immanuel Kant

4. Ritualistic and symbolic functions. In many cultures, art is used in rituals, performances and dances as a decoration or symbol. While these often have no specific utilitarian (motivated) purpose, anthropologists know that they often serve a purpose at the level of meaning within a particular culture. This meaning is not furnished by any one individual, but is often the result of many generations of change, and of a cosmological relationship within the culture.

Most scholars who deal with rock paintings or objects recovered from prehistoric contexts that cannot be explained in utilitarian terms and are thus categorized as decorative, ritual or symbolic, are aware of the trap posed by the term "art."
-Silva Tomaskova

Motivated Functions of Art

Motivated purposes of art refer to intentional, conscious actions on the part of the artists or creator. These may be to bring about political change, to comment on an aspect of society, to convey a specific emotion or mood, to address personal psychology, to illustrate another discipline, to (with commercial arts) to sell a product, or simply as a form of communication.

1. Communication. Art, at its simplest, is a form of communication. As most forms of communication have an intent or goal directed toward another individual, this is a motivated purpose. Illustrative arts, such as scientific illustration, are a form of art as communication. Maps are another example. However, the content need not be scientific. Emotions, moods and feelings are also communicated through art.

[Art is a set of] artifacts or images with symbolic meanings as a means of communication. -Steve Mithen

2. Art as entertainment. Art may seek to bring about a particular emotion or mood, for the purpose of relaxing or entertaining the viewer. This is often the function of the art industries of Motion Pictures and Video Games.

3. The Avante-Garde. Art for political change. One of the defining functions of early twentieth-century art has been to use visual images to bring about political change. Art movements that had this goal-Dadaism, Surrealism, Russian constructivism, and Abstract Expressionism, among others-are collectively referred to as the avante-garde arts.

By contrast, the realistic attitude, inspired by positivism, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Anatole France, clearly seems to me to be hostile to any intellectual or moral advancement. I loathe it, for it is made up of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit. It is this attitude which today gives birth to these ridiculous books, these insulting plays. It constantly feeds on and derives strength from the newspapers and stultifies both science and art by assiduously flattering the lowest of tastes; clarity bordering on stupidity, a dog's life. -André Breton (Surrealism)

4. Art as a "free zone," removed from the action of the social censure. Unlike the avant-garde movements, which wanted to erase cultural differences in order to produce new universal values, contemporary art has enhanced its tolerance towards cultural differences as well as its critical and liberating functions (social inquiry, activism, subversion, deconstruction...), becoming a more open place for research and experimentation.

5. Art for social inquiry, subversion, and/or anarchy. While similar to art for political change, subversive or deconstructivist art may seek to question aspects of society without any specific political goal. In this case, the function of art may be simply to criticize some aspect of society.
Graffiti art and other types of street art are graphics and images that are spray-painted or stenciled on publicly viewable walls, buildings, buses, trains, and bridges, usually without permission. Certain art forms, such as graffiti, may also be illegal when they break laws (in this case vandalism).

6. Art for social causes. Art can be used to raise awareness for a large variety of causes. A number of art activities were aimed at raising awareness of autism,cancer,human trafficking,and a variety of other topics, such as ocean conservation, human rights in Darfur, murdered and missing Aboriginal women, elder abuse, and pollution. Trashion, using trash to make fashion, practiced by artists such as Marina DeBris is one example of using art to raise awareness about pollution.

7. Art for psychological and healing purposes. Art is also used by art therapists, psychotherapists and clinical psychologists as art therapy. The Diagnostic Drawing Series, for example, is used to determine the personality and emotional functioning of a patient. The end product is not the principal goal in this case, but rather a process of healing, through creative acts, is sought. The resultant piece of artwork may also offer insight into the troubles experienced by the subject and may suggest suitable approaches to be used in more conventional forms of psychiatric therapy.

8. Art for propaganda or commercialism. Art is often utilized as a form of propaganda, and thus can be used to subtly influence popular conceptions or mood. In a similar way, art that tries to sell a product also influences mood and emotion. In both cases, the purpose of art here is to subtly manipulate the viewer into a particular emotional or psychological response toward a particular idea or object.

9. Art as a fitness indicator. It has been argued that the ability of the human brain by far exceeds what was needed for survival in the ancestral environment. One evolutionary psychology explanation for this is that the human brain and associated traits (such as artistic ability and creativity) are the human equivalent of the peacock's tail. The purpose of the male peacock's extravagant tail has been argued to be to attract females. According to this theory superior execution of art was evolutionarily important because it attracted mates.

The functions of art described above are not mutually exclusive, as many of them may overlap. For example, art for the purpose of entertainment may also seek to sell a product (i.e. a movie or video game).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Art has had a great number of different functions throughout its history, making its purpose difficult to abstract or quantify to any single concept. This does not imply that the purpose of art is "vague" but that it has had many unique, different reasons for being created.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We all know that art can be a powerful form of self-expression. But did you know that it can also have a profound effect on our moods?