Sci&Tech

As much as they fight against single-use plastics, millions of tons continue to be produced. Some are reused, but there is a large amount that cannot be recycled. Fortunately, there are some solutions to reuse all this huge amount of material.

That’s what Los Angeles-based company ByFusion does. Through a process of vaporization and compression, they shape plastics into blocks that call ByBlocks and can be used for construction having a resistance as high as concrete.

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The sun sets in Coimbra and an usher approaches the door of the gigantic rococo parallelepiped in the courtyard of the Faculty of Law. He flips the closed sign over and turns the latch. Inside the building, the rest of the workers they unwrap huge old leather covers and place them on the shelves, tables and furniture. They open the windows, set the alarms and go home.

The next morning, before the Joanina Library with its 70,000 books (many of them from before 1800) opens its doors, the workers will return to the building, remove the covers and collect excrement from the floor. Since at least the 19th century, the well-being of the library has depended on a delicate balance between culture and nature: every night, two colonies of bats roam the baroque rooms of the Joanina feeding on dozens of types of “bibliophagous” insects.

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In the midst of the semiconductor crisis, Europe is moving to guarantee its supply, reduce costs and cut its dependence on the great production poles of China and the USA. During a speech at the World Economic Forum, the president of the European Commission ( CE), Ursula von der Leyen, has outlined the roadmap that the body will follow in the short term and has set some tasks. The first, already for next month: present a law designed to boost the semiconductor manufacturing sector in European territory.

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