From 2020-2025, 400% increase was expected

InventWood's Superwood represents a breakthrough material that transforms ordinary wood into a substance stronger than steel through molecular restructuring and densification[^1]. The company is launching a 90,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Frederick, Maryland in Q3 2025 to begin commercial production[^7].

Key features of Superwood:

• 50% more tensile strength than steel with 10x better strength-to-weight ratio[^9]
• Fire-resistant, rot-resistant, and pest-resistant while maintaining wood's natural appearance[^7]
• Created through a two-step process involving chemical treatment and hot-pressing[^8]
• Can be produced in hours rather than weeks using "food industry" chemicals[^9]

Environmental Impact:

• Could replace up to 80% of global steel and concrete use[^5]
• Potential to reduce carbon emissions by 37.2 gigatons over 30 years[^5]
• Trees act as carbon stores: steel produces 1.85 kg CO2 per kilogram, while wood removes 1.8 kg CO2[^5]

Business Development:

• Secured $15 million in Series A funding in 2025[^7]
• Total capital raised exceeds $50 million[^7]
• Formed partnership with Intectural for North American distribution[^7]
• Initial products will focus on building facades before expanding to structural applications[^9]

[^1]: InventWood — Technology [^5]: InventWood aims to 'replace steel and concrete' [^7]: InventWood Announces $15 Million First Close of Series A [^8]: New Atlas - 'Superwood' that's 50% stronger than steel is coming this year [^9]: TechCrunch - InventWood is about to mass-produce wood that's stronger than steel

Crossposted from https://lemmy.ml/post/35149906

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/26529345

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Tradeless Earth ☮️

Nurdles, a colloquial term for the plastic pellets, are the raw material used for nearly all plastic products. Lentil-sized, at between 1-5mm, and thus potentially classifying as microplastics, or fragments smaller than 5mm, they can be devastating to wildlife, especially fish, shrimps and seabirds that mistake them for food. They also act as “toxic sponges” attracting so-called forever chemicals such as PCBs and PFAs in seawater on to their surfaces, and also carry harmful bacteria such as E coli.

“When ingested by marine life, these pellets introduce a cocktail of toxins directly into the food web,” says Joseph Vijayan, an environmental researcher from Thiruvananthapuram. “Toxins can accumulate in individual animals and increase in concentration up the food chain, ultimately affecting humans who consume seafood.”

The spill’s location and timing could not have been worse, Vijayan says. Nearly half of India’s seafish are landed in the Malabar upwelling region, where the shipwreck happened.

“The nurdles haven’t just polluted the sea – they’ve disrupted our entire way of life,” says Ajith Shanghumukham, a fish worker in the town.

Following the Keralan spill, there have been reports of nurdles once again washing up on beaches in Sri Lanka, a reminder of the worst recorded plastic pollution spill in history when the X-Press Pearl container ship, carrying chemicals, caught fire and released 1,680 tonnes of nurdles into the sea off Colombo in 2021.

The Kerala disaster, the latest in a series of pellet spills, has again exposed huge gaps in accountability, transparency and regulation in the plastics supply chain, environmentalists say.

Crossposted from https://piefed.social/post/886955

Rocket fire, artillery shelling, and explosive devices, such as land mines, from both militaries have ravaged Ukraine’s landscapes and ecosystems. Over a third of all carbon emissions in Ukraine stem from warfare — the largest share of any sector in the country. Fighting has triggered destructive wildfires in heavily forested and agricultural grassland regions of eastern Ukraine. From February 2022 through September 2024, almost 5 million acres burned, nearly three-quarters of which are in or adjacent to the conflict zone.

This is why a collective of forestry scientists in Ukraine and abroad are working together to study war-driven wildfires and other forest destruction, as well as map unexploded ordnance that could spur degradation down the road. The efforts aim to improve deployment of firefighting and other resources to save the forests. It is welcome work, but far from easy during a war, when their efforts come with life-threatening consequences.

“The shelling, it’s an explosive wave, the fire makes everything unrecognizable,” a medic with the National Guard 13th Khartiya Brigade told the Institute for War & Peace Reporting in March. “When they get up, the forest is different, it has all changed.”

When you introduce war, you create fires that can’t be effectively extinguished. “You cannot fly aircraft to suppress fire with water because that aircraft will be shot down,” Maksym Matsala, a postdoctoral researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, explained.

Forests and agricultural land are woven together across Ukraine, meaning wildfires also endanger the country’s food supply. Battle-sparked blazes destroy harvests and eliminate the trees that shelter cropland from drying winds and erosion that can lead to drought — leaving those on the military front lines and Ukrainian citizens at risk of food insecurity.

https://archive.ph/tadCp