Cleanup

For the second time in less than one month, a Colorado public library branch has temporarily closed because of methamphetamine contamination, as first reported by The Associated Press. Englewood Public Library shuttered on January 11, after testing results revealed levels of methamphetamine residues “exceeding state thresholds” in the bathrooms and other areas of the library and attached civic center, the City of Englewood wrote in a news release. Before the library can fully re-open, the city will have to pay for…

SACRAMENTO —  From the Pacific coast to the Central Valley, California communities battered by days of destructive flooding began repair and cleanup efforts Wednesday as the weather-weary state found itself in the path of yet another in a parade of storms. The latest system — the seventh atmospheric river storm to train its eye on the state since Christmas — further swamped a state already reeling from widespread flooding, mudslides, washed-out roads, and downed trees and power lines. “I guess it’s about time we had this…

The Ocean Cleanup has a huge task on its hands in ridding the seas of plastic waste, but a sleek new video offers a compelling look at its latest plan of attack. The animation shows massive trash-collection barriers sweeping through the Great Pacific Garbage Patch with great efficiency, with the company envisioning 10 of these systems would be enough to put a serious dent in the problem.After first introducing the idea back in 2013, The Ocean Cleanup team has developed and tested various iterations of its giant…

Marine plastic pollution is a major environmental problem, as exemplified by the enormous Great Pacific Garbage Patch. According to a new study conducted by the Ocean Cleanup project and Wageningen University, the majority of plastic waste in that patch comes from the fishing industry.Located in the North Pacific Ocean, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) covers an area measuring approximately 1.6 million sq km (617,763 sq mi). It's made up of a roughly estimated 1.8 trillion pieces of floating plastic debris, with a…

There have been several high-profile Twitter hacks in recent times. That's not something that most of us need to worry about though - very few are actually prominent enough to be targeted in attacks like these.On the other hand, most of us are guilty of being careless when it comes to granting apps access to our services - if you come across an app that promises cool features, or says it will give you followers, you might be tempted to give it access to your Twitter account, which is rather like handing over the keys to…

By detecting roadside litter, machine learning fulfills its civic duty. Litter is one product that never appears to experience supply chain issues. It is simple to locate, pick up, and appears to be everywhere. Sadly, the majority of us appear to view trash as someone else’s issue, but you can at least contribute to the solution by using tools like this machine vision litter mapper. Everybody who has ever lived in an urban setting is aware of how dirty it can be. Municipalities make every attempt, yet…

We’ve made a mess of the Earth’s oceans. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP) — which is exactly what it sounds like — is estimated to cover an area of over 1.6 million square kilometers (620,000 square miles). It contains thousands of tons of plastic waste, and more plastic flows into the oceans around the world from rivers every day. Worse, the rate of plastic discarded into the ocean seems to only be growing. Luckily, the folks at The Ocean Cleanup have been trying to mitigate some of the…

China's internet watchdog on Friday started a two-month special campaign to clean up "chaos" in online livestreaming and short video businesses, part of a broader plan to promote what is deemed as appropriate and legal content.As the starting point, the focus will be to rectify content that is "pornographic, ugly, strange, fake, vulgar and (promotes) gambling," the Cyberspace Administration of China said in a statement.Last year, China launched "special ops" to remove more than 1 billion online accounts and thousands of…