From the team that founded Nest, the Energy Star–certified smart thermostat, comes MILL, a smart garbage bin for your kitchen. But Mill isn’t so much a garbage bin as a nutrient recycler, receiving your kitchen scraps and shrinking them down into nutrient-rich, dry “food grounds” that can then be sent to farms to use as chicken feed. When the bin is full, members can empty the grounds into the prepaid box and schedule a USPS pickup in the Mill app. Not only does this mean no more stinky kitchen smells and fewer trips to take out the trash, but recycling food waste is one of the easiest ways the average person can help improve the environment. Food scraps that rot in landfills release methane, a greenhouse gas that is 80 times more potent than CO₂. According to the United Nations, globally, landfills and wastewater emit 67 million metric tons of methane, 20 percent of methane emissions.

WILSON, the sporting goods company that provides official balls for the NBA, NFL, U.S. Open, French Open, WNBA, AVP, NCAA, and Basketball Africa League, has unveiled a prototype for an airless, 3D-PRINTED BASKETBALL. Collaborating with EOS, a leading supplier for responsible manufacturing solutions in additive manufacturing, the ball—unveiled last February at the NBA All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City—is printed as one solid piece and designed to bounce just like an official NBA ball, without ever having to be reinflated. Hexagonal holes allow air to pass through the ball, meaning it will also never expand or contract due to changing environments and temperatures. According to an article published in Dezeen in March, Wilson is undertaking further research before officially releasing the product.

Wood products in Maine—an industry that has driven Maine’s economy for centuries—go beyond lumber and paper. FRED HORTON, MICHAEL LEBRUN, and JESSE GOOD are midconstruction on STANDARD BIOCARBON CORPORATION’s new facility in the Penobscot county town of Enfield that will “carbonize” wood chips and sawdust residuals from the nearby sawmill, PLEASANT RIVER LUMBER, through a process called pyrolysis. According to an article published in Mainebiz earlier this year, the result is called “biochar,” a charcoal-like material that permanently removes CO₂ from the atmosphere and can be used in a variety of valuable applications, from PFAS remediation to stormwater management to animal bedding. Using technology developed in Germany, Standard Biocarbon will take clean wood chips from the Pleasant River mill, turn them into biochar, and then send the excess thermal energy back to the mill for its kiln system. Operations are expected to start later this year.

What if, instead of sending our recycling out to already strained facilities, we could just eat it? Design studio TOMORROW MACHINE has created a prototype of a biodegradable bottle called GONESHELLS, which can be composted, dissolved in tap water, or yes, ingested. Made from a pure, potato-starch-based material, the prototype is being developed in collaboration with German–French company ECKES-GRANINI, the largest corporate producer of fruit juice in Europe, for its juice brand Brämhults. Inspired by fruit peels, which nature designed to protect fruit while also being able to break down on their own, the bottle is coated in a bio-based, water-resistant barrier on both the inside and outside to preserve the juice it contains. When the drink is finished, the bottle can be peeled apart and broken down quickly, as opposed to lasting for years or even decades.

The creative computer software company ADOBE has completed a new COLOR-CODED BUILDING called the Founders Tower on the Adobe campus in downtown San Jose, California. The new 18-story expansion was planned in collaboration with the color consultancy LOVE GOOD COLOR, which designed the building to utilize the neuroscience behind color’s effects on the brain. The blues and teals of the semi-private booths and worktables, for example, are for focused work; the greens and yellows of the meeting rooms and team hubs are for collaboration; and the oranges and burgundies in spaces like the double-height break room encourage community building and social interaction. According to Adobe, the color schemes help employees as they move from space to space throughout their workday.

ATLANTIC HARDWOOD, the 30-year-old Portland manufacturer, distributor, and installer of custom hardwood flooring, Atlantic plank flooring, staircases, countertops, and various types of millwork, has upgraded its former 400-square-foot showroom to a sleek and modern 2,500-square-foot showroom and meeting space on Saint John Street. Designers and clients can view hundreds of physical samples of wood-based designs—which are made of environmentally friendly local hardwood products whenever possible—and can also utilize the store’s digital software to upload various room photos and try out different floor types beneath. “The designers love coming here to go over colors with their customers,” says founder Jack McInerny, whose concept of the new space was inspired by a design gallery in Miami. “The last five years have been great for us, and our volume has increased many times over,” he says. “We had to get a bigger space, and with that bigger space came the opportunity to do something I’ve always wanted to do, which is to categorize things by color, not by types of wood.”

When it comes to plumbing, upgrades are not only pricey but difficult. (There aren’t a ton of DIY projects we’d recommend attempting.) Enter the new bathroom fixture brand SPROOS!, which has designed colorful, customizable HAND SHOWER KITS that are as easy to install as putting together a piece of IKEA furniture (so, relatively easy) and cost a fraction of the price of higher-end bathroom fixtures, making them a great solution for renters and consumers on a budget. Features vary across the three models, which are priced between $200 and $270, but all shower fixtures are available in black, yellow, red, and white; they include a pivoting shower holder, a three-spray hand shower, a small soap dish shelf, a 24-inch slide bar, and a 70-inch hose. And, instead of requiring you to decipher pages of paper instructions, the entire assembly process is explained by video via a QR code on the packaging.

The land conservation nonprofit MAINE COAST HERITAGE TRUST (MCHT), which protects over 170,000 coastal acres and 330 islands in Maine, recently sold an acre of ecologically important salt marshland to Acadia National Park, while at the same time donating three adjoining acres to the ISLAND HOUSING TRUST (IHT) to create more year-round workforce housing on Mount Desert Island. The housing parcel, located off Route 3 near Northeast Creek, is not the first workforce housing project MCHT and IHT have collaborated on. According to the Mount Desert Islander, a few years ago they jointly acquired 60 acres near the head of MOUNT DESERT ISLAND, where MCHT conserved 30 acres of Jones Marsh wetland, and IHT is building a new workforce neighborhood that will include ten energy-efficient year-round homes. Real estate values have climbed sharply on Maine’s largest island, pushing out the people who work in Bar Harbor’s restaurants, shops, and tourism industries. This is one step being taken to give people an affordable place to live that’s also close to where they work. (Photo courtesy of Eager Eye Photography)