Friday round-up 30/10/09

Here are some things that made me go "wow" as I meandered the web this week:

• The amount of food wasted by Europe and the US could feed the world's hungry three times over. This makes me feel a bit sick. A new book called Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal looks at what we could do to fix the way we deal with food. Add it to your reading lists, because this is an area where there is potential for relatively simple changes to make a huge difference.

• In the category of "I'd never thought about this, but now that I know I can't believe how stupid the way we do things is": an article about the inefficiency of waste water management.

• Photos from the Sydney Harbour Bridge Picnic, part of the Crave Sydney festival. Wouldn't it be nice if harbour bridges were accessible as public recreation spaces all the time, rather than devoted to cars?
  

• Toyota has received a lot of criticism because the manufacturing process of the Prius produces more emissions than the manufacturing processes of most other cars. So, according to Treehugger, Toyota decided to genetically engineer flowers to absorb emissions in the manufacturing plant. Interesting tactic. I'm intrigued about how the flowers work, and what happens to the stuff they've absorbed when they die.

• Excellent, Playback clothing has perfected the art of making clothing from old plastic bottles!

What inspiring, interesting, disturbing or shocking things have you discovered this week? Please share!