A new solar-powered machine developed by Belgian scientists turns urine into beer, but could also be used to recycle waste into fresh water in areas of need.

Ghent University researchers created this system with developing nations in mind, particularly: sunny locations with plenty of solar access but limited fresh water and located off the grid.

Urine is collected in a tank, heated and cleaned, filtering out nutrients to be used as fertilizer – a ‘whole buffalo’ approach that reuses each aspect of what would ordinarily get flushed and forgotten.

At a public event, the group debuted the system and gathered 1,000 liters pee from festival attendees. Naturally, they then brewed the resulting contributions for redistribution as beer.

Dr Sebastiaan Derese, who worked on the device, said: “We’re able to recover fertilizer and drinking water from urine using just a simple process and solar energy.”

The post Sewer to Brewer: Solar System Turns Urine into Beer first appeared on Gajitz.

Plastic six-pack rings are one of the most iconic pieces of environmentally-unfriendly design and technology, adding a little convenience for humans but slowly killing animals, at least until now.

A beer brewery in Florida has created a set of 3D-printed edible and biodegradable can rings that double as food for sea turtles and other susceptible species known for getting their necks trapped inside of rings. This design also represents a neat form of recycling, being constructed from byproducts of the beer-brewing process.

The plastic ring problem has been a big one for a long time. It is estimated that millions of animals have been harmed by them, in part from getting caught within the rings, but also by eating the plastic (so the old trick of cutting the rings before discarding them doesn’t do a whole lot of good). America drinks 6.3 billion gallons of beer annually, and most of the rings end up in the ocean.

Saltwater Brewery, founded in 2013, has worked to connect with local sea lovers including surfers and fishermen. The company gives “a portion of their profits to charities working to conserve our oceans and the creatures who call it home, including CCA, Surfrider, Ocean Foundation, and MOTE. Creating the 100-percent biodegradable, edible six-pack rings was the natural next step in the brewery’s sustainability mission, and the new rings have met with resounding approval in local trials. Craft brewers in other parts of the country are already asking to use the edible rings for their own beers.”

The post Edible Six-Pack Rings Feed (Instead of Strangling) Wildlife first appeared on Gajitz.

This low-tech, beer-stashing solution uses the Earth’s naturally colder temperature to keep up to 24 cans of beer at ready-to-drink temperatures year round, all without needing an external energy source.

Far from being a futuristic idea, this eCool design owes a debt to a long history of storing beers in below-grade cellars that are naturally cooler yet don’t freeze, keeping your drinks in a reasonable temperature range during any season.

Once you lift the lid, a simple manual hand crank brings your next beer can up to the surface and deposits it handily on a little side flap. Being fully-mechanical with no electricity for any part of the equation makes it cheaper, easier, more versatile and robust.

Digging the three-foot hole could be most easily done with a garden drill, though the creators of eCool suggest you can also just use a shovel and get your hands a bit dirty – after all, the beer will taste even better after a bit of hard work.

The post Brew Stash: Secret Underground Power-Free Beer Cooler first appeared on Gajitz.

Remember when going out to a bar or restaurant with your friends meant actually interacting with them? Since everyone has their heads buried in their iPhones and other mobile gadgets now, face-to-face interaction with other human beings has significantly declined. The Offline Glass is here to make sure you can either drink with your friends or fiddle with your iPhone – but not both.

Designed by Mauricio Perussi, Melissa Pottker and Fischer & Friends, the Offline Glass is basically a beer glass with half a bottom. If you try to set it down normally, it will tip over and spill all of that precious, precious beer. But if you put your iPhone under the missing part of the bottom, it will sit upright and let you both enjoy your libations and interact with the actual humans right in front of you.

There will always be some people who try to get around solutions like this, like by wedging something else into that void space so they can still use their phones. But the design is still a clever one that sends a message to those technophiles who can never seem to put their gadgets down long enough to enjoy the real world around them. The Offline Glass has been field tested in a bar in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and it’s currently in production to reach a wider audience.

The post Glass Forces You to Put Down the Phone +Talk with Friends first appeared on Gajitz.

If there is a more distasteful thing than lukewarm beer, we don’t know what it would be. Japanese beer company Kirin gets it, so they’ve invented a frozen beer foam to keep your brew chilled. It looks kind of like a swirl of soft serve ice cream plopped into the top of a pint of beer, but it’s actually extremely cold beer that’s had air blown into it.

Ichiban Shibori Frozen Draft was recently introduced into restaurants in Tokyo. The foam is supposed to keep the beer super-cold (-5 degrees Celcius) for 30 minutes, which gives imbibers plenty of time to down the brew before it takes on that icky lukewarm quality.

The demonstration video gives a good idea of how cool the foam looks coming out of the machine, but doesn’t really give any helpful information. We’re anxious to know if the foam is as easy to slurp up as regular foam, whether it changes the drinkability of the beer and whether the company will ever make our dreams come true by offering soft-serve beer foam sundaes.

The post Super-Chilled Beer Foam Keeps Your Drink Nice and Cold first appeared on Gajitz.