Daphne Gnago and Riccardo Bonazza (HvA): MatSwap – use your mattress to the fullest
Many students might experience sleeping difficulties as they don’t have the means to afford quality bedding. In the meanwhile, mattress waste is creating consequent environmental issues as most mattresses are disposed of or incinerated before reaching their intended lifespan. MatSwap is collecting hotel mattresses, which are high quality and prematurely disposed products, to address the unsustainable disposal of mattresses while providing affordable, high quality bedding to price sensitive customers such as students and low incomes. The mattresses are professionally cleaned, refurbished and resold through the platform that ensures a fully circular service by providing a collection system to its customers.
Juan Cruz Tubio (VU): MycoFarming, domesticating fungi At the root of the Dutch farmer’s crisis, lie far too high emissions of nitrogen in the soil. Nitrogen is a critical element for a plant to grow, but in excess, it’s damaging to the underground and leads to biodiversity losses. By way of developing nitrogen sensors and […]
Olivier Lugier (UvA): Green synthesis of hybrid core-shell nanoparticles (Nano Hybrids) Nanomaterials are extremely small materials with unique properties due to their size. They are said to revolutionize many technological fields with high societal impact, like sustainable energy, catalysis and biomedicine. The problem is that their synthesis methods are often complex and polluting, which limits […]
Katinka Quintelier (VU): CALS app: an app to Create, Act, Learn & Scale for sustainability The CALS-app, turns individual actions for sustainability into collective actions that have real impact. By using the power of social media, individuals, but also governments and businesses can be motivated to collaborate all on an equal level. An example is […]