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To protect his community from extreme heat, Luis Cassiano launched a nonprofit to bring green roofs to Brazil’s favelas.

Many homes in the favelas are built with cheap materials, leaving roofs too weak to support conventional green roof systems.

To solve this, Luis replaced soil with a geotextile made from recycled bottles which, when paired with a small hydroponic system, allows plants to thrive.

Luis’s design is also over 90% cheaper per square metre than traditional green roofs.

Beyond cooling individual homes, Luis hopes the project helps residents see how vegetation can cool entire communities, and inspires a deeper appreciation for protecting local greenery.

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Sources: NPR, Reuters, University of Texas, Undark

A biotech company is turning to nickel-accumulating daisies to help “mine” critical minerals.

The daisy species belongs to a group of about 750 plants known as hyperaccumulators - plants capable of absorbing and storing heavy metals and other contaminants from soil.

The company, Genomines, estimates that up to 40 million hectares of land worldwide have enough nickel-rich soil for plant-based extraction, which, if fully utilised, could produce as much as 14 times more nickel than conventional mining does today.

A recent study also found that waste rock from U.S. mines alone holds enough critical minerals to meet 90% of the country’s annual demand, suggesting that plants like these could help recover those resources while simultaneously rehabilitating degraded land.

Sources: Fast Company, Grist, Genomines