Space junk and computers heating houses

Roughly 40% of the energy consumed by the data centers is used for cooling down the computers. The heat they produce could be used for warming businesses and houses. In 2010 in Helsinki, a thousand households were connected to the heating system that used warmth from the data center nearby. Paris started to heat its arboretum with the help of data centers this year, and Facebook just finished a project that uses hot water from a server farm to heat 6 900 houses in Odense, Denmark.

TerraCycle is a company dedicated to waste that is hard to recycle. It offers waste recycling programs financed by the producers, retailers, and global brands to allow customers to collect and recycle their waste. Since its inception, TerraCycle has become a world leader in recycling. Until now, over 200 million people in 21 countries have gathered more than 44 million dollars for charity.

Since the first satellite, Sputnik, was launched in 1957, humans put another 9600 in the orbit. According to the European Space Agency, roughly 34 thousand pieces of space junk bigger than 10 cm, and more than 128 million smaller ones revolve around the Earth these days. They all come from the old satellites. Space agencies advise catching these floating trash with nets, harpoons, or robotic arms. That way, they could come back on Earth or burn in its atmosphere.