Tech startups want to reinvent the bulk aisle—grocery's most glorious, affordable, unwieldy section. That's going to be harder than it looks.

Water:Charity assumed that money and celebrity exposure would be able to solve the world’s access-to-clean-water crisis. But this approach often led to more abandoned water pumps. Charities – and journalists who cover them – are now working to concentrate on making their solutions sustainable.

To the two social entrepreneurs who founded nonprofit Feedback, the massive amounts of food waste being tossed into landfills in the UK and USA each year was a mounting challenge that required a creative solution. So they founded Toast Ale, a craft brewing company that not only reduced food waste by using unwanted bread from bakeries to brew their ales, but helps bring awareness to the issue through the brand, which is growing in popularity.

As technology advances, so does the electronic waste that it produces as people throw out their old products to make way for the new ones. To reduce their e-waste footprint and keep the materials out of landfills, companies such as Dell are pushing for closed-loop recycling – a process that reuses the recycled product to make the same product again.

Funded by federal grant money, the state, and the Office of Naval Research, Hawaii County public transit has developed its first hydrogen-powered shuttle bus. What’s been called the “fuel of the future,” hydrogen fuel cells create a power source that’s only emissions are clean water vapor. While a seemingly viable and scalable clean-energy source, such development and infrastructure requires large financial investments that many states have yet to prioritize.

Aiming to improve road conditions and cut down on plastic waste, a Scottish engineer found a way to blend the two. After testing a series of different recipes, he found the perfect recipe that is now being used across United Kingdom and the Gulf, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Georgia State University's predictive analytics system has helped students graduate by flagging at-risk students using a variety of factors, including college and high school grades, financial aid statuses, and more. While other universities attempt to scale the program to increase retention at their universities as well, serious concerns about privacy and surveillance persist, as do hesitations regarding the cost of expanding advisory services as Georgia State has done.

To help with the coronavirus vaccine distribution, a New York-based start-up has introduced a service that connects "vaccine providers who find themselves with extra vaccines to people who are willing to get one at a moment’s notice." Although the project is still being piloted, more than 500,000 vaccination-seekers and 200 vaccine providers have signed up for the initiative, and some health officials believe it could become a model for a more equitable distribution strategy.

Localscapes is a program in Utah promoting more water-efficient landscaping. The program includes state-based horticulturists, landscape professionals, and water experts who help interested people make the most sustainable use of their yards and lawns. "The program focuses on five techniques: a central open space, gathering areas, activity zones, paths and planting beds."

Sausages made of fish processing waste and other bait alternatives are under development in Canada as members of the fishing industry work to save the declining populations of popular lobster bait fish like mackerel and herring.

A brewery and a winery in Oregon are setting the standards and building the infrastructure for a reusable glass bottles system to reduce their environmental impacts. They sell their products in bottles that customers are incentivized to return so they can be cleaned, refilled, and sold again.