Sustainability Weekly
Fridays are for…
Remembering Jane Goodall, New Solar Inventions, Aluminum Recycling, and more!
by Alli DiGiacomo
Happy Friday and October! This month is also Archtober, National Book Month, so make sure to grab a book from our library in the Skylounge to celebrate! Don’t forget tickets go on sale today for Open House NY Weekend (October 17-19th). Also, get excited for our volunteering with LES Ecology Center on Monday!
Keep reading for sustainability news…
T H I S W E E K ’ S T O P S T O R I E S
REMEMBERING JANE GOODALL
Dr. Jane Goodall, an influential conservationist, primatologist, and ethologist, passed away at the age of 91 this week. She was most known for her first-of-it’s kind research on chimpanzees in the wild and work with environmental advocacy. Her work began with a long term study of chimpanzees in Tanzania with the goal of better understanding human evolution. She was the first person to observe and conclude that species other than humans can make and use tools, an observation that has been credited with “redefining what it means to be human.” This led to her observing that chimpanzees can also form social bonds, display emotion, hunt, adopt other orphaned chimpanzees, and go to war.
In 1997, she founded the Jane Goodall Institute, which supports chimpanzee conservation efforts around the world. It has now expanded to 25 offices, and Goodall’s work inspired people of all ages to appreciate and respect animals and our natural environment. Jane consistently urged people to treat every day as Earth Day, that Earth is our only home and is being relentlessly harmed by ecosystem destruction, pollution, and climate change. She acknowledged that humans are destroying the planet and the natural world that we depend on, but that hope is not lost. Goodall argued that “it will take hope, inspiration, and action to save the earth” and that “youth are the key to our survival.”
She has received countless awards and recognitions for her work, including being named a United Nations Messenger of Peace and the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom. There are several documentaries about her and her work, including JANE and Jane Goodall: An Inside Look by National Geographic. In 2019, National Geographic opened Becoming Jane, a travelling exhibit focused on her life’s work, which is still touring across the U.S. She has written and published 27 books.
The world truly is a better place because of Jane. In her words, remember that “every single one of us makes a difference every day – it is up to us as to the kind of difference we make”.
RESEARCHERS DEVELOPED A CLEAR COATING THAT TURNS WINDOWS INTO SOLAR PANELS
As solar installations jumped 64% in the first 6 months of 2025, researchers at Nanjing University have developed a clear, colorless solar coating that can be applied directly to windows, turning them into power-generating panels without changing how they look. The coating is made with cholesteric liquid crystal, a material that reflects specific wavelengths of light. Instead of blocking sunlight, it redirects part of it into the edges of the glass, where photovoltaic cells capture the energy. During testing the film collected up to 38.1% of incident green light, while still letting in 64.2% of visible light and preserving over 91% of the window’s color accuracy, meaning the window still looks and functions like normal glass.
Unlike traditional mirror-based concentrators, this invention doesn’t cause distortion, doesn’t require bulky tracking mirrors, and is scalable. The films can also be mass-produced using roll-to-roll manufacturing, making them easy to retrofit onto existing buildings. Tests showed the coating remains stable under long-term exposure.
HOW TARIFFS ARE ACTUALLY BOOSTING ALUMINUM RECYCLING
The U.S. aluminum industry is turning more aggressively to recycling thanks to President Trump’s tariffs, which doubled taxes on imported aluminum and steel from 25% to 50% in June. Since about half of U.S. aluminum supply comes from abroad (mainly Canada) the tariffs are putting pressure on producers in the U.S. to find new sources. Scrap metal has become a hot commodity, since the tariffs don’t apply to it, and companies are now importing more scrap as well as collecting more from within the U.S. Data from the Aluminum Association shows scrap inventories rose nearly 15% in the first half of 2025 compared to last year, and 35% in July alone.
Recycled aluminum was already in demand because it’s much cheaper and cleaner to make than using raw aluminum, and requires only about 5% of the energy used in smelters. Automakers, construction companies, solar manufacturers, and packaging companies were already sourcing more scrap to cut emissions in their supply chains. People in the industry now say recycling is the fastest-growing part of the business and the most effective way to reduce dependence on imports. Companies like Amp are rolling out hundreds of AI-powered robots to recover aluminum from waste streams, while can-recycling firm Clynk was recently acquired by Norway’s Tomra to expand its automated return stations. Industry groups are also lobbying for more state “bottle bills” to increase recycling rates, since only 10 states currently have them, and U.S. can recycling is at its lowest level in decades.
MORE IN SUSTAINABILITY NEWS
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This illegal dumping site, dubbed 'garbage island,' has been transformed into a sustainable modern cafe.
How to build a heat-resilient city.
The Department of Energy said on Wednesday that it is terminating 321 grants supporting 223 projects, cutting a total of more than $7.5 billion in funding for clean energy projects. (This is on top of the $13 Billion in climate funds that were “returned” in late September.)
EU parliament adopts new rules to reduce food and textile waste.
Nearly 100 scientists, including President Joe Biden’s chief climate science adviser, signed a letter this week endorsing more federal research into geoengineering. These technologies to mitigate the effects of climate change include the controversial proposal to inject sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to reflect the sun’s heat back into space.
The oceans just hit an ominous milestone.
A federal judge in Hawaii blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to allow commercial fishing in the protected Pacific Marine National Monument.
11 former executives of Miteni, an Italian chemical company, were sentenced to 141 years in prison for deliberately contaminating water supplies with PFAS (“forever chemicals”).
A report from the Union of Concerned Scientists found that residential customers in 7 mid-atlantic/midwest states that are part of the PJM Interconnection electric market are paying nearly $4.4 billion for transmission upgrades intended to deliver electricity to data centers, only benefiting a single customer.
Listen to Jane Goodall on a popular podcast with Alex Cooper.
How tariffs cause the US aluminum industry to boost recycling.
Scientists are building a library of individual fish sounds, a “choral chorus.”