“In 2010 150 billion garments were produced around the world…a dye house uses up to 200 tons of water for each ton of fabric it dyes…”
With those words a challenge has been posted to LAUNCH.org to try and solve the unsustainable components of the materials development system. A joint partnership between NASA, Nike, U.S. Department of State, and USAID called LAUNCH is trying to solve complex world problems by crowdsourcing innovations from all over the world. Keeping with full disclosure, I work on the LAUNCH program and I adamantly support the unique initiative’s approach to discovering inventions that may help us develop a more sustainable and healthy relationship with our planet.
Previous LAUNCH challenges have been themed around water, energy, health, and waste. Here’s the current LAUNCH: Systems Challenge Statement (PDF).
If you are an inventor, innovator, in business, designer, or chemist or generally know of someone developing something that you think would fit with this challenge, I highly recommend you apply or pass this info along.
