His collection of 30 hauntingly similar shots show what adult birds are feeding to their young: bottlecaps, lighters, spray bottles and, in one case, a piece of what looks to be a headphone.

From the photographer:

On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

It’s gross stuff, to say the least. Hopefully, if you’re buying every USB foot warmer cigarette lighter that Brando releases, you’re disposing of your plastics in a more sustainable way. (But really, in case it wasn’t clear, we don’t expect you to actually buy any of this junk…) [chris jordan via Treehugger]

Concrete is usually 60% to 75% “aggregate”, sand, gravel or crushed stone, according to people who should know. What this engineer did was grind up the “landfill-bound” plastic materials, and then mix them with pure concrete. Not only did he save the plastic from environmentally unfriendly alternatives (landfill or heat-related processing), he also avoided the use of mined gravel or sand. Once the bricks were made—allegedly to withstand 3000 to 5000 psi—he built the structures above.

I don’t know what the Portland Cement Association will make of it, but if there’s any chance these bricks float, I think members of the Concrete Boot Association, aka Cosa Nostra, could be mightily displeased. [Inhabitat]

The process is the same as the one used in the Lego factory, but instead of Lego, these guys make things you touch pretty much all throughout your day. [RGS]

For now it’s limited to a small number of items from makers like Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and Transcend, but ultimately Amazon wants its whole catalog in easy-open packages. And that sounds a heavenly idea, and as long as it is a greener solution, it should get the environmentalists happy too. The press release below explains more.

SEATTLE—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Nov. 3, 2008—Amazon.com has launched “Frustration-Free Packaging,” a new initiative designed to make it easier for customers to liberate products from their packages. Amazon is focusing first on two kinds of items: those enclosed in hard plastic cases known as “clamshells” and those secured with plastic-coated wire ties, commonly used in toy packaging.

Frustration-Free Packaging is being launched in the U.S. with 19 bestselling products from leading manufacturers including Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and electronics manufacturer Transcend. The product is exactly the same – Amazon has just streamlined the packaging. The project will expand across Amazon’s international sites beginning in 2009.

“I think we’ve all experienced the frustration that sometimes occurs when you try to get a new toy or electronics product out of its package,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “It will take many years, but our vision is to offer our entire catalog of products in Frustration-Free Packaging. We’d like to thank Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and Transcend for working with us in this effort – we truly appreciate it.”

In addition to making packages easier to open, a major goal of the Frustration-Free Packaging initiative is to be more environmentally friendly by using less packaging material.

One of the first products to launch with Frustration-Free Packaging is the Fisher-Price Imaginext Adventures Pirate Ship, which is now delivered in an easy-to-open, recyclable cardboard box. The new packaging eliminates 36 inches of plastic-coated wire ties, 1,576.5 square inches of printed corrugated package inserts and 36.1 square inches of printed folding carton materials. Also eliminated are 175.25 square inches of PVC blisters, 3.5 square inches of ABS molded styrene and two molded plastic fasteners.

Small items, such as memory cards, are also good candidates for Frustration-Free Packaging. Typically encased in oversized plastic clamshells to deter shoplifting, memory cards are then placed inside larger cardboard boxes for shipment to customers. Working with Transcend, Amazon has eliminated the hard-to-open clamshell and the need for an additional box. Instead, the cards will now ship inside recyclable cardboard envelopes which use less material. Amazon is working to shrink the envelope size even further.

Customers can order select items from Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and Transcend in the new Frustration-Free Packaging for immediate delivery. The current collection of Frustration-Free products can be seen by going to www.amazon.com/packaging.

We may think of “plastic electronics” as any Chinese-made product that needs to be plugged into the wall, but in this definition, it means the circuitry itself that’s plastic rather than silicon, and can be used to create things that require flexibility. Today, as we’ve seen firsthand with OLED production, plastic circuitry can be made using inkjet printing. Another technique is lithographic etching.

Self-assembly is more practical, but Philips’ breakthrough needs to be worked on before it can be put to use in a factory. One researcher, Edsger Smits, told Technology Review that the goal “is to be able to throw molecules in a beaker and let them organise into desired structures.” Yeah, great, but desired by whom, Edsger? [Technology Review]

Says Rajiv Mongia, an Intel engineer:

“The fact that they’ve been able to develop a polymer-type material that can be used in a relatively thin film is worth a second look [compared with previous ceramic heatsinks that worked the same way],” Mongia says. “Also, it’s working in a temperature range that is of interest to us.”

[Technology Review]

It’s very interesting, even if one or more of these details could be misinformation given out to different companies to determine which one of them is spilling the beans on Apple’s confidential specs. The big difference about the appearance seems to be the ditching of the brushed metal/black plastic look on the back in favour of a more plastic look that approximates metal, like a car, or Iron Man. [iLounge]

The bags, made from sugarcane, corn or wheat, can increase greenhouse gas emissions because they require higher temperatures to decompose. Even the biodegradable versions don’t disintegrate as planned when thrown into the anaerobic environment of a landfill. The lack of oxygen causes the bags to release methane, which is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

They also tend to screw up recycling operations by contaminating the waste stream and making regular recycled plastics unsaleable. Recycling companies would need to invest in extremely expensive equipment to extract bioplastic packaging from regular waste.

Not to mention, bioplastics also compete for land with food and biofuel. The industry, which is growing by 20 to 30% a year, may take over several million more acres of farmland within the next half decade. With rising food prices set to push another 100 million people into poverty, maybe it’s time everyone just ditched plastics all together. [Guardian via Treehugger]

In fact, the folks at Agroplast claim that their chemicals can be utilised in other products like fertilisers, lotions, and as “a flavour enhancer in cigarettes.” Sorry, but I’m going to pass on a ticket to that flavour country. [Agroplast via CNET]