This is a great idea. Take your worn out, chewed to death wad of gum, you know that old ABC gum(Already Been Chewed) and put it to good use, instead of under a table or on the sidewalk. Britain has launched a program to recycle your tired worn out chewing gum and “repurpose” it into tires, childrens toys and even mobile phone covers.

This government initiative runs from August 18th through September 15th and encourages people to toss their used chewing gum into special Bins at locations throughout twelve towns in the UK.

Most plastics in stores, in our homes and in our recycling bins are recyclable, but not very much of that actually gets recycled. Only about 6%. And that’s understandable. It’s hard for humans to sort through all those types of plastics. Plus we’re lazy and we tend to daydream a lot. That’s where a robot comes in handy.

This robot was designed by Mitsubishi and Osaka University and uses lasers to sort through all kinds of plastics very quickly. It has five different lasers that measure the reflectivity of each kind of plastic, allowing it to sort them all out.

TerraCycle does something useful for the environment. They recycle the world’s garbage into nifty electronics, bags and other things and they sell them for a cheap price.

These Cheeto speakers sell at Radio Shack for $20 and the company’s online store. They won’t blow out your ear-drums, but they make an interesting statement. That statement is probably about how you like snacking to music.

You know things are bad when gadgets encourage you to recycle candles. Screw electricity. That costs money. Time to go back to candles. Candles will never send you a bill, and candles can not be shut off by the electric company. Plus they can be recycled. Take that electric company.

After you’ve used up your old candles, just pop them into the Candle Quick, let it melt the wax down and then form a brand new candle. The Candle Quick will cost you $25, but if you buy lots of candles, maybe it will pay for itself while you stiff the electric company and put out fires.

Envirobank’s “cash for cans” reverse vending machines hold up to 3000 containers and accept PET (#1),HDPE (#2) and PVC (#3) plastic, brown, clear and green glass and aluminum cans. Deposit your recyclables in these and you’ll get credits for discount shopping.

Pretty nice incentive to recycle your goods huh? It may not give out snacks, but Envirobank claims that their machines cut CO2 emissions, reduce waste disposal and collection costs, and even provide advertising and fund raising opportunities for those who need it.

Mobile phones and other electronics devices are the subject of recycling efforts all around the country. The goal is to keep the devices and their batteries out of landfills. Some companies out there recycle the internal components from discarded electronics to build new products or simply for the raw materials.

T-Mobile has the first handset that is actually made from recycled materials itself. The plastic case of the Moto W233 Renew is made from recycled water bottles. The packaging that the phone ships in uses 22% less material than other handsets and all of the packing materials are made from recycled materials as well.

What if, every time we bought something, that item’s packaging could be re-used as another product? That way, we give the landfills a bit of a break. That’s the idea behind this Cava wine bottle packaging by Spanish design firm Ciclus.

Just drink up all of your wine from the bottle contained inside, and the outer layer of the packaging turns into this cool looking lamp. It’s a win win. In the package, you also get the fixture and bulb that you’ll need to complete your new cool lamp.

Dead iPod? Why not give it new life as a mouse by reincarnating it into an iMouse. This iPod had been run over by a car, so the modder took the Gentlemen we can rebuild it route, by doing just that.

It’s a fully-functioning mouse, with the buttons screen was too messed up so he just has paper in place of it. Imagine what else you could do here. Your mouse could pump out tunes or provide an extra screen for your computer if you kept the screen working.

I have to admit that I mostly like this concept just because it looks cool. Those neatly stacked-together containers would be interesting whether this was a conceptual array of hard drives or recycle bins. In this case they are recycle bins but with some nifty added technology to keep things seperated.

The Barcode Trashcan concept uses the little barcode on your recyclable containers to identify which bin the item goes in. Swiping it across the top will open just the correct bin. This keeps your items seperated appropriately by plastic, glass and metals for those with the combination of being geeky and green. I guess if it doesn’t match or the bar code is worn off it goes in the other bin?