Best sustainable tech at CES 2020: New Tesla rival, meatless pork, and more
Fires continue to rage across Australia. 2019 was the second-warmest year ever. In 2020, CES couldn't ignore climate change.
And while the annual convention featured plenty of future e-waste, there was also sustainable tech, from delicious replacements for animal products to sleek new electric cars.
Here are just a few of the big CES 2020 reveals meant to reduce our carbon footprint.
I can't believe it's not pork!
Impossible Burger is pretty popular, thanks partly to a partnership with Burger King. The product has started rolling out to some grocery chains across the country, priming Impossible Foods for its next big product.
The company revealed Impossible Pork at CES 2020 in the form of bahn mi sandwiches and dumplings. While the company doesn't have a release date yet for Impossible Pork, Impossible Sausage will be available in late January via Burger King's Impossible Croissan'wich in five test markets.
Impossible Foods says it wants to create a more sustainable food chain by cutting dependency on the livestock industry, which has contributed to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation.
Sustainable ice cream
Speaking of plant-based foods, how about some plant-based ice cream? There are plenty of dairy-free options in your frozen treat aisle already, including some from Ben & Jerry. But Eclipse Foods, which was promoting its product at CES, has some big names behind it too, with funding from Reddit's Alexis Ohanian, Gmail's Paul Buchheit, and Eric Patel, formerly of Daiya Foods.
The eight-person company is working with famous ice cream makers and restaurants in New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., but plans to eventually expand into stores.
"We're growing super rapidly," co-founder Aylon Steinhart told Mashable at CES. "Restaurants are coming to us, more than we can handle, saying, 'We want this product.'"
It also has as much protein and calcium as regular milk, the company claims.
"As far as the ingredients, there’s no gum, no gels and no stabilizers in Eclipse," Steinhart recently told the Observer. "Everything in there, you can find at a Whole Foods. There is no nuts, no seeds, no soy, no wheat, so it’s free of common allergens."
Best of all, Eclipse is able to keep costs down by using simpler ingredients that don't require "expensive biotech," according to the company's other co-founder, Thomas Bowman. And the process of making its ice cream is so similar to making milk that Eclipse can use existing dairy facilities. This not only keeps overhead costs (and, thus, consumer costs) down, but is a big factor in Eclipse's sustainability.
A Tesla challenger emerges
After a lot of teasing and a special even in Los Angeles for reservation holders, Fisker used CES for the grand public unveiling of the Ocean, its affordable (i.e. under $40,000) electric SUV that could give Tesla a worthy challenge.
The Ocean is all about sustainability. The vehicle's interior carpets are made from recycled plastic found on beaches and washed-up fishing nets. And though the SUV will reportedly get up to 300 miles on a single battery charge, a solar panel roof could generate enough energy to give the vehicle an extra 1,000 miles of battery life a year.
Due to hit roads in 2022, the Ocean will be a direct competitor to Tesla's already-announced Model Y, which is scheduled for release in 2021 with a price tag of about $47,000. Not that having more zero-emission vehicles on the road is a bad thing.
Saving water
Extreme droughts have become more commonplace at a terrifying rate thanks to climate change. The recent water crisis in South Africa gave us a glimpse of a potential future. These are the horrors that Hydraloop hopes to help us avoid.
The name Hyrdraloop is, well, pretty self-explanatory but, yes, it's a device built to help homeowners recycle their water in a safe and healthy way. But will people freak out because they don't think the re-used water is clean enough?
On the surface, the Hydraloop seems extremely promising. The company claims its product can "recycle up to 95% of shower & bath and optionally 50% of washing machine water so you recycle and reuse up to 85% of total in-house domestic water." All told, Hydraloop says a family of four could save up to 20,000 gallons a year with its home recycler.
The company also stresses all the ways it cleans water, including employing multiple methods for separating and removing free-floating sediment and waste.
Additionally, the water is disinfected with UV light. And while Hydraloop goes far to ensure the water is safe, remember that we're not talking about drinking or bathing in reused water. It's used for things like your toilet, washing machine, and sprinklers. You can even use Hydraloop's app to keep up with how much water you're saving.
The system was impressive enough to earn an Innovation Award at CES 2020. With around 100 units already in use in Africa and Europe, Hydraloop will become available in the U.S. in the second half of 2020 and cost $4,000.
Topics CES Sustainability
Marcus Gilmer is Mashable's Assistant Real-Times News Editor on the West Coast, reporting on breaking news from his location in San Francisco. An Alabama native, Marcus earned his BA from Birmingham-Southern College and his MFA in Communications from the University of New Orleans. Marcus has previously worked for Chicagoist, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
