re:use to re:invent?

Finally people seem to be getting this recylcing thing. Two companies on the opposite of the spectrum (unless you view them as inherently evil) are harnessing the power of recycling to fuel solutions. Ford is betting the bank on a reusable/recycled product automobile. The piquette project is a counter project to something Toyota is apparently hatching. But kudos for an American car company to finally bet on recycling not just include it in the fleet, without life-support. The existence of the Piquette Project was first revealed Sunday by Time magazine on its Web site. Bill Ford is restructuring the company, after the company's founder who used the Piquette room to create the assembly line process and the first model-t.

Tamiflu is using christmas trees and pine needles, which happen to be a main chemical ingredient. The needles of pine, spruce and fir trees contain a fairly high concentration of shikimic acid, the main ingredient in Tamiflu. Countries all over the world are stockpiling the drug in anticipation of a bird flu pandemic. Most shikimic acid is obtained from star anise, a cooking spice from a tree grown in China. Prices of the spice skyrocketed when anxiety over a the possibility of a human outbreak of avian flu escalated. A small Canadian company, Biolyse Pharma Corp., is now processing thousands of discarded trees to retrieve the acid.

Good news for the planet people. But really we have a long way to go.
the flu tree?
El recyclo