Nasa offers $3 million to recycle waste in space

The challenge focuses on developing energy-efficient, low-mass, and low-impact recycling technologies to process inorganic waste streams such as food packaging

Nasa has unveiled its latest innovation competition, the LunaRecycle Challenge, offering a $3 million prize pool for groundbreaking solutions in recycling material waste on deep space missions.

This initiative aims to support Nasa's long-term goals of sustained human presence on the Moon and future deep space exploration.

The challenge focuses on developing energy-efficient, low-mass, and low-impact recycling technologies to process inorganic waste streams such as food packaging, discarded clothing, and science experiment materials.

The challenge leverages open innovation, tapping into public ingenuity to revolutionise waste management approaches both in space and on our home planet.

By incentivising creative solutions for lunar waste recycling, Nasa aims to improve the sustainability of long-duration missions and potentially transform waste treatment practices on Earth