People Fixing the World

It’s estimated that 400 billion square metres of fabric are made every year – enough to cover Germany – for the fashion industry. The sector produces a similar amount of greenhouse gases to the international airline and shipping industries combined. The two most-used materials are cotton and polyester. Growing cotton requires a vast amount of land and water, and often chemicals too. Polyester is a by-product of the oil industry which has a massive environmental impact.But after clothing has been used, just 1% of it is recycled in a way that means it can be turned into other clothes. Much of what’s left ends up in landfill or is burned. What if that were to change and new clothes could easily be made out of old ones? Companies across the world are trying to “close the loop” in the fashion industry, developing chemical processes to turn used fabric back into materials that can be used again.Sweden’s Re:newcell is transforming old cotton into useable material, while the UK’s Worn Again has come up with a process to enable the re-use of blended textiles. But are these processes viable? Will turning old pants into new shirts save the planet – or is the solution something much deeper? Presenter: Nick Holland Producer: Jamie Ryan(Photo Caption: Clothes at a textile sorting depot / Photo Credit: BBC)

About 800,000 people take their own lives every year, that’s one person every 40 seconds, according to the World Health Organization.For decades, doctors and researchers have tried to establish the key risk factors that identify someone as being at risk of suicide - depression, drug addiction and low social support have all been proposed - but research shows that no one variable gives doctors a useful steer.This makes it very difficult for mental health professionals to predict who might try to kill themselves.Now the psychologist Joseph Franklin is trying a new approach: to utilise machine learning to spot patterns in how hundreds of variables come together to put an individual at higher risk of suicide. He has developed a computer algorithm that is able to spot the subtle interplay of factors and make much more accurate suicide predictions. At the same time, researchers in the US are developing programmes that scan social media posts for signs that a town may be about to experience a higher rate of suicide than normal.But how should these tools be used by doctors and public health bodies? And is there a risk that even as machines begin to understand suicide, doctors will remain in the dark about how to help their patients, and when?Presenter: Nick Holland Reporter: William Kremer(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

In 2006, Turkish entrepreneur Bedriye Hülya set up her first women-only gym, b-fit. It’s cheap to join and is now a successful chain. Many women in Turkey don’t feel comfortable exercising alongside men and their male relatives may not allow them to use mixed gyms, so b-fit is a place where they can go. Women in Turkey are more likely to be overweight than men, according to government statistics, and the World Health Organization says nearly two thirds don’t get enough exercise. All the gyms are staffed and run by women so the company says it’s creating jobs in a country where just 34% of women work.But some feminists feel that separating men and women is not the way forward, and women should be made to feel welcome everywhere. We went to Istanbul to see how the business works. Presenter: Kat Hawkins Reporter: Neyran Elden Producer: Vibeke Venema (Image Credit: BBC)

Over the past 10 years, Nepal has almost doubled its population of Bengal tigers – it’s estimated the country now has 235 of the magnificent beasts. After years of decline, a combination of smart strategies has turned the tide. The army runs anti-poacher teams, using CCTV, data monitoring and elephant patrols. Income from tourism is channelled to communities bordering the park to build fences to protect them from wildlife and create business opportunities to make poaching less attractive. And the delicate forest ecosystem is managed and expanded, with jungle highways connecting the national parks. We go on a forest safari to see how it all works. Presenter: Amelia Martyn-Hemphill Reporter: Tom Colls(Image Caption: A tiger / Image Credit: Getty Images)

There are 14 specialist shops at the Retuna shopping mall in Eskilstuna, Sweden, but they all have one thing in common. Every item for sale in the shopping centre is second-hand. The clever thing about this mall is its location. It is right next to the city’s refuse and recycling centre. When people come to drop off mattresses and cardboard, they also pass by the mall’s basement to leave unwanted items that can be resold – or indeed items that can be ‘upcycled’, given a new lease of life as a different kind of object. Every shop is run as a money-making business, rather than a charity. The mall also hosts a college that offers a one-year certified course in upcycling, hoping to inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs who believe in sustainability. Presiding over the whole enterprise is Anna Bergstrom. Her mission is to make second-hand shopping a mainstream experience – even one that’s a little bit glamorous.

There are an estimated 350,000 autistic children in Turkey, but only 20,000 to 30,000 of those children are thought to be in education. And because of stigma around the condition, many parents are reluctant to get a diagnosis. Zafer Elcik’s younger brother is autistic and was unable to read or write. But Zafer noticed that while his brother’s attention span was usually very short, he would happily spend an hour playing on his smartphone. So Zafer created Otsimo, an app with a range of games, to help his brother read and write. Now Otsimo has 100,000 users in Turkey, the US and Canada. Otsimo says it’s “democratising education” for people with special needs. But can an app really make much difference? Presenter: Nick Holland Reporter: Vibeke VenemaImage Caption: Alper and Zafer Elcik Image Credit: BBC

In this talent show, it doesn’t matter if you can sing or dance, the winner just has to be honest and good at their job. It’s called Integrity Idol and the aim is to “name and fame” honest government workers - people who reject corruption and refuse to take bribes. The idea is that this creates positive role models to change society for the better. The competition is being run in seven countries around the world. Hundreds of candidates are found from each country, a panel of judges choses the five best, and the public votes on the winner. World Hacks visits the final of the competition in Nepal and asks what difference this approach can make. Reporter: Tom Colls Image Caption: The winner of Integrity Idol Image Credit: BBC

People in many parts of the world are having fewer babies than they were 60 years ago, and that’s worrying some countries. So in order to maintain the proportion of people of working age, governments have come up with campaigns to try to get people to have more children. Polish couples have been encouraged to “breed like bunnies” and speed dating events have been laid on for singles in Georgia.Nicola Kelly visits Norway, which has tackled the issue in a different way, ensuring gender equality, healthcare and education make it attractive to have more than one child.But as the global population grows, does the world really need more babies? We ask whether this just puts greater strain on the planet’s resources.Presenter: Nick Holland Reporter/producer: Nicola KellyImage Credit: Getty Images

Do you ever wonder what happens to the people and projects we feature? This week we revisit innovators around the world to see how their schemes have developed. We catch up with the team catching junk in space, and the PODD disease detectives in Thailand tell us how they’ve successfully stopped the spread of infections. We also check in with the man who planned to give QR codes to homeless people so that passers-by can scan them with their mobile phones and donate money. Presenters: Nick Holland, Elizabeth Davies Producer: Daniel GordonImage Caption: Satellite Image Credit: NASA

In 2009, Todd Bol built a small box in the shape of a school, filled it with books and placed it on his front lawn in Wisconsin, in the US. The book exchange soon became a focal point for the community. Now there are more than 75,000 Little Free Libraries in 88 countries across the world, including Sudan, Russia and the UK. They are open to everyone, they never close and have no paperwork or overdue fines. With the motto “Take a book, leave a book”, the aim is to bring people together and get more books into people’s homes. Reporter: Susila Silva Presenter: Tom CollsPhoto Caption: Little Free Library in Brighton Photo Credit: BBC