Carbon dioxide gets a bad rap.

Out of all the waste gases produced by human activity — manufacturing, agriculture, electricity production, transportation — carbon dioxide is the biggest byproduct and is fingered as the leading culprit behind global warming.

In fact, it accounts for 76% of all annual global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

But Emily Cole doesn’t focus on the negatives. The 32-year-old scientist has created technology that would recycle carbon dioxide into something extremely useful.

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Cole is cofounder and chief science officer of Liquid Light. The startup is pioneering a process to convert carbon dioxide gas into a chemical that can be used to make consumer products.

She founded the startup in 2009 and immediately got to work developing technology to capture carbon dioxide and recycle it.

“Right now, waste carbon dioxide is captured and sequestered,” said Cole. This means the gas is collected from facilities like industrial plants or manufacturing sites, compressed in pipelines and then injected into rock formations deep underground.

“Instead of storing it, we’re utilizing it and converting it into something of value,” she said.

Liquid Light is the first company that’s developed a catalyst (a combination of water, sunlight, electricity and other chemicals) to make other chemicals out of carbon dioxide.

“We take carbon dioxide from its source [like power plants or factories], add water and electricity to it, and create liquid fuels and chemicals such as ethylene glycol and glycolic acid,” said Cole.

Those chemicals could eventually replace petroleum in everyday consumer products like plastic bottles, carpets, antifreeze, even facial creams.

The benefits are manifold: “We reduce our dependence on petroleum, which is not renewable,” said Cole. “We make these products with lower carbon dioxide emissions and we can possibly lower the production costs.”

Related: These startups could change the world

Cole has a Ph.D. in chemistry from Princeton University. But her passion goes back to her high school days in Texas.

“I had a great teacher who really got me interested and excited about chemistry,” she said.

At Princeton, she collaborated with Professor Andrew Bocarsly, who had already been working on ways to recycle carbon dioxide. “His project was stalled for many years because there wasn’t a lot of interest or funding for it,” she said. But she saw potential, and worked to take his research one step further.

After graduating from Princeton, Cole attracted investment from venture capitalists to start her firm and develop the technology. (While she declined to say how much Liquid Light has raised, CrunchBase reports it has received $23.5 million in several rounds of funding.)

Related: 3D printers could soon make human skin

Liquid Light, which now has a team of 12, hopes to pilot the technology next year and then license it for commercial use.

Big companies have already taken note.

Last year, Coca Cola (KO) partnered with Liquid Light to help accelerate the commercialization of the technology. The technology is especially relevant to Coca-Cola because it could help reduce the cost of producing mono-ethylene glycol, one of the components used to make the company’s plant-based PET plastic bottles.

She said there was another “big industry name” that would soon be announcing a partnership as well.

“My dream is really that we’re able to commercialize this technology and reduce our dependence on oil,” she said.

CNNMoney (New York) First published February 12, 2016: 9:15 AM ET

Hillary Clinton is there. Ted Cruz is there. So are Bernie Sanders and Marco Rubio.

Who’s not there in Bleacher Creatures’ newest lineup of plush dolls inspired by the 2016 presidential candidates? Donald Trump.

Bleacher Creatures is best known for its 10-inch plush figures of famous athletes like New York Yankees’ Derek Jeter, Cleveland Cavaliers’ Lebron James and the Patriots quarterback Tom Brady.

Last year it hit a home run with its Pope Francis doll (selling more than 50,000 of them) to commemorate the papal visit to the United States.

On Saturday, Bleacher Creatures will unveil its newest dolls in the likeness of political characters at the North American Annual Toy Fair in New York City.

“This is our first foray into politics,” said Matt Hoffman, CEO of Plymouth, Pa.-based Bleacher Creatures, which sells more than 1 million dolls a year.

Related: Pope Francis has arrived…as a plush doll

Hoffman said early polls determined who got a Bleacher Creatures transformation.

So why is Donald Trump missing from the group? Heck, even former presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan earned a doll.

The official explanation from the company is that Trump is a celebrity and celebrity likenesses require licenses.

“We worked directly with the Trump Organization and in the end we weren’t able to get a deal,” said Hoffman.

The Trump campaign declined to comment.

Hoffman said he has a Trump doll prototype ready if the candidate changes his mind.

Related: Barbie’s new body: Curvy, tall and petite

Hillary Clinton’s Democratic rival Bernie Sanders almost didn’t make the cut.

Hoffman said the company was closely following the early polls to decide which candidates to go with.

Sanders’ virtual tie with Clinton in Iowa won him his own Bleacher Creatures doll, but too late for the toy fair.

The new political plush dolls (priced at $19.99 each) are on pre-sale on the company’s website.

He also said Clinton, whose doll wears a pant suit, could get a wardrobe change in subsequent versions of the doll.

Hoffman said the political dolls will ship to customers mid-summer, or 30 days before the Republican and Democratic national conventions.

CNNMoney (New York) First published February 12, 2016: 4:13 PM ET

Kids don’t need to know how to code to construct robots with Cubelets.

The blocks have embedded magnets that let them snap together to form robots of any shape. Each block has a tiny computer inside it and can communicate with its neighboring block.

“This makes Cubelets unique. It is a collection of lots of little blocks, each with its own brain,” said Eric Schweikardt, CEO and founder of Modular Robotics.

The blocks have different functionalities: They might be programmed to sense light and temperature, or have little motors to help them move around.

Cubelets (priced between $157 and $500) are already available in stores.

Trash belongs in the garbage bin.

It’s a simple civic lesson that has frustrated two Mumbai entrepreneurs for years.

“India is a country where people love to break the rules,” said Raj Desai, cofounder of startup ThinkScream.

“We see it on the roads where no one is driving in their lane. We see it in the way people disrespect public spaces by throwing garbage anywhere that they want to.”

So Desai and cofounder Pratik Agarwal had an idea: Reward people for throwing things away.

Related: Inside Mumbai’s colorful taxis

The idea for the smart garbage can came about at a popular Bangalore music festival in 2013.

“Pratik and I got lost and it took us two hours to find each other,” said Desai. “It struck us that we needed to come up with a solution for people to stay connected at these events.”

They were also struck by the massive amounts of trash everywhere.

So Desai and Agarwal, both 26, invented a trash can that rewards people with 15 minutes of free Wi-Fi every time they throw something away.

The plastic bin (which costs about $1,470) is four-and-a-half feet high with an LED screen. When you throw something in it, the screen flashes a unique code to access 15 minutes of Wi-Fi (which works within a 50 meter radius).

ThinkScream partnered with a local telecom company and debuted six smart bins at a music festival in 2014.

Since then, the startup has received a number of inquiries from companies who see it as a viral branding opportunity, Desai said.

“But that wasn’t our intention,” he said. “It wasn’t a gimmick. It was meant to be a catalyst for the public to change their behavior and stop littering.”

Related: Delhi to revive car restrictions in effort to clean air

Using technology to change behavior is what Desai and Agarwal set out to accomplish when they launched their startup in 2012.

ThinkScream comes up with innovative ways to provide Wi-Fi to Indian consumers.

Its flagship product, customized for movie theaters in Mumbai, allowed people to use Wi-Fi to order food from the concession stand and and have it delivered to their seats. They rolled it out into 60 theaters in Mumbai. ThinkScream has also partnered with music festival organizers to provide attendees with easy Wi-Fi access.

How successful are the bins? It’s too early to tell, said Desai.

“We haven’t done a before-and-after analysis yet, but anecdotally we know that people do like to use the bin for the wow factor at first and then for the free WiFi,” he said.

ThinkScream doesn’t have any smart bins currently deployed (although there are a few test bins at events and colleges). But Desai is encouraged that private companies and government agencies have reached out to see how the bins can be deployed in large cities like Mumbai.

Mumbai, Desai’s hometown, is India’s most populous city with more than 18 million residents.

It is also the world’s fifth top producer of solid waste, according to a May 2015 report by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The city generates over 7,000 tonnes of solid waste daily, according to India’s Central Pollution Board Control agency. And a lot of that waste isn’t properly contained in trash bins.

“It’s unhealthy and can lead to diseases,” said Desai.

Related: This plastic toilet could save lives

The free Wi-Fi could entice people in urban settings where more residents have access to mobile devices. But what about rural areas?

Desai said he’s already thought about how to tweak the bin’s design.

“Instead of free Wi-Fi, we’ll use an interactive image of a celebrity,” he said. One example: Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar.

“The LED screen could show a photo of Tendulkar frowning. But he’ll smile if you throw trash in the bin,” said Desai.

Desai wants to soon have his smart trash cans around India — everything from movie theaters and malls to public spaces and rural communities.

“This is just one way to help change the mindset of people in India,” said Desai. “We just hope that bureaucracy doesn’t slow us down.”

CNNMoney (New York) First published February 23, 2016: 1:13 AM ET

“What is wine? Is it a cider or something? I hated the first sip.”

That was Ntsiki Biyela’s first reaction after she won a scholarship to study winemaking in 1998.

Now she’s an international award winning vintner and resident winemaker at the Stellekaya winery in Stellenbosch — east of Cape Town, South Africa.

She’s also the country’s first black female winemaker in an industry dominated by white men.

“I’m surrounded by men who are supportive, but in general it’s a struggle because you have to do twice as much to prove yourself,” she told CNNMoney.

Her wine is sold globally but her main market is the United States. And she has plans to start her own brand later this year.

Related: South Africa’s wine industry is booming

Biyela’s life began in 1978 in a small village in the province of Kwa-Zulu Natal, where the only alcohol she encountered was home brewed beer.

As a black South African, Biyela suffered discrimination and oppression under the brutal apartheid regime.

Driven by an urge to create a better life for herself, she started looking for opportunities outside of her village.

“I wanted to do chemical engineering but I couldn’t because of the financial situation,” she said.

Soon after apartheid was abolished in 1994, South African Airways began offering wine making scholarships as part of a program to help transform the country’s economy. Biyela jumped at the chance.

“There was an opportunity to study, and become something,” she told CNNMoney.

So she left her village and family to pursue a career in making something she had never tasted.

At Stellenbosch University, Biyela not only had everything to learn about wine but she had to study in a language synonymous with oppression, Afrikaans.

“It was difficult. I didn’t know Afrikaans but I had no choice,'” she said.

Graduating was just the first step. Biyela still had to find work in an industry that wasn’t exactly welcoming to a black South African woman.

She was turned away three times before she landed a job at what she calls the “modern” Stellekaya. And she quickly found success. Her first harvest in 2004 produced an award winning wine.

It was a bottle of that very vintage that Biyela took back to her home village.

During the trip, her grandmother Aslina tasted wine for the very first time. Her response? “It’s nice.”

Biyela is now preparing to launch a new wine as an independent wine maker. She’ll be leaving Stellekaya and will buy grapes from farmers because she can’t afford her own vineyards just yet.

But she already has a name for the brand: Aslina.

CNNMoney (Stellenbosch, South Africa) First published February 24, 2016: 11:41 AM ET