Countries recognized for exemplary waste sorting and recycling systems include Germany, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, and select regions in the United States.

These nations and regions have achieved high recycling rates and system efficiency through a combination of legislative mandates, financial incentives, technological innovation, community engagement, and robust government leadership.

**Germany** is a global benchmark for comprehensive waste separation and recycling.

Households routinely sort waste into up to six categories, including plastics, paper, glass, and organics, which significantly enhances recycling rates and material recovery .

The country’s municipal recycling rate stands at approximately 67% .

Germany pioneered Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), requiring manufacturers to manage the lifecycle of their products, which has driven product design improvements and reduced landfill waste .

Deposit return schemes for beverage containers further incentivize consumers, resulting in high return and recycling rates .

The government supports innovation through funding and legislation, such as the Critical Raw Materials Act, which streamlines permits and capital access for recycling projects .

Community-level initiatives, like Hamburg’s repair and resale programs, promote circular economy principles .

Germany’s experience demonstrates the effectiveness of combining strict regulation, public education, industry collaboration, and technological investment .

**Japan** employs a meticulous waste sorting system, requiring residents to separate waste into multiple categories, maximizing recycling efficiency .

The “3R” policy—Reduce, Reuse, Recycle—underpins national strategy, and the country maintains a municipal waste recycling rate exceeding 20% .

Japan’s e-waste management infrastructure includes thousands of drop-off points and dedicated examination centers, facilitating high rates of electronics recycling .

Food waste is converted into livestock feed, reducing landfill use and supporting agriculture .

The government’s circular economy initiatives aim to grow the sector to 80 trillion yen by 2030, with a target of carbon neutrality by 2050 .

Waste-to-energy projects and advanced technologies, such as plastic-to-fuel conversion and high-efficiency water recycling, further enhance system sustainability .

Government roles include legislation, funding, and public education, with local authorities organizing clean-up events and recycling drives .

Japan’s model is characterized by rigorous sorting, strong government frameworks, public participation, and technological leadership .

**Scandinavian countries**—notably Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark—are recognized for their integrated, high-performing systems.

**Sweden** sends only about 1% of its waste to landfills, with an overall recycling rate of approximately 99%, largely due to advanced waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities and government-supported infrastructure .

Stockholm invests in carbon capture and ecological restoration projects, such as repurposing Christmas trees for marine habitats .

**Finland** operates a private-sector-managed deposit return system for bottles and cans, achieving recycling rates of 94% for aluminum and 92% for plastic .

**Norway** augments its deposit system with an environmental tax on producers, incentivizing recycling rates above 95% and promoting uniform, recyclable materials .

Strict regulations require municipalities to implement source separation for organics, plastics, and recyclables, with high public participation supported by government initiatives .

**Denmark** mandates household waste separation and aims for a 70% recycling rate by 2030, supported by public education and investment in recycling infrastructure and WTE plants .

Across Scandinavia, government roles include regulation, funding, public awareness campaigns, and technological innovation, resulting in high participation and system efficiency .

**The United Kingdom** has implemented a range of successful practices.

The government plans to require retailers to bear the costs of recycling e-waste from 2026, shifting financial responsibility and fostering a circular economy .

The Bower app incentivizes recycling by rewarding users with money or coupons, leveraging technology to change consumer behavior .

Scotland’s proposed bottle deposit return scheme aims to increase recycling rates, though implementation has faced complexity and delays .

Local councils, such as Milton Keynes, have introduced multi-bin systems to improve recycling quality and rates, with expectations to increase household recycling from 52% to over 60% .

Community engagement is further promoted through grassroots initiatives like The Coastline Runner, which combines litter collection with public education .

The UK’s approach demonstrates the importance of legislative mandates, technological incentives, and community involvement.

**Australia**’s New South Wales operates the Return and Earn container deposit scheme, offering 10 cents per returned bottle or can, which has effectively increased recycling participation .

However, the collapse of the REDcycle soft plastics program highlights challenges in maintaining economic viability and infrastructure, especially in rural areas .

Local governments adapt by restricting drop-off amounts and educating residents .

Australia’s experience underscores the need for robust infrastructure, economic incentives, and adaptive local government roles.

**South Korea** and **Taiwan** have achieved food waste recycling rates of about 97% by converting food waste into livestock feed, supported by strong government mandates and high public compliance .

These systems demonstrate the effectiveness of targeted legislation, infrastructure investment, and public education in urban contexts.

**United States** regions such as California and Massachusetts illustrate the impact of state-level legislation and local government initiatives.

California’s Senate Bill 1383 mandates organic waste separation and recycling, with local governments responsible for program implementation, compliance monitoring, and resident education .

Massachusetts’ Sustainable Materials Recovery Program provides grants to municipalities for innovative recycling and composting programs .

Eleven U.S.

states introduced EPR laws in 2023, shifting financial and operational responsibility for recycling to producers .

Local governments play a pivotal role in funding, legislation, and community engagement, as seen in Cincinnati’s hackathon for recycling innovation and Enfield’s revised solid waste policy .

**Ireland**’s national farm plastics recycling scheme charges farmers a fee for fertilizer bag collection, doubling recycling volumes over five years and supporting national targets .

Local governments conduct household waste management surveys to gather community input and improve strategies .

**Community engagement** is a common thread in successful systems.

South Africa’s Mpact Recycling rewards schools for collecting recyclables, fostering youth involvement and environmental stewardship .

Zimbabwe’s training programs empower communities to view recycling as a business opportunity, promoting economic development and sustainability .

In India, grassroots initiatives like One Step Greener and Recykal’s Samudra Manthan campaign mobilize communities for waste sorting and recycling, diverting significant waste from landfills and providing dignified jobs .

**Technological innovation** enhances efficiency and participation.

AI-powered robots and computer vision systems in the U.S.

and UK increase sorting accuracy and recovery rates .

Reverse vending machines in Thailand and large-scale PET recycling plants in the Philippines demonstrate the role of technology in scaling recycling operations .

The EU’s Plastics2Olefins project and T-REX textile recycling initiative exemplify investment in advanced recycling technologies and closed-loop systems .

**Challenges** persist even in leading countries.

Economic viability, infrastructure gaps, regulatory complexity, and consumer behavior can hinder progress.

For example, Germany faces issues with simplistic plastic labeling and the need for additional incineration capacity .

The EU identifies countries at risk of missing recycling targets, highlighting the need for continuous improvement .

Australia’s experience with soft plastics and Malaysia’s struggle with imported plastic waste illustrate market and regulatory challenges .

**Urban versus rural differences** are significant.

Urban areas benefit from structured systems and infrastructure, while rural regions face challenges such as limited access and transportation barriers.

Innovative solutions like Alaska’s mobile recycling facilities and Zimbabwe’s community training address rural needs .

**Government roles** are central to success.

Effective systems feature strong legislative frameworks, funding for infrastructure and innovation, public education campaigns,

Countries recognized for exemplary waste sorting and recycling systems include Germany, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, and select regions in the United States.

Countries recognized for exemplary waste sorting and recycling systems include Germany, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, and select regions in the United States.

Countries recognized for exemplary waste sorting and recycling systems include Germany, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, and select regions in the United States.

These nations and regions have achieved high recycling rates and system efficiency through a combination of legislative mandates, financial incentives, technological innovation, community engagement, and robust government leadership.

These nations and regions have achieved high recycling rates and system efficiency through a combination of legislative mandates, financial incentives, technological innovation, community engagement, and robust government leadership.

These nations and regions have achieved high recycling rates and system efficiency through a combination of legislative mandates, financial incentives, technological innovation, community engagement, and robust government leadership.

**Germany** is a global benchmark for comprehensive waste separation and recycling.

**Germany** is a global benchmark for comprehensive waste separation and recycling.

**Germany** is a global benchmark for comprehensive waste separation and recycling.

Households routinely sort waste into up to six categories, including plastics, paper, glass, and organics, which significantly enhances recycling rates and material recovery .

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Content: Japan aims to expand size of circular economy to 80 tril. yen by 2030

Politics Economy

Japan aims to boost the size of its domestic circular economy, which focusses on reducing carbon emissions through reuse of products and resources, to 80 trillion yen ($583.7 billion) by 2030, government sources said. The move to promote its circular economy, currently worth 50 trillion yen and intended to foster sustainable economic practices by reusing and recycling goods and materials, comes as Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's government is stepping up efforts to achieve a carbon neutral society by 2050. Initiatives will include recycling raw materials and distributing used goods, which are i...

Kyodo News

The country’s municipal recycling rate stands at approximately 67% .

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Content: There were 1,654 press releases posted in the last 24 hours and 467,692 in the last 365 days.

Healey-Driscoll Administration Awards $5.2 Million to Support Recycling and Waste Reduction by 283 Municipalities and Regional Groups

BOSTON The Healey-Driscoll Administration today announced nearly $5.2 million in grant funding to 283 municipalities and regional solid waste districts across Massachusetts. The grants, made available by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) through the Sustainable Materials Recovery Program (SMRP), will help communities bolster their recycling, composting, and waste reduction programs. The full list of awards is available here.

“Some of the most important environmental protection work happens every day in communities across our state,” said Governor Maura Healey. “These grants help further our collective efforts to meet our aggressive goal of 90 percent waste reduction by 2050, while also boosting local economies by investing in the waste reduction industry.”

“Residents partner with their communities to help protect the environment by recycling and reusing as much as possible,” said Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll. “This important funding will help municipalities implement innovative programs and policies that are proven to maximize reuse, recycling, and waste reduction.”

The Sustainable Materials Recovery Program provides funding for recycling, composting, reuse, and source reduction activities that will reduce the amount of waste disposed of in landfills and incinerators. Waste prevention and recycling reduces greenhouse gas emissions by capturing the embodied energy in everyday product and packaging waste and converting it into new products. More than $50 million has been awarded through the Program since 2010.

“Recycling programs play a vital role in limiting our dependence on landfills and incinerators, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and supporting economic activity across our state,” said Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper. “These grants help communities cycle resources back into our economy and support local businesses throughout the collection, processing, and manufacturing chain.”

Funds have been awarded in several categories, including start-up incentives for Pay-As-You-Throw programs, containers for the collection of mattresses, wheeled carts for curbside collection of food waste, equipment for the collection of mercury-bearing items, regional small-scale initiatives, and the Recycling Dividends Program.

This year, 278 communities qualified for the Recycling Dividends Program and will receive funding totaling $3.65 million. This program recognizes municipalities that have implemented policies and programs proven to maximize materials reuse and recycling, as well as waste reduction. Communities receiving funding must reinvest in their own municipal recycling efforts. Under the program, 15 municipalities have been awarded Recycling Dividends Program payments of more than $50,000: Arlington, Attleboro, Boston, Brockton, Cambridge, Chicopee, Framingham, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, New Bedford, Newton, Quincy, Springfield, and Worcester.

“Recycling Dividends Program awards give communities the opportunity to make critical investments in their recycling programs – ultimately capturing more materials that can be recycled or reused, and helping them to reduce their waste disposal costs,” said MassDEP Commissioner Bonnie Heiple. “This is another example of MassDEP’s commitment to building strategic partnerships with our local communities to build a more sustainable future.”

Pay-As-You-Throw, a program where residents purchase pre-printed bags, stickers, or tags for trash disposal to pay directly for the amount of waste generated, is a proven waste reduction strategy that continues to be a priority for MassDEP. Funds were awarded to five municipalities and totaled more than $1 million. This includes awards between $150,000 and $300,000 each for Arlington, Marshfield, North Attleborough, and Westborough.

Funding for Universal Waste Sheds were awarded to eight communities for their drop-off facilities for the collection of mercury-bearing items; $5,000 was awarded to each municipality. MassDEP also awarded $110,000 to 11 municipalities for mattress collection containers to facilitate residential mattress recycling at their drop-off facilities; $10,000 was awarded to each municipality.

Wheeled-cart grants for the curbside collection of food waste were awarded to the City of Medford in the amount of $105,000 for a new town-wide collection program. The towns of Nahant and Norwood also received funding for a curbside food waste collection pilot program, at $2,100 and $10,500, respectively.

Finally, a grant for $250,000 was awarded to the South Shore Recycling Cooperative – representing 12 South Shore towns – for the establishment of a permanent household hazardous waste facility based in Hanover.

“We have big climate goals in Massachusetts and achieving those goals will take a continued partnership between state government and our municipal partners throughout the Commonwealth, which is exactly what we see with these grants,” said State Senator Becca Rausch (D-Needham). “As the Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources and through collaboration with my Small Business Advisory Council, I’ve heard that towns and businesses need these financial supports to implement green infrastructure upgrades, including today’s $5.2 million in SMRP grant funds, the ‘Green the Garbage’ composting pilot program I secured in this year’s budget, and more. Congratulations to the 283 municipalities and regional solid waste districts receiving grant awards, including most towns throughout my district, and thank you for furthering the Commonwealth’s collective effort to reduce waste through recycling, composting, and other mechanisms.”

“The Sustainable Materials Recovery Program grants increase and support local recycling efforts, composting, reuse, source reduction, program development, and enforcement activities that increase diversion from our landfills and reduce disposal,” said State Representative Daniel Cahill (D-Lynn), House Chair of the Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. “This funding helps us in our efforts to mitigate and reduce the amount of waste disposed in landfills and incinerators. Waste prevention initiatives also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by capturing the embodied energy in products and packaging waste and converts it into new sustainable products. These initiatives are vitally important to our communities and future.”

More information about the Sustainable Materials Recovery Program can be seen here.

MassDEP’s mission is to protect and enhance the Commonwealth’s natural resources – air, water and land – to provide for the health, safety and welfare of all people, and to ensure a clean and safe environment for future generations. In carrying out this mission, MassDEP commits to address and advance environmental justice and equity for all people of the Commonwealth; to provide meaningful, inclusive opportunities for people to participate in agency decisions that affect their lives; and to ensure a diverse workforce that reflects the communities we serve.

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Germany pioneered Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), requiring manufacturers to manage the lifecycle of their products, which has driven product design improvements and reduced landfill waste .

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Mpact Recycling awards 33 schools for the 2022 Ronnie Recycler schools' competition

Mpact Recycling is the leading collector of recyclable packaging (such as paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and cans) in South Africa. The company plays a crucial role in promoting the importance of recycling in Southern Africa, collecting over 700,000 tonnes of recyclables in 2022 alone. Mpact Recycling is recognising its top performing schools for 2022.

From a recycling perspective, the schools' programme was hit badly in 2020 and 2021 with recycling efforts slowing down drastically as schools moved to online teaching when the pandemic hit. However, we were determined to not let recycling slip out of the minds of the youth – so Mpact Recycling continued with the schools' programme, which includes Ronnie Recycler.

Building on the success of its Schools Recycling Competition for the last few years around the country, Mpact Recycling honoured schools that have exhibited the greatest commitment to the initiative and increased their recycling figures significantly every year.

Mpact Recycling communication manager, Donna-Mari Noble, says the competition, which runs every year, encourages nursery schools, primary schools and high schools in Gauteng (including Pretoria and Midrand), KwaZulu-Natal (including Richards Bay) and Western Cape to collect as much recyclables as possible.

“The schools are paid per tonne collected, which they can use to fund various school initiatives such as creating vegetable gardens, painting classrooms or buying books,” indicates Yasmeen Adam, post-consumer lead for the schools and communities programme.

Lynnwood Ridge Primary, a government school in Pretoria have always been a top recycling school. In 2022, they recycled an impressive 15.822 tonnes – placing them first in the competition.

Reenbog ECD is an educare centre that assist learners in the community of Gugulethu and nearby surrounding areas. It is under the leadership of Freda, everyone knows her as “Aunty F”. She started the recycling project with Mpact in April 2022 with the assistance of Gugulethu’s neighbourhood watch. This project was launched to educate her children from an early age about environmental awareness and as well to raise funds.

For such a small educare centre that started recycling in April 2022, two months behind all the other schools and educare centres, they have managed to not just qualify but obtain 5th place in the Mpact schools competition for the Western Cape region. They collected 7.068 tonnes that granted the 5th spot and overtake the other schools.

It is our honour to recognise Makhumbuza High School in Umlazi that re-joined our Ronnie recycler schools program in March 2022. This school recycled 4.085 tonnes of white paper placing them 9th place in the KwaZulu-Natal region.

Veritas Junior College have always led the schools in the Springs area with their recycling volumes. In 2022, they produced 4.295 tonnes and placed first in the competition, having won the competition in 2021 as well.

Craighall Primary is a small government school in Randburg, Johannesburg. They have a deeply entrenched culture of recycling as is evidenced by their consistent recycling volumes. In 2020, they were badly affected by the pandemic and didn’t take a winning spot in the competition. However, in 2021, Craighall Primary placed 4th with 7.200 tonnes but in 2022 they claimed first prize with 10.074 tonnes!

“These schools not only out-performed other schools in their districts, but increased their tonnage consistently over the years,” says Noble.

Mpact Recycling congratulates all the schools that took part in the recycling programme across South Africa.

“We would like to see more schools join the programme. Our 2023 schools recycling competition kicked off on the 1st May – but you have to be recycling with Mpact Recycling in order to win. To those who are already part of the programme, please continue to grow your tonnages and help make South Africa a cleaner and healthier place to live,” concludes Noble.

The full list of results can be found (1).pdf

Does your school want to get involved?

Simply visit Mpact Recycling’s website at www.mpactrecycling.co.za for more information.

Alternatively – contact the rep responsible for your area:

AreaRep Contact numberEmail address
Gauteng (Johannesburg)Doreen Manyatelo011 873 6545dmanyatelo@mpact.co.za
Gauteng (Johannesburg & Pretoria)Bohani Mabaso011 538 8600 / 011 873 6545bmabaso@mpact.co.za
KwaZulu-NatalNolita Ngcaba0312 746 600nngcaba@mpact.co.za
Western CapeElreshia Benjamin0219 315 106ebenjamin@mpact.co.za

What types of packaging can be recycled through the schools recycling programme?

Paper & cardboard

  • Cardboard boxes (flattened)
  • Old memo/letters
  • Cereal boxes (flattened)
  • Soap boxes (flattened)
  • Printed paper
  • Photocopying/ white paper
  • Newspapers
  • Magazines
  • Old telephone directories and books
  • School books
  • Junk mail
  • Catalogues
  • Envelopes
  • Long life milk & juice boxes (flattened)

Mpact is the largest paper and plastics packaging and recycling business in Southern Africa. Our integrated business model is uniquely focused on closing the loop in plastic and paper packaging through recycling and beneficiation of recyclables.

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Deposit return schemes for beverage containers further incentivize consumers, resulting in high return and recycling rates .

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Content: Samudra Manthan Typeface by Recykal: Uniting Efforts to Combat Ocean-Bound Plastic on World Ocean Day 2024

Imagine a world where every curve, every letter stroke tells a story—a story of aquatic ecosystems ravaged by plastic debris, of carbon emissions choking our planet, and of marine life imperilled by habitat destruction. This is the essence of the Samudra Manthan Typeface, which makes a bold statement against plastic pollution and chronicles our collective responsibility to combat one of the most pressing challenges of our time.

Our campaign leverages the art of storytelling in a truly unique and daring manner. Each letter of the alphabet encapsulates a specific facet of the interwoven set of difficulties surrounding plastic pollution. By seamlessly integrating these letters into our branding across all Recykal platforms, we aim to engage, educate, and inspire action through the potent medium of visual communication.

Inspired by Samudra Manthan, one of the major Indian ancient episodes—the churning of the ocean for elixir or amrit—the Samudra Manthan Typeface serves as a modern-day allegory, symbolising the collective effort required to address the pressing issue of plastic pollution.

Read More About Recykal’s Samudra Manthan Campaign

Under the initiative ‘Samudra Manthan’ (inspired by the Indian mythological tale of ocean churning for a heavenly drink to achieve immortality), Recykal has collected over 70,000 metric tons of plastic from 207 districts across 19 states in India. Among these districts, 33 have coastal areas, and 173 are located on the banks of major rivers, covering a 10 km radius from ocean and river coasts. On National Pollution Control Day, Recykal revealed plans to scale up the ‘Samudra Manthan’ project to cover all 66 coastal districts across India.

To know more, click on the link: Samudra Manthan Campaign Details

How to Use the Typeface

  • Click on the link to download: Samudra Manthan Typeface Download.
  • Install it on your device, then select the font and start using it in capital letters to spread awareness about ocean-bound plastic.

Key Objectives of Launching ‘Samudra Manthan’ Typeface:

  • Evoke Sensory Awareness: Through visually rich storytelling embedded within each letter, our objective is not just to inform but to envelop the audience in a sensory experience that evokes a deep, emotional connection to the urgent environmental issues plaguing our oceans and ecosystems.
  • Ignite Urgent Action: Our typography seeks to transcend passive observation, igniting a fervent call to action among individuals, businesses, and communities to catalyse meaningful change and align their endeavours with sustainable practices.
  • Forge Connections: The Samudra Manthan Typeface aims to transcend geographical and cultural boundaries, becoming a universal language that unites diverse stakeholders in a collaborative pursuit of environmental stewardship.

Revolutionary Features

  • Artistic Expression: Each letter is an artistic canvas, intricately designed to symbolise a specific facet of the plastic pollution narrative, engaging the audience in an immersive journey of discovery and contemplation.
  • Environmental Symbolism: By drawing inspiration from the depths of the ocean, the typography utilises symbolic motifs and rich environmental imagery to poignantly convey the story of oceanic distress due to human-induced pollution.
  • Accessible Empowerment: The typeface’s accessibility on the Recykal website invites all individuals, businesses, and organisations to seamlessly download and integrate it across digital interfaces, empowering them to become vocal advocates for sustainable practices.

Strategic Implementation

  • Interactive Storytelling: We aim to weave an engaging tapestry of environmental awareness through an innovative mix of interactive digital content, captivating social media campaigns, and immersive press releases, capturing attention and driving meaningful discourse.
  • Educational Engagements: Engaging workshops and thought-provoking webinars will invite stakeholders to delve into the deeper significance of the Samudra Manthan Typography, illuminating its pivotal role in fostering sustainable branding and nurturing environmental consciousness.
  • Collaborative Alliances: Strategic partnerships will harness the influence of environmental organisations, business entities, and visionary influencers, amplifying the campaign’s reach and catalysing a collective movement towards a greener, more sustainable future.

Conclusion

In our commitment to universal accessibility, the typeface has been made available on the Recykal website, allowing individuals and businesses alike to access, download, and integrate it across all interfaces. By making it easily accessible, we aim to democratise the power of visual storytelling, empowering a diverse range of stakeholders to join the movement and amplify the message of environmental stewardship.

Samudra Manthan embodies Recykal’s commitment to sustainability and innovation. As a company at the forefront of waste management solutions, Recykal leverages this typeface to enhance our branding and outreach efforts, ensuring our message of sustainability resonates powerfully with our audience. By integrating Samudra Manthan across all platforms, we demonstrate our dedication to environmental stewardship and our innovative approach to solving plastic pollution.

Together, let us embrace the spirit of the Samudra Manthan and embark on an odyssey towards a brighter, more sustainable future—one letter, one story, and one awe-inspiring leap at a time.

The government supports innovation through funding and legislation, such as the Critical Raw Materials Act, which streamlines permits and capital access for recycling projects .

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Upcoming hackathon seeks innovative ideas to increase recycling in Cincinnati

Cincinnati officials are launching a global search for innovative ideas to increase recycling.

Council Member Liz Keating announced the second "hackathon" contest, funded with $20,000 in the current city budget.

"We are addressing the question, how can the city increase effective recycling participation among single family, multifamily and commercial residences?" Keating said.

Keating says the hackathon is focused on two innovation spaces: tech and policy.

"We're kicking things off with our tech hackathon, which will focus on addressing our corporate partners' and city needs in the data transfer, supply chain and consumer behavior spaces," Keating said.

RELATED: From the Metaverse to a pig-shaped truck, hackathon sparks ideas to control litter

That phase is primarily for tech-oriented and startup participants. It starts April 21, followed by a week of mentoring and office hours. Participants will pitch their ideas April 28, vying for cash prizes. But any of the projects could end up partnering with one of the many corporate partners to keep developing the concept:

  • Coca-Cola Consolidated
  • Duke Energy Convention Center / OVG360
  • Fifth Third Bank
  • Kroger
  • MadTree
  • Michelman
  • The Ohio Beverage Association
  • PepsiCo
  • Procter & Gamble
  • Rumpke

Another hackathon in late May will be for sustainability advocates and civic leaders to pitch policy ideas. The event will partner with Cintrifuse, a local company that works with tech startups.
Several of the corporate partners have a significant financial interest in widespread use of single-use or limited-use consumer products. Cintrifuse CEO Pete Blackshaw responded to questions from WVXU about whether these corporations' involvement will influence the projects coming out of the hackathon.

"We work with these companies all the time. They are really hungry to innovate, and I think they're gonna lift the process," Blackshaw said. "It's a good question to ask, you're kind of holding us accountable. But I think we're going to be surprised at what's going to come out of it. And I think a lot of it's going to come out of these big challenges that the big [companies] are bringing to the table; they know they need to figure this out."

Registration for both events is open now through April 14 at cintrifuse.com/rethink-recycling-hack.

Keating says last year’s hackathon about litter resulted in one group getting an accelerator grant. And a few other ideas from the event will be put into practice later this year through Keep Cincinnati Beautiful.

What recycling problems need to be solved?

Industry representatives say companies want to use more recycled material to produce new products, but there isn't enough supply.

"We are very focused on plastic, but we also recognize all of our containers have value, and living their best life is to become a new container," said Kimberly McConville, executive director of the Ohio Beverage Association. "So whether we're working on packaging, design, and lightweighting our containers, or investing in recycling infrastructure around the country, and certainly supporting consumer education."

The recycling participation rate in Cincinnati was 70% in 2015, meaning 70% of households used their recycling bins at least some of the time. Ollie Kroner, director of the city's Office of Environment and Sustainability, says that participation rate is not growing the way they want it to.

RELATED: How to recycle broken or unwanted holiday lights across the Tri-State

"We've seen a period of stagnation over the last couple of years; there are ebbs and flows and how much waste is being produced. COVID is obviously a giant asterisk in our dataset," Kroner said. "But this is an opportunity to take a closer look at what is working and what is not. And we would like to see a significant increase in the years to come."

There's also the goal of diverting a lot more recyclable material from landfills, meaning households recycling a lot more than they are right now. In 2020, 17% of waste was recycled, with the other 83% going to the landfill.

"Year over year, we're seeing an increase in the amount of waste that each Cincinnatian sends to the dump," Kroner said. "And this is a finite resource — as Rumpke will tell you, we were running out of room in the landfill day by day."

The Green Cincinnati Plan sets the ambitious goal for the city have zero waste by 2035.

Recycling in Cincinnati

Learn more about how to recycle in Cincinnati at cincinnati-oh.gov/recycling

Curbside recycling pickup happens every other week on the same day as regular trash collection (which happens weekly).

Check the flier below for a summary of what you can and cannot recycle. Go to the city's website for a complete list of items you can and can't recycle.

Becca Costello grew up in Williamsburg and Batavia (in Clermont County) listening to WVXU. Before joining the WVXU newsroom, she worked in public radio & TV journalism in Bloomington, Indiana and Lincoln, Nebraska. Becca has earned numerous awards for her reporting, including from local chapters of the Associated Press and Society of Professional Journalists, and contributed to regional and national Murrow Award winners. Becca has a master's degree in journalism from Indiana University and a bachelor's degree from Cincinnati Christian University. Becca's dog Cincy (named for the city they once again call home) is even more anxious than she is.

Community-level initiatives, like Hamburg’s repair and resale programs, promote circular economy principles .

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Content: KUALA LUMPUR: Using her bare hands, environmental researcher Wong Pui Yi scrabbled through the dusty and dirty bales of plastic trash abandoned in a shoplot at the Pulau Indah Industrial Area.

A mix of plastic and paper, some of the waste still had product labels on them, including one with food instructions written in Dutch and an address in South Africa. Filling out the space from top to bottom, this bunch of rubbish is one of several in the area.

“The waste is imported mixed waste so (this has probably been here since) 2018, 2019. It was easier to get them in (then). Now, it’s more difficult,” she told Bernama.

After China stopped buying almost all plastic waste in January 2018, Malaysia became a popular spot for waste-trafficking. According to government and United Nations statistics, the nation imported over 850,000 metric tons of plastic waste that year. Some ended up dumped, burned in illegal recycling factories, or abandoned.

Malaysia has since tightened permission to import, beefed up surveillance and enforcement at the ports, returned dozens of containers of “dirty plastic” to their countries of origin, and cracked down on illegal recycling factories. But three years later, the country is still struggling to get rid of the trash that managed to slip in before.

Wong, who is the plastic governance researcher at the Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4), said there were many reasons why the trash was abandoned.

It could be that some trash that was brought in could not be recycled as they were contaminated mixed municipal waste, considered “dirty plastic.” Plastic containers made out of recycled plastic that have food residue in them are an example of “dirty plastic.”

She said other reasons the trash was possibly abandoned were because the owners had run off. Or that the premises had been used for sorting but became abandoned when nearby illegal factories were shut down.

Bernama shared photos and videos of the dump sites with industry experts and government agencies, who said this sort of dumping was very common. According to officers with the Klang Municipal Council (MPK), there were four dumping sites in that area alone, and 1,600 lots with a few illegal factories operating there.

“They indiscriminately dumped the waste in any available space without care (of the negative impacts it has on the environment),“ said Zaireezal Ahmad Zairuddin, Environmental Services Department director at MPK.

Abandoning imported plastic waste was also the cheaper option all around.

Waste management expert Prof Dr P. Agamuthu at Sunway University called it the modus operandi of the companies that illegally brought the trash in, usually by forging documents or mislabelling the type of waste.

“Then when they find that about 70 to 80 per cent of the materials are actually not worth recycling, they decided to throw it away. Because if they put it in the landfill, they have to pay the tipping fee,” he said.

Plastic recycler Datuk Johnson Yoon agreed, saying many of the illegal recyclers preferred to abandon the waste rather than recycle because the recycling process is complex and expensive.

“If DoE (Department of the Environment) called me up and told me to go settle the batch in Pulau Indah, I will get a headache too,” he said.

How did this happen?

Plastic casts a long shadow over the future.

The problem is plastic does not degrade easily and can only be recycled a limited amount of times. Plastic takes hundreds or thousands of years to degrade, so most of it still exists in some form. Should it have any organic residue on it, it cannot be recycled. The type of plastic also matters; if the trash is a mix of paper and plastic like takeaway coffee cups, it cannot be recycled either.

According to the World Bank, the world generates 1.82 billion metric tons of municipal solid waste every year. By 2050, the waste is expected to grow to 3.08 billion metric tons annually.

With the amount of waste produced, it has to go somewhere. Rather than actually sorting and recycling the waste people put in recycling bins, many countries opted the cheaper way of crushing the plastic trash into bales and sold them.

Operators in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, bought the waste and soon became overwhelmed. “It was easy to bring in because we didn’t expect it. Previously, there were already imports of plastic waste to Malaysia for recycling but it happened on a very small scale,” said Wong.

She added once the gates opened, the trash kept piling up.

Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) researcher Mageswari Sangaralingam said with the excess plastic waste, many foreign investors came to set up recycling centres to deal with the trash.

“A lot were illegal because if you want to set up a legal facility, you would have to undergo many processes to get all the permits and licences, so that would take time. So it was much easier for them to set up illegal recycling facilities,’ she said.

Yoon, who is also the secretary-general of the Malaysian Plastic Recyclers Association (MPRA) remembered those days with anger. He said the illegal recyclers’ actions gave the legitimate recyclers a bad name, and the ensuing crackdown on illegal activities interfered with many members’ business.

“We had to stop, total stop, our operations. So you can see how bad it affected the legal plastic recyclers. It was very, very serious. We lost quite a lot of money,” he said.

He added people used to see recyclers in a positive light. But every news about plastic waste imports now invited a slew of negative comments and insults.

“We are the recycling industry. People call us ‘orang sampah’ (trash collectors) (because of the illegal factories). We are ‘sampah’ (trash),” he said.

The trash at home

Malaysia responded to the garbage deluge by tightening regulations on who can import what waste, putting in 19 criteria that importers need to satisfy before they can get a licence to import. They also started requiring containers carrying specific waste to be scanned and cracking down on illegal factories, among others.

Despite the actions, the impact of the 2018/2019 plastic waste influx is still being felt and will be felt for some time.

Mageswari, who is also SAM’s honorary secretary, cautioned the illegal operators were not done, warning the public to remain vigilant to preserve the environment. Like the trash the operators brought in, some of them remained in Malaysia.

“When the government was taking action in Selangor, these factories were moving elsewhere. They went to Penang, Sungai Petani (Kedah),” she said.

And the trash is not just the abandoned ones in Pulau Indah and other sites. The 17,000 tonnes of plastic in Jenjarom are still present in the dirt today.

Bernama visited the site of the illegal dump and recycling factory with some local activists. According to community activist Tan Ching Hin, the landowner had not removed all the plastic materials before seeding the area with grass, which is now thigh-high and has taken over much of the soil. Embedded deep within are pieces of plastic packaging with instructions written in Spanish on it.

“Some plastic materials will break down into micro plastics and wash out, and then we will eat it,” said Wong, pointing out the stream running near the dump site.

“Problem now is how to clean it up,” she added.

There is little the local councils – usually tasked with removal and clean up of abandoned plastic – can do about the leftover plastic in Jenjarom now. But it’s a different matter in Pulau Indah. They would have to take the responsibility for removing and cleaning the premises there.

“In many cases, we undertook to carry out the cleaning up work. But oftimes, people took advantage of the situation. Cleaning up costs are not cheap,“ said MPK’s Zaireezal.

He said the cost of removing, disposing of and cleaning up after the abandoned plastic trash, is estimated at RM10,000 for 3,000 tonnes – not something they can afford to do often.

Selangor state councillor for Local Government, Public Transport and New Village Development Ng Sze Han told Bernama in an email, the public should lodge a complaint to all relevant authorities if they encountered any environmental violation.

“The state does not allow waste to be abandoned,” he said.

For the future, no one wants a repeat of 2018/2019 or anymore abandoned imported plastic waste. But experts have different ideas on how to get there.

“As for Selangor, we have reiterated many times that we do not support the policy which allows the import of plastic waste. The stand is, each country is supposed to be responsible for their own waste,” said Ng.

Environmentalists agreed, saying developed countries should be able to recycle their own waste before looking at developing countries for solutions.

Others, including the Malaysian government, say current legislation is enough as they cannot stop importing plastic waste as the local recycling industry – which prefers industrial plastic waste and not municipal plastic waste – needs more than what the domestic market can provide. According to the World Bank, the industry contributed US$7.23 billion to the national economy in 2018.

The government is also investing in a circular green economy, recently launching a plastic roadmap, which aims to have 100 per cent recyclability of plastic packaging by 2030 among other things.

Whichever path the country takes in the future, the most important thing to consider is the effect plastics will have on every aspect of everyone’s lives.

“What is the impact of all this waste on our land, our groundwater? I think it’s a pretty big problem in Malaysia,” said Wong. — Bernama

Germany’s experience demonstrates the effectiveness of combining strict regulation, public education, industry collaboration, and technological investment .

**Japan** employs a meticulous waste sorting system, requiring residents to separate waste into multiple categories, maximizing recycling efficiency .

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Content: ContributorsPublishersAdvertisers

German City Diverts Goods From Landfills, Repairs Them, Then Sells in ‘Department Store for Reuse’

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It’s not every day that a municipal waste department spends more time thinking about saving things than dumping them. In Hamburg in Germany, however, there’s money to be made in the second-hand market, and who better to capitalize on that than the people who haul the city’s...

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Title:

Content: Council experts explain exactly why we need four different wheelie bins per household in Milton Keynes

The new bins will start to be delivered shortly

Council experts have explained why households in Milton Keynes need to have four wheelie bins apiece in the new scheme to start this September.

The move will increase the city’s recycling rate by more than 8%, from the current 52% to over 60%.

The vast majority of households will use a new black wheelie bin for non-recyclable waste and two new bins for recyclables - one with a red lid for paper and card and one with a blue lid for plastic, metal and glass. All these will be large180 litre bins and they will be additional to the current green wheelie for food and garden waste.

Some residents without space or access for bins will continue to use black sacks and will separate their recyclables into new red and blue sacks.

Separating card and paper from other recycling at home will help to increase the amount the city recycles “enormously” as unlike now, tonnes of recycling won’t go to waste because paper is wet or has been contaminated by food products, says Cllr Lauren Townsend, the Cabinet member for Waste and Recycling.

The use of bins also means the council can scale back on using millions of plastic sacks, she said.

A council spokesman said: "Separating recyclables is a proven way to increase how much residents recycle, as well as the quality of what’s recycled, which is good for the environment. Just under half of local authorities in our region use four or more bins to separate their recycling and waste. Households in the world’s top recycling nation, Germany, use six bins.”

The council is striving to have Britain’s greenest weekly waste and recycling collections to help battle climate change.

Three decades MK was on the eco map as the first place in the UK to introduce kerbside recycling.

The original idea for door-to-door collections in Milton Keynes came from Waste Chief Engineer Keith Ely, who in the late 1980s saw a recycling scheme while on holiday in Orlando with his family.

A pilot collection scheme launched in 1990 to homes in Great Linford Manor - with the help of comedian Bill Oddie and pupils from St. Monica’s School.

By the end of 1992, a door-to-door scheme covered the whole of the borough and plans were drawn up for the UK’s first Materials Recycling Factory, which opened in Old Wolverton the following year.

Fast forward to today, and the city council is about to the deliver wheelie bins to 104,000 homes ahead of the new “cleaner and greener” waste and recycling collection.

From day one, Serco workers and vehicles will be a thing of the past. They will be replaced by new contractors SUEZ recycling and recovery, whose new state of the art 65-vehicle waste collection fleet will produce lower carbon emissions.

They even have be fully electric bin lifts, which cut fuel consumption and emissions.

The vehicles are among most technically advanced trucks on the road. Four will be fully electric and the fleet will eventually become almost entirely electric.

Cllr Lauren Townsend said: “Everyone can help Milton Keynes become the greenest and I’d like to thank local residents for playing their part.”

Related topics:

The “3R” policy—Reduce, Reuse, Recycle—underpins national strategy, and the country maintains a municipal waste recycling rate exceeding 20% .

Japan’s e-waste management infrastructure includes thousands of drop-off points and dedicated examination centers, facilitating high rates of electronics recycling .

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Content: Anzeige

Plastics2Olefins project officially launched

Arttic Innovation GmbH participates in a new Horizon Europe project which recycles plastic waste into high-value materials.

The Plastics2Olefins project (Recycling plastic waste into high-value materials- Closing the Loop) has been selected for the European Union’s Research and Innovation Framework Programme Horizon Europe with a budget of €18 million and a duration of 5 years. The project has now officially started.

In line with the European Green Deal goals, the European Commission has set a concrete action plan to transform the European economy towards a sustainable and circular economy to become climate neutral by 2050 and to take global leadership in climate-friendly technologies. In this connection, one cross-cutting action plan to drive the transition is through research, innovation, and digitalization. Typically, one promising technology to recycle unsorted heterogeneous plastic waste is pyrolysis, i.e. the thermal degradation of plastic waste in the absence of oxygen.

Today, about 4-8% of annual global oil consumption is associated with plastics, according to the World Economic Forum. Plastics2Olefins aims to demonstrate a novel plastics recycling process based on high-temperature pyrolysis, as the main product will be a gas stream instead of a liquid, so it will reduce the lifecycle GHG emissions by more than 70% compared to existing plastics recycling processes for unsorted plastic waste. It also will reduce by more than 80% compared to the current end-of-life options for these wastes, i.e., incineration.

The project will realize this in a two-step approach: first by adapting and testing a scaled pilot plant at Repsol Technology Lab to optimize the components and process conditions and finally, a pioneering full-scale industrial demonstration plant at Repsol’s petrochemical site, which will be finally operated in a six-months validation campaign. To optimize the carbon footprint of such a plant, the project will design and construct a plant that can be fully electrified by renewably generated electricity.

The project will validate Technology Readiness Level 7 (out of 10) and aims to:

  • Define an optimal pre-treatment process and heterogeneous plastics waste streams to ensure a high yield of olefins during production.
  • Optimize the pyrolysis downstream process to achieve quality products and valorize the outputs in the different markets (circular plastic/textiles, low carbon footprint solid fuel).
    Design, build and run a demonstration plant for recycling of unsorted plastic waste at Repsol’s petrochemical site (Spain), which will run on 100% renewable (electric) energy and be digitalized to achieve system integration and optimization.
  • Develop the concept for scalability and replicability of the technology in Europe and other geographic regions (ASEAN countries).
    Co-create replicable learning modules and train current and future workforce at the local and regional levels.

The project involves 13 partners from 7 different countries, for a 5-years project duration (2022-2027). Its total budget is EUR 33,258,033 and it will receive funding from the EU of EUR 18,084,895.

Partners involved: Repsol, Técnicas Reunidas, ETIA, VTT, Lafarge Holcim, PreZero, Ciemat, Smart Innovation Norway, Arttic Innovation GmbH, Denmark Technical University, SCGC Chemicals, Universidad Castilla La Mancha. This project receives funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation programme under Grant Agreement No 101058032.

The information and views set out in this press release are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Neither the European Union institutions and bodies nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Arttic Innovation GmbH has been advising research and innovation projects for more than 33 years. As project management and communication partner, we make sure that our projects run successfully and that project results and events are disseminated in the best possible way. Arttic is a subsidiary of the PNO Group, one of the largest consultancies for publicly funded projects in research and development. For more information, please visit www.arttic-innovation.de.

Source: Arttic Innovation GmbH

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Translation

Food waste is converted into livestock feed, reducing landfill use and supporting agriculture .

Title:

Content: Readers' letters: Bottle return scheme too complex to work

Figures published by SEPA on 27 September show an overall household recycling rate of 42.7 per cent in Scotland. Increasing this disappointing figure is presumably the over-arching aim of the Scottish Government’s bottle and can deposit return scheme.

The scheme is superficially simple. Retailers charge a 20p deposit when an individual buys a drink in a single-use bottle or can and that deposit is returned when the empty container is deposited at a return point. But the practical arrangements and bureaucracy around this make it a convoluted project.

Retailers are required to introduce a surcharge which the Government must recover from the retailers. Consumers must take their empty bottles and cans to a return point. A contractor operates the return points and transports the material for recycling.

The complexity has delayed it and, despite being announced in 2017, the latest date for it to be fully operational is 2024. This is not a cost neutral scheme; government meets the set up and operational costs.

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Would it not be much simpler to invest in the recycling schemes operated by local authorities? The extent to which individual households recycle could be recorded using barcodes on bins which are scanned by the refuse collection teams while the weight of individual bins is automatically recorded as the vehicle lifts them for emptying. A cash payment or a discount on the community charge linked to the weight of recycling recorded could then be introduced as an incentive to householders to recycle more of their waste.

George Rennie, Inverness

Poor service

I cannot but agree wholeheartedly with Scott Reid’s column on the subject of self-service supermarket checkouts (Scotsman, 1 October).

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Our local M&S Foodhall in Dumfries is sorely lacking in staff, and I was informed that things may well get worse post the Christmas period. The UK has allegedly record employment figures, but for how long if all supermarkets are employing the same tactics?

Considering that there must be, like myself, customers, particularly rural dwellers, who can only shop once per week, it is hardly practicable to put through a week’s worth of groceries at a self-service till. Providing a service to customers is no longer a priority and has been abandoned in order that the shareholders and senior management won’t lose out.

EP Carruthers, Lockerbie, Dumfries & Galloway

Patriot games

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Keir Starmer at the Labour Party conference, keen to position the party as British with the use of the Union flag in the lectern and the singing of the national anthem, has failed to understand the subtleties of identity.

Clearly the promise to have no truck with the SNP is designed to appeal to the English voter who will remember well the arguments put forward by the Conservatives in recent elections that the Labour Party can only secure power in coalition and of course that would be a coalition with the SNP.

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Labour leader Keir Starmer was right to spell it out: no deal with SNP – Brian W...

What Starmer has managed to do at this conference is to isolate many Scots, English, Welsh and Northern Irish who do not identify as British but are still supporters of the Union. The most recent “Social Attitudes Survey” indicated that 54 per cent of the population has a strong sense of Britishness – that leaves almost half who do not. The UK is a country where the four nations are subject to a central authority in the shape of Westminster and devolved governments. Many residents have a British passport but are not flag-waving patriots.

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Furthermore, a Yougov survey covering the period from December 2019 to September 2022 and canvassing the views of those living in England and Wales, found that consistently around 44 per cent of those living south of the border supported Scottish independence. Labour should be about socialism, not patriotism.

Stuart Smith, Aberdeen

SNP’s failures

Reading the SNP’s 100-point list of “achievements” over the last 15 years on the party’s website would lead some to believe that we are living in the land of milk and honey which they have delivered despite the “limited powers and budgets of devolution.”

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Why is it then, that I detect a hint of panic in Leah Gunn Barrett's latest outpouring of discontent directed at the UK Government which she claims that, in spite of SNP claims to the contrary, have reduced the nation to the status of some benighted, down-trodden colony (Letters, 30 September).

Perhaps she needs to cast off her nationalistic dogma that is blinding her to reality and reognise that the blame lies in plain sight. After 15 years at the helm, all the SNP have to show for their devolved power are a paltry collection of people-pleasing freebies such as toll-free bridges, baby boxes, prescriptions, free bus travel for the young and old, tuition fees and sanitary products?

The rest of their much-trumpeted “accomplishments” are in fact abject failures. While poverty, drug abuse and deaths and homelessness have reached appallingly high levels, we have simultaneously seen education, health care and waiting lists and policing policies stagnate and decline. The nation’s productivity has slumped so that our GDP is eight per cent lower than the UK, local government funding has been slashed and there have been multiple spectacular investment failures. To cap all this, we have even lost the freedom of speech thanks to their hate crime legislation. Scotland does, however, have the distinction of having been the first country in the world to declare a climate emergency, even though it is responsible for just 0.15 per cent of global emissions.

The word disgraceful, scarcely describes the SNP’s lamentable litany of failures that diminish us in the eyes of the world.

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Neil J Bryce, Kelso, Scottish Borders

Seeing is believing

Edinburgh saw a massive outpouring of public sympathy recently on the death of Queen Elizabeth. Large crowds were in evidence everywhere and 33,000 people filed past her coffin.

Now we have witnessed another public demonstration in the capital, this time for Scottish independence. This is at a time of heightened tension in Westminster plus another referendum has been called by Nicola Sturgeon and she is awaiting the Supreme Court consideration of whether this should go ahead in the next few days. The turnout at the weekend’s pro-independence march therefore really mattered.

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In the event it was rather better than recent marches but still nowhere near the size of the crowds for the late Queen. Scotland has a population of around 5.5 million. The numbers who turned out for this crucial independence march were between 4,000 and 7,000 at best. Where therefore is this massive majority for independence that Nicola Sturgeon always claims exists and upon which her submission to the Supreme Court is fundamentally based?

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

What’s next?

So Glasgow’s SNP administration is selling off the renowned City Chambers in George Square and the popular Kelvingrove Art Gallery.

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With all the adverse publicity surrounding the out-of-control costs of the much-needed ferries to serve the Scottish islands and the unknown potential costs and promises involved with the Invergordon aluminium smelter, will the parliament building at Holyrood be safe from selling?

It’s all very well talking about independence, but standing on one’s own feet and owning our assets are surely a fundamental part of independence.

Jim Craigen, Edinburgh

Powerless EU

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It is surely a tragedy for the West that the EU Parliament does not have the decision-making powers of a real parliament. It is merely a scrutinising chamber like the House of Lords. The decision-making body for the EU is the Commission which is a small group of appointees, including its President, Mrs von der Leyen, a former German politician and an old friend of Angela Merkel.

If the Parliament had been in charge, perhaps the sluggish response of the EU to the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 and of Ukraine itself this year would have been quite different, perhaps even determined and forceful instead of compromised and compliant. Poland, Ukraine and the Czech Republic warned Germany it was becoming too reliant on Russian gas years ago. Likewise, the US objected to the Nord Stream gas pipelines from the very start.

The invasion of Crimea in 2014 followed the completion of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. The EU response was weak – a lot of rhetoric, but the sanctions imposed had little impact and soon faded. Putin was clearly emboldened, because shortly after Nord Stream 2 was completed in 2021, his army invaded Ukraine. It is thanks to the courage and tenacity of the Ukrainian government and soldiers that Putin's attack has been halted and in places driven back. Now Putin has cut off gas supplies to Europe and has caused an energy crisis, inflicting soaring prices and fuel shortages on every country in Europe, including the UK.

Some of the mistakes which landed us where we are can be put right even now. Germany has said that it will end its reliance on Russian gas. Good. But the powerless state of the EU Parliament must also be addressed and rectified. The citizens of the EU deserve a proper democracy.

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Les Reid, Edinburgh

Lincoln redefined

In the Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln defined democracy as “government of the people, by the people, for the people”.

With the tax-cutting measures announced recently, Liz Truss and her allies have redefined it as “government of the rich and powerful, by the rich and powerful, for the rich and powerful”. The “nasty” party is back.

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David Hamill, East Linton, East Lothian

Write to The Scotsman

We welcome your thoughts. Write to [email protected] including name, address and phone number – we won't print full details. Keep letters under 300 words, with no attachments, and avoid 'Letters to the Editor/Readers’ Letters' or similar in your subject line. Do not send letters submitted elsewhere. If referring to an article, include date, page number and heading.

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The government’s circular economy initiatives aim to grow the sector to 80 trillion yen by 2030, with a target of carbon neutrality by 2050 .

Title:

Content: Skip to main content

Is recycling really worth it? Turns out, the system is far from perfect

Posted

Most Australians are pretty good at sorting their waste into paper, plastic, glass and organics – but what's the point of recycling?

Doesn't it just all end up in landfill anyway?

Not quite – but the recycling system is far from perfect.

Loading YouTube content

Not all recyclables are equal

Did you know that it's easier to recycle metal and glass than it is plastic?

Our recycling behaviours reflect this.

The packaging industry estimates that Australians only recycle about 16 per cent of plastic.

We're much better with glass at 60 per cent, paper and cardboard at 68 per cent — and the best with aluminium cans at 81 per cent.

Helen Millicer, director of One Planet Consulting, says there's a reason for this.

"It's easy to separate aluminium, for it to be melted down in a furnace then put back into product again," she explains.

Ms Millicer is a sustainability expert and consultant who works with governments and businesses on the issue of recycling.

"But plastics? There are so many different types of plastics and they're not all compatible with one another," she says.

"You can't mix and match the same way."

The collapse of REDcycle at the end of 2022 demonstrated just how difficult it is to recycle soft plastics – they were the only company in Australia offering to pick up your soft plastics, like single-use plastic bags and packaging, from shopping centres and recycling them.

There's a whole host of reasons why recycling entities or companies struggle," Ms Millicer says, "and they're fairly simple."

"The economics doesn't stack up – it's more expensive to fix and recycle things than it is to make them new."

Recycling needs to improve

Ms Millicer believes there is plenty of room for improvement when it comes to recycling – and we've proven we can do it better.

"Previously, batteries were all thrown into landfill, which is why we've had landfill fires," she says.

"New programs have been established for the collection of these valuable products and the materials that they house."

Like the new battery stewardship program, which recovers valuable materials — like magnesium, cobalt, zinc and lithium — out of old and used batteries.

"Likewise, we can do so much more with everything from our vehicles, all our transport fleet, with our clothing, with our products such as our computers and televisions," she adds.

Veena Sahajwalla, founding director of the Centre for Sustainable Materials Research & Technology at the University of New South Wales, says "we owe it to our planet to be able to recycle, re-manufacture these materials and put them back into our system."

We can go further by reducing our waste in the first place – and we've proven we can do that too, Professor Sahajwalla says.

"We're looking at banning single-use plastics like cups and straws, so I think absolutely there's room for that conversation about when something is really unnecessary," she points out.

"Why do we need to package three or two avocados in a little tray with all that plastic around it? Mother Nature has created natural packaging around our fruit."

We need to reduce and reuse too – not just recycle

The Minderoo Foundation's No Plastic Waste initiative aims to create a world without plastic pollution, and reduce the use of fossil fuels to create plastic to zero.

According to the organisation's Plastic Waste Makers Index published in 2021, Australians make around 60 kilograms of plastic waste per person – which is more than anywhere else in the world.

There's a chance that general attitudes when it comes to recycling could be making our waste problem worse.

Tim Kurz is a senior lecturer at the University of Western Australia's School of Psychological Science.

He says recycling initiatives can potentially increase waste rather than prevent it.

For one of his studies, he recruited 214 participants and found: "participants were 50 per cent more likely to choose a single-use plastic bottle for a drink instead of a glass tumbler when they were told that the plastic would be recycled to make clothes."

"If people have available to them a recycling scheme where they feel like their waste is going to go to a 'good home' as a result of them throwing in a bin, they're actually much more likely to throw things away rather than reusing them," Dr Kurz says.

"And they're also much more likely to choose a single-use product rather than a reusable product to begin with.

"People reframe the act of throwing something into the bin into a pro-environmental act, rather than one that they should feel bad about."

He believes that cases like REDcycle — where it was revealed that "recycled" plastic bags were being stockpiled in warehouses — will make people really think about where their waste is going.

"If it leads people to become sceptical and critical of recycling schemes, there is the possibility that they might focus a bit more on the amount of waste that's coming into their household."

WATCH all the episodes of Courtney Facts on ABC iview and YouTube.

Posted

Waste-to-energy projects and advanced technologies, such as plastic-to-fuel conversion and high-efficiency water recycling, further enhance system sustainability .

Title:

Content: Stockholm’s Discarded Christmas Trees: A Lifeline for Marine Biodiversity

By: Waqas Arain
Stockholm’s Discarded Christmas Trees: A Lifeline for Marine Biodiversity

In the heart of winter, Stockholm’s icy waters become a sanctuary for marine life, thanks to a creative initiative that turns discarded Christmas trees into flourishing underwater habitats. The catalyst behind this innovative approach is the national sport fishing association, Sportfiskarna, who launched this project back in 2016, with the objective of restoring endangered ecosystems. The organization collects the leftover trees after the holiday season, which would otherwise go to waste, and submerges them in various spots across the city’s waterways. To date, over 1,000 trees have found new life beneath the surface, providing essential habitats for a variety of aquatic creatures.

Reviving Ecosystems with Christmas Trees

These recycled Christmas trees serve a vital purpose underwater. They form structural complexities that promote the growth of algae and other marine organisms, which eventually attract fish and other aquatic life. This cycle of life boosts biodiversity and enhances the overall health of the marine ecosystem. Underwater footages reveal clusters of fish larvae nestled within the branches, a testament to the project’s success. Not only do these habitats support spawning, but they also offer a haven for juvenile fish to hide from larger predators.

Garnering Praise and Expanding Horizons

The initiative has been met with applause from environmentalists worldwide, including influential groups like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), who have underscored the importance of fish in maintaining the balance of the Baltic Sea ecosystem. The project’s impact extends beyond the city limits of Stockholm, as it has inspired other Swedish regions to adopt similar practices. The hope is that the initiative’s success will encourage greater participation, fostering a wider adoption of this sustainable alternative.

A Model for Sustainable Practices

This conservation initiative serves as a shining example of how waste can be repurposed for ecological benefits. It underlines the significance of reusing materials and protecting our natural habitats. More than just a post-holiday cleanup, this project is a testament to the power of innovative thinking in the face of environmental challenges. It is a part of a larger movement towards environmental sustainability, setting a precedent for other cities and communities to follow. The discarded Christmas trees of Stockholm, once symbols of festive cheer, now play a vital role in the city’s commitment to ecological preservation and marine biodiversity.

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  • New T-REX Project Launches to Drive Closed-Loop Sorting, and Recycling of Household Textile Waste Across the EU

New T-REX Project Launches to Drive Closed-Loop Sorting, and Recycling of Household Textile Waste Across the EU

PRESS RELEASE
By Press Club

31 Oct 2022

A consortium of 12 major players from across the entire recycling value chain, along with research institutes, has launched an innovative European Union (EU) funded project to create a circular system for post-consumer textile waste.

The T-REX Project (Textile Recycling Excellence) will work to create a harmonised EU blueprint for closed-loop sorting, and recycling of household textile waste. Transforming end-of-use textiles, from waste, into a desired feedstock, and a commodity for new business models that can be adopted at scale. The project aims to contribute to understanding and identifying the infrastructure, technology and policy needed to encourage the growth of circular value chains in the textile industry. The partners will work towards developing a systematic approach to addressing the problem of textile waste, resource preservation and reduction of the environmental footprint of the fashion industry.

Immense Opportunity to Accelerate Textile Recycling

It is currently estimated that only 2% of post-consumer textiles in Europe are diverted to fibre-to-fibre recycling*. Creating a circular system for post-consumer textile waste currently faces many challenges, including a lack of standards for collecting and sorting textile waste across countries, inaccurate composition claims, uneven quality of materials, and a lack of reliable data across value chain stakeholders.

The T-REX Project will increase knowledge on the systemic change required to scale fibre-to-fibre recycling, adding to previous studies that include the Fashion for Good and Circle Economy’s recent ‘Sorting for Circularity Europe’ Report. The analysis, of which, indicates that 74% of low value, post-consumer textiles are readily available for fibre-to-fibre recycling in six European countries. This finding offers an immense opportunity to accelerate textile recycling, but still requires an integrated approach to deliver for scale.

A Consortium of Cross-Industry Leaders

Over a three-year period, the T-REX Project will collect and sort household textile waste and demonstrate the full recycling process of polyester, polyamide 6, and cellulosic materials from textile waste into new garments. Simultaneously, the Project aims to demonstrate sustainable and economically feasible business models for each actor along the value chain, conduct lifecycle analysis of the circular process, integrate digital tools that streamline the process of closed-loop textile recycling, and produce circular design guidelines.

Veolia, will lead the post-consumer textile waste collection, sorting, and division to work with the feedstock needs of the respective textile recycling technologies of Infinited Fiber Company, BASF, and CuRe. The recycled fibres will be converted to yarn by European manufacturers Linz Textil and TWD Fibres, from which adidas will create demonstration products with end of life in mind. FAU will support the project with analytical expertise to maximise the conversion of multi-fibre textile waste into recycled fibre, and Aalto University will conduct citizens’ engagement activities to raise awareness of textile recycling practices and analyse social impact.

Fashion for Good will lead industry communications, and conduct business viability and digital integration activities, supported by Quantis and Arapaha who will collect and analyse data from across the value chain for sustainability assessments and digital solution recommendations.

The project ultimately aims to contribute to a paradigm shift through understanding and identifying the infrastructure, technology, and policy needed to encourage the growth of circular value chains. It will work towards developing a systemic approach to addressing the problem of textile waste, whilst also assessing how to empower citizens to actively engage and contribute towards building a holistic solution to one of fashion's biggest sustainability challenges.

Circular Fashion
European Union
Fashion For Good
RECYCLING

Government roles include legislation, funding, and public education, with local authorities organizing clean-up events and recycling drives .

Japan’s model is characterized by rigorous sorting, strong government frameworks, public participation, and technological leadership .

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German City Diverts Goods From Landfills, Repairs Them, Then Sells in ‘Department Store for Reuse’

Good News Network
 5 days ago

It’s not every day that a municipal waste department spends more time thinking about saving things than dumping them. In Hamburg in Germany, however, there’s money to be made in the second-hand market, and who better to capitalize on that than the people who haul the city’s...

www.goodnewsnetwork.org

**Scandinavian countries**—notably Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark—are recognized for their integrated, high-performing systems.

**Scandinavian countries**—notably Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark—are recognized for their integrated, high-performing systems.

**Scandinavian countries**—notably Sweden, Finland, Norway, and Denmark—are recognized for their integrated, high-performing systems.

**Sweden** sends only about 1% of its waste to landfills, with an overall recycling rate of approximately 99%, largely due to advanced waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities and government-supported infrastructure .

Title:

Content: AI-powered Sorted secures £1.65M to tackle global recycling crisis

Sorted uses computer vision, spectroscopy and coloured lasers driven by AI, to identify, differentiate, and pinpoint valuable items on recycling lines.

Sorted, a London-based recycling tech company has raised £1.65 million in Seed funding.

Governments are increasing pressure to reduce reliance on single-use materials and increase recycled content. However, the waste industry is struggling to meet this demand because of the complexity behind sorting recycled materials such as plastic, compounding a missed $133 billion opportunity.

Sorted is tackling the global sustainability issue by enabling human pickers to better sort and recover targeted materials. Using computer vision, spectroscopy and coloured lasers driven by AI, their solution identifies, differentiates and pinpoints valuable items on recycling lines.

This unique use of AI offers a digitised solution to a very physical problem.

In its first use case, Sorted has improved residual waste recovery by over 50 per cent by increasing picker performance.

Instead of going into incineration, each item recovered represents additional revenue potential for Sorted’s customers and reduces carbon emissions.

Sorted was co-founded in 2022 by Arthur Goujon and Luis Espinosa. Goujon has over 15 years experience in waste management and tech, including as Head of Digital at the global waste management company SUEZ, and Espinosa has helped scale numerous unicorns over the past decade, including Uber, Rappi and DiDi.

Sorted’s customers include some of the largest waste management and recycling firms in the UK and France, including SUEZ UK and Cawleys.

Arthur Goujon, Co-Founder and CTO at Sorted, said:

“Our mission is to help waste management companies sort their waste more effectively and maximise recovery of recyclable materials by aiding Materials Recovery Facilities (MRFs) and Plastic Recovery Facilities (PRFs) in improving their workforce efficiency.

Under pressure to comply with upcoming regulations such as the UK Emissions Trading Scheme, our customers actively seek ways to reduce the amount of carbon-heavy plastic they send to incineration and avoid increased fees.

Our product addresses this and other industry challenges, enabling it to reduce its carbon footprint and increase the output and viability of recycled materials.”

Pi Labs led the round, which included Archipelago Ventures, Circular Plastics Accelerator, Conduit Connect, Antler and angel investors.

Faisal Butt, Founder and Managing Partner at Pi Labs, said:

“Corporations risk running afoul of their own corporate sustainability goals unless they maximise their ability to obtain recycled materials. With the creation of their super pickers,

Sorted has created a digitalised and sustainable solution to this problem while helping their customers contribute to a circular economy.*

“Arthur and Luis have tremendous experience individually and combined are a dynamic duo of founders.”

Fred Stinchcombe, Production Regional Manager at SUEZ UK, said:

"The biggest challenge we have right now is continuously adapting what we do to what brings the most value: either reducing residual waste or achieving higher quality output, but without having to redesign our plants.

Sorted is tackling exactly that; the team understands our operation and is leveraging technology in a pragmatic way to start adding value from the start.”

The new funding will enable Sorted to expand its business development and technical teams, accelerating its go-to-market strategy.”

Lead image: [founding team: Edward Rosten, Arthur Goujon (CTO), Luis Espinosa (CEO), Kate Pleteneva, and Robin Brown. Photo: uncredited.

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Content: Babcock & Wilcox supplying $35M in waste-to-energy equipment for Greenland district heating projects

The renewables segment of power plant equipment maker Babcock & Wilcox has been contracted to provide and install combustion, boiler and feeder systems for a pair of municipal waste-to-energy facilities in Greenland.

B&W Renewables was awarded the $35 million-plus contract by ESANI A/S, Greenland’s national waste management company. The facilities will be built near the cities of Nuuk and Sisimiut and provide district heating for residents and businesses.

Utilizing waste from existing landfills and convert it to energy reduce net methane emissions by a considerable degree. Climate experts say that methane is multiple times more harmful as a greenhouse gas than carbon emissions, according to reports.

“Waste-to-energy technologies are some of the most effective solutions for combatting climate change by reducing methane emissions from landfills and can be combined with carbon capture technologies to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Jimmy Morgan, B&W Chief Operating Officer. “Using B&W Renewable’s proven waste-to-energy and environmental technologies, operators can generate clean energy while reducing the amount of trash in landfills, protecting the air and water from emissions and runoff, and fighting climate change. B&W Renewable’s technology also provides a fully sustainable solution, now and in the future, to process municipal waste while helping to protect Greenland’s pristine and fragile arctic environment.”

B&W Renewable’s project scope includes supplying advanced Vølund DynaGrate combustion grates as well as boilers, waste feeding systems, a Vølund DynaDischarger ash extractor, GMAB flu gas cleaning systems and advanced control and monitoring systems.

The company also will install and commission the facilities. The waste-to-energy plants are scheduled for completion in 2023 and 2024.

B&W has participated in more than 100 waste-to-energy power projects worldwide. Many of those have been in Scandinavia, which is evidence of island nations concerned about land scarcity and costs for dumps, not to mention the environmental impacts.

In the U.S., the federal Energy Information Administration estimated that only about 12 percent of the nearly 300 million tons of municipal solid waste produced in the U.S. was burned in WTE plants. In 2019, 67 U.S. power plants generated about 13 billion kWh of electricity from burning nearly 25 million tons of combustible solid waste, according to the EIA.

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Stockholm invests in carbon capture and ecological restoration projects, such as repurposing Christmas trees for marine habitats .

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Content: Explainers
NEWS
4 hours ago

Explained: How 72 Countries Will Replicate Indore’s Model Of Waste To Energy

5 min read
Pooja YadavUpdated on Jul 23, 2022, 18:47 IST

Indore is the city that excelled at the idea of converting waste into energy. The success of the model is such that now 72 nations are now all set to follow the path of the city.

According to a report published in TOI (2019 data), around 35 tonne of wet waste is treated on a daily basis and more than 13,000 bio-CNG is generated daily. The CNG produced is used to run the city buses. The city is tackling waste management through its biomethanation plants.

72 countries are gearing up to replicate the model

smartcityindore

A resolution was passed during a conference of the International Forum for Sustainable Asia and Pacific jointly hosted by the United Nations (Asia Pacific Region) and the government of Japan on Sustainable Technologies in Tokyo.

Indian representative presented technical insights regarding how Indore’s plants have successfully dealt with wet waste management. He presented the technical features of the biomethanation plant of Indore for producing bio-CNG out of wet waste generated in the city daily.

India's representative told TOI, “A resolution has been passed by UN and it has been decided that the model of Indore’s biomethanation plant will be replicated in about 72 countries of Asia Pacific Region, which will include 52 Asian countries and 20 African countries. Countries like Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh,  Japan, Malaysia, Iraq, Maldives, Oman, and South Korea are also on the list.”

What is biomethanation?

smartcityindore

The resolution has mentioned Indore’s biomethanation model, which is recognized as the most sustainable and cost-effective, zero-waste management model to tackle wet waste.

Biomethanation is a process by which organic material is microbiologically converted under anaerobic conditions to biogas. Microorganisms degrade biological or organic compounds to generate biogas and manure.

According to The Indian Express, “Biogas is a mixture containing carbon dioxide and methane in varying proportions and a small quantity of hydrogen sulfide gas. Methane is a harmful gas if released in the environment as it is one of the four major gases responsible for global warming. But it is an excellent fuel.”

Asia’s largest bio-CNG plant in Indore

Asia’s largest bio-CNG plant is set up in Indore. The plant has the capacity to process 550 tonnes of organic solid municipal waste per day to produce 17,000 kg of bio-CNG and 100 tonnes of organic compost.

Bio-CNG is a renewable fuel obtained by purifying biogas which is produced when microbes break down organic matter like food, crop residue, wastewater, etc.

The Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) set up the plant on the public-private partnership (PPP) model as per the Centre’s ‘wealth-to-waste’ initiative. The initial investment in the project is Rs 550 crore which is estimated to generate 19,000 kg of bio-CNG gas. Media reports also reveal that IMC will purchase bio-CNG at Rs 5 per kg and use it to fuel nearly 400 of its buses.

Further, the by-product of organic compost is better for soil health than chemical fertilisers and Bio-CNG units in the transport sector offer the prospect of cleaner and greener fuel.

Indore is India’s cleanest city

News18

India's cleanest city Indore turns waste into bio-CNG and also generates wealth out of it. Indore, which was ranked 25th in the cleanliness survey of the year 2015, has now reached the number-1 position. This journey to Indore has not been easy. The municipal corporation improved the sanitation system with hundreds of workers and modern machines and also paid attention to solid waste management.

According to the TOI report, the IMC disposes of 600 tons each of wet and dry waste every day. Last year, Indore was declared the country's first 'Water Plus' city under the Swachh Survekshan 202.

The status was achieved by stopping the release of sewage water into the river and drains from 1,746 public and 5,624 domestic outfalls.

Due to these changes and activism towards cleanliness of Indore, today it has become open defecation free. Along with the awareness campaign, two dustbins each for dry and wet waste were kept in the entire city. The Municipal Corporation was made more active to take the garbage to the homes of the people.

smartcityindore

Apart from this, transportation hubs were set up at 10 places in Indore, which take all the garbage from here to the trenching ground. Also, there are over seven thousand sweepers who are engaged in cleaning day and night.

There is a fine of 100 to 500 rupees for spreading filth, spitting and defecating or urinating in the open. The biggest thing is that up to one lakh rupees are spot fined on those who spread dirt in Indore.

There are 172 public and 125 community toilets, which are cleaned four times a day. This is the reason that today Indore has become a completely garbage-free city.

100% of waste is disposed of here. In the meantime, gardens are being built on top of the old waste disposal in the trenching ground. In addition, the corporation is also making daily bio-CNG from the waste generated from vegetable markets.

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29 Jul 2022

Have your say on a load of rubbish!

Household Waste Management Survey in Ballybofey, Buncrana, Donegal Town, Glenties, and Letterkenny in August

Have you any ideas on what to do with household waste?

It's a topic we all talk about but the problems remain the same - household waste and what to do with it.

Now Donegal County Council in partnership with an environmental charity wants to hear from you and your ideas about the challenges faced.

Households in Ballybofey, Buncrana, Donegal Town, Glenties, and Letterkenny will be visited throughout August and given the opportunity to take part in a survey gathering information about recycling and waste management practices and opinions.

Donegal County Council is partnering with VOICE Ireland, an environmental charity, who will be going door to door to find out how residents of Donegal manage their waste and each household participating in the survey will be provided with an information brochure, a pocket guide full of useful information for managing household waste and recycling and useful tips on how to save money by avoiding food waste.

This project has been funded through the anti-dumping initiative (ADI) which encourages a multi-faceted approach to tackling the problems associated with illegal dumping incorporating enforcement, public awareness, and education.

Donegal County Council was successful in securing nearly €130,000 in ADI funding this year to deliver a range of projects throughout the county including resources to support community groups, clean-ups, a reduced-price bulky waste initiative run through the recycling centres, a paint reuse initiative, surveillance equipment as well as the household waste project.

"We would like to ask that everyone who gets the opportunity to get involved in the survey takes it and that we all work together to shape the future for sustainable waste management in Donegal," a spokesperson said.

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**Finland** operates a private-sector-managed deposit return system for bottles and cans, achieving recycling rates of 94% for aluminum and 92% for plastic .

**Norway** augments its deposit system with an environmental tax on producers, incentivizing recycling rates above 95% and promoting uniform, recyclable materials .

Strict regulations require municipalities to implement source separation for organics, plastics, and recyclables, with high public participation supported by government initiatives .

**Denmark** mandates household waste separation and aims for a 70% recycling rate by 2030, supported by public education and investment in recycling infrastructure and WTE plants .

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Content: 1 hour ago - Technology

AI-powered robots could fix recycling's biggest problems

The U.S. recycling industry is starting to get a helping hand from robots, which can sort trash faster and more safely than humans, and artificial intelligence, which gathers valuable data about what's been thrown out.

Why it matters: Automation could help solve recycling's many problems, including the rise in hard-to-recycle plastic waste and consumer botch-ups that lead to contaminated recycling streams.

Driving the news: A new generation of trash-sorting robots with articulated arms and brainier vision systems is beginning to work alongside humans at recycling centers — a.k.a. materials recovery facilities, or MRFs (pronounced "murphs").

  • The robots are getting better at culling recyclables from trash streams, which keeps the materials out of landfills.
  • While still expensive — sometimes $300,000 each — the robots are coming down in size to occupy the same footprint as a human worker.
  • "The robots improve the purity of the materials — they're just squeezing more value out of the stream," says Matanya Horowitz, founder of AMP Robotics, the leading company in this space.

On the software side, AI-driven optical technology can provide real-time data about waste stream contaminants — such as too much peanut butter left in a jar — and other metrics that are just being explored.

  • "It's giving us this data so that we can make better decisions," says Matt Flechter, recycling market development specialist at the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, which is experimenting with robotic sorters from Glacier and Machinex.
  • His hope? Using that data to steer manufacturers toward more recycling-friendly product designs.
  • "The vision will be, we will have real-time data about products to bring to the manufacturer, so they can say, 'Oh, we created a toothpaste tube that we thought was recyclable, but it turns out at the facilities the robots can't pick it up,'" Flechter tells Axios.

How it works: Robots train their AI vision on the waste stream and use their arms to suction out recyclables.

  • "It's like a vacuum cleaner," Flechter says. "It knows what to pick up as things are coming across the conveyor belt. It's reading the optical signature of whether it's a yogurt tub, water bottle, paper bag or a milk carton."
  • "You walk in and it's like a Rube Goldberg-type machine — conveyors going everywhere, robots picking off material, as well as all the people there."

Case study: Recycle Ann Arbor installed a sorting robot from Machinex called the SamurAI at its new MRF in November.

  • The robot took three months to "learn" the shapes, sizes and densities of the materials before it was put into operation.

Yes, but: While it's sorting as fast as a human, its accuracy still needs work, Bryan Ukena, CEO of Recycle Ann Arbor, tells Axios.

  • "We continue to tweak and say, 'No, this isn't the right item we want to pick — we want to pick this item,'" he said. "And so it's a process that you go through, but it learns."
  • The longer it's on the job, "the more it knows your specific material because every community is a little bit different," Ukena said.

Between the lines: Recycling line jobs are monotonous, dangerous and hard to fill — and robots are starting to do them faster and more accurately.

  • "A person will do about 40 picks per minute, but people will get tired," Horowitz tells Axios. "Our Vortex can do 80 picks per minute — the work of two people."
  • This doesn't mean that people will be tossed out of jobs, says Rebecca Hu, co-founder of Glacier.
  • "There's just not enough sorting capacity today to begin with," she tells Axios. "As you install more of these types of robots, people are getting moved to safer or more mundane parts of the operation."

Where it stands: These are early days, but AI recycling startups have lofty goals of boosting the circular economy and combating climate change.

  • Glacier, which raised $4.5 million in seed funding last year, is building a "proprietary AI algorithm that's capable of recognizing over 90% of recyclables in the waste stream," Hu said.
  • It's also fashioning "purpose-built, designed-from-scratch robots that can use that AI information to identify items, pick them up off of a moving conveyor belt, and sort them into the correct location."
  • Glacier robots are "designed to fit anywhere a person can stand" and can be "installed in less than a day," Hu said.
  • The payback — in terms of higher accuracy and more materials processed — can take less than a year.

Zoom out: Consumer product manufacturers are introducing new packaging all the time — lots of which isn't as recyclable as they think or claim.

  • The new automation systems are able to adapt to these changes, to a degree.
  • "With AI, our robot can in theory be installed today, and in five years when a company releases a new type of packaging that we've never seen before, we can train that robot to actually learn and go after that new type of packaging," says Hu of Glacier.

The big picture: Recycling in the U.S. has been beset by problems, from China's ban on importing waste to poor consumer compliance, a patchwork of local recycling rules, and the money-losing economics of running a recycling program.

  • "Single-stream recycling, where all recyclables are placed into the same bin, has made recycling easier for consumers, but results in about one-quarter of the material being contaminated" and thus worthless to buyers, per Columbia University's Climate School.

Currently, buyers that want to create new packaging out of recyclables can't get as much suitable material as they'd like.

  • With robotics and AI, "our real goal is to reduce the cost of sorting these materials as well as increasing their value," Horowitz said.
  • "You improve the value by improving the purity of the commodity streams they are separating out, and also improving the specificity."
  • "Ultimately we think it's important that the industry be able to take dirtier and dirtier materials if you want to increase the amount of materials that are recycled," Horowitz said.

By the numbers: The U.S. recycles 32% of municipal solid waste, up from 7% in 1960, per the Environmental Protection Agency.

What's next: Expect to hear more about "extended producer responsibility" laws — or EPR — which attempt to hold manufacturers responsible for the cost of recycling their products.

  • They've been passed in Maine, Oregon, Colorado and California, and have been proposed in about a dozen other states.
Go deeper

Across Scandinavia, government roles include regulation, funding, public awareness campaigns, and technological innovation, resulting in high participation and system efficiency .

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Q&A: What you need to know about the upcoming changes to California’s recycling program

Q&A: What you need to know about the upcoming changes to California’s recycling program
a new law is about to take effect here in California. That changes the way we deal with some of our trash starting this saturday, we're going to have to separate organic material from other garbage. That means things like banana peels, your coffee grounds eggshells and other food products will have to be thrown in the bins that we use for green waste until now. We've only used those bins for things like your leaves and your yard waste. And the director of calorie cycle Rachel, Maki Wagner joins us now and she heads up the state department that will be overseeing this waste management. So Rachel, this is going to be a big change for a lot of families so talk to us about the reasons for it. Yeah, this is a really important, I've listened to a couple of the stories you've had tonight and then the unfortunate affairs that happening in Boulder and we're all crucially aware of what the impacts of climate change are on our environment, on our communities, the extreme weather that we are seeing across our state, across our country across our globe because of climate change is really pointing to the need for us to act now and act quickly to fight climate change. And one of the fastest and easiest things that each and every one of us can do to fight climate change is get our organic waste out of the landfills. Organic waste breaks down to methane which is a climate super pollutant, meaning that it is a super warmer in our environment and causes climate change at a very fast rate, it is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide. So the sooner we get all of our organic waste out of landfills, the sooner we remove that methane from the environment. So people may be wondering Rachel, what, what's gonna happen to all of that stuff, our kitchen waste once it is hauled away? Well, depending on there are a number of different tools that we can use, but they're all really exciting. So one of the most exciting um that we see here in sacramento is our yard waste currently gets turned into compost and our food waste will be joining our yard waste and compost is amazing. It goes back into the soil and helps retain water, it helps to feed our plants and it helps to prevent pests so that we need less chemical pesticide. So we are taking what would have otherwise than a contaminant in our environment and turning it into a new resource that helps us fight climate change and fight droughts in the future um and feed our plants and our agricultural crops. It's really exciting, you know, in some of the recycling streams, there's no end users. So let's talk about who will be using this compost the mulch, the natural gas that all of our kitchen trash produces. Yeah. So from the local governments who will be uh contributing to this new resource dream um to each and every one of us um and the industries that come out of um of these new commodities, so we can't right now in California create enough compost to keep up with demand. So there is everybody from our farmers in the Central valley to our parks in Los Angeles and san Francisco and here in sacramento um to our government agencies and our private industry who have the opportunity to use these resources. It sounds like there could be a market willing and able to take all that. So real quick, what happens if people don't change their habits and they keep throwing out their food stuff with the regular trash? Well, I think I am very optimistic that Californians want to do the right thing. We have been recycling here in California since the 19 eighties and this is a big change to trash, just like when we first started recycling and every conversation I've had with every Californian about this is how do I do the right thing. So my job and our government jobs are all about providing Californians the resources so they can do the right thing um in a couple of years if local governments are not seeing that change in behavior that we need to see there can be fines and penalties, but I don't think that that's gonna be necessary. All right, we'll just see how things start to play out after this weekend Rachel Maki Wagner, thanks for talking with us. Thank you so much for having me. It's an absolute pleasure. Alright. Happy new year to you. Well, this is just one of the new laws going into effect on Saturday, everything from a $15 minimum wage here in California to easing criminal penalties, to regulations and programs affecting home homelessness and housing. So scan the QR code there if you want to get caught up on some of the laws that will start in the new year. WORKING TO GET HALF A BILLION OUT TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE STARTING IN JANUARY. EDIE: A NEW LAW IS ABOUT TO TAKE EFFECT IN CALIFORNIA. PTHAT CHANGES THE WAY WE DEAL WITH SOME OF OUR TRASH. GULSTAN: STARTING THIS SATURDAY WE WILL HAVE TO SEPARATE ORGANIC MATERIALRO FM OTHER GARBAGE. THINGS LIKE BANANA PEELS, YOUR COFFEE GROUNDS AND EGGSHELLS AND OTHER FOOD PRODUCTS WILL HAVE TO BE THROWN IN THE BINS THAT WE USE FOR GREEN WASTE. UNTIL NOW WE’VE ONLY USE THOSE NSBIOR F YARD WASTE. THE DIRECTOR OF CAL RECLEYC WLIL BE OVERSEEING THIS WASTE MANAGEMENT ISSUE JOINS US NOW. EDIE: TSHI IS GOING TO BE A BIG CHANGE FOR A LOT OF FAMILIES. TALK TO US ABOUT THE REASONS FOR IT. >> THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT. I HAVE LISTENED TO A COUPLE OF THE STORIES HE HAD TONIGHT AND THE UNFORTUNATE THINGS HAPPENING IN BOULDER. AND WE ARE ALL CRUCIALLY AWARE OF WHAT THE IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ARE ON OUR ENVIRONMENT, ARE IN OUR COMMUNITIES, THE EXTREME WEATHER THAT WE ARE SEEING ACROSS OUR STATE, ACROSS OUR COUNTRY AND ACROSS OUR GLOBE BE CAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE IS REALLY POINTING TO THE NEED FOR US TO ACT NOW AND ACT QUICKLY TO FITGH CLIMATE CHANGE A ONDNE OF THE FASTEST AND EASIEST THINGS THAT EACH AND EVERYONE OF US CAN DO TO FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE IS GET OUR ORGANIC WASTE OUT OF THE LANDFILLS. ORGANIC WASTE BREAKS DOWN TO METHANE, WHICH IS A SUPER POLLUTANT. ME IT IS A SUPER WARMER IN THE ENVIRONMENT AND CAUSES CLIMATE CHANGE AT A FAST RATE. IT IS 84 TIMES MORE POTENT THAN CARBON DIOXIDE. SO, THE SOONER WE GET ALL OF OUR ORGANIC WASTE AOUT OF LANDFILLS, THE SOONER WE REMOVE THAT METHANE FROM THE ENVINMROENT. GULSN:TA PEOPLE MAY BE WONDERING WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO THE KITCHEN WASTE ONCE ITS IAU HLED AWAY? >> DEPENDING ON, THERE ARE NUMBER OF DIFFERENT TOOLS WE CAN USE BUT THEY ARE ALL REALLY EXCITING. ONE OF THE MTOS EXCITING THAT WE SEE IN SACRAMENTO IS OUR YARD WA STE GETS TURNED INTO COMPOST AND OUR FOOD WASTE WILL BE JOINING OUR YARD WASTE AND COMPOST IS AMAZING. IT GOES BACK INTOHE T SOIL AND HELPS RETAIN WATER. IT HELPS TO FEED OUR PLANS. AND IT HELPS TO PREVENT PESTS. SO THAT WE NEED LESS PESTICIDE. SO, WERE A TAKING WHAT WOULD’VE OTHERWISE BEEN A CONTAMINANT IN OUR ENVIRONMENT AND TURNING IT INTO A NEW RESOURCE THAT HELPS US FLY CLIMATE CHAENG AND FIGHT DROUGHTS IN THE FUTURE -- AND FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE AND FEED OUR PLANTS. IT’S REALLY EXCITING. EDIE: IN SOMEF O THE RECYCLE ING STREAMS THERE IS NO END USER P LET’S TALK ABOUT WHO WILL BE USING THE COMPOST, THE MULCH THAT ALL OF OUR KITCHEN TRASH PRODUCES. >> SO, FROM THE LOCAL GOVERNMENTS WHO WILL BE CONTRIBUTING TO THIS NEW RESOURCE STREAM TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US IN THE INDUSTRIES THAT COME OUTF O THESE WNE. COMMODITIES WEAN C’T RIGHT NOW IN CALIFORNIA CREATE ENOUGH COMPOST TO KEEP UP WITH DEMAND. THERE IS EVEBORYDY FROM OUR FARMERS IN THE CENTRAL VALLEY TO OUR PARKS IN LOS ANGELES AND SAN FRANCISCO AND HERE IN SACRAMTOEN. TO OUR GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND ROU PRIVATE INDUSTRY WHO HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO USE THESE. RESOURCES GULSTAN: SOUNDS LIKE THE CREOULD BE A MARKET WILLING AND ABLE TO TAKE ALL OF THAT. WHAT HAPPENS IF PEOEPL DON’T CHANGE THEIR HABITS AND THEY KEEP THROWING OUT THEIR FOODSTUFF WITH THE REGULAR TRASH? >> WL,EL I THINK, I AM VERY OPTIMISTIC THAT CALIFORNIANS WANT TO DO THE RIGHT THING. WE HAVE BEEN RECYCLING IN CALIFORNIA SINCE THE 1980’S. AND THIS IS A BIG CHANGE TO TRASH, JUST LIKE WHEN WE FIRST STARTED RECYCLING IN ERYVE CONVERSATION I HAD WITH EVERY CALIFORNIAN ABOUT THIS IS HOW DO I DO THE RIGHT THING? MY JOB AND OUR GOVERNMENT’S JOB IS ALL AUTBO PROVIDING CALIFORNIANS THE RESOURCES SO THEY CAN DO THE RIGHT THING. IN A COUPLE OF YEARS, IF LOCAL GOVEMERNNTS ARE NOT SENGEI THAT CHANGE IN BEHAVIOR THAT WE NEED TO SEE, THERE CAN BE FINES. BUT I DO NOT THINK THAT WILL BE NECESSARY. GULSN:TA WE WILL SEE HOW THINGS START TO PLAY OUT AFTER THIS WEEKEND. THANKS FOR TALKING WHIT US. >> THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR HAVING ME. IT IS AN ABSOLUTE PLEASURE. GULSTAN: HAPPY NEW YEAR. THIS IS JUST ONE OF THE NEW LAWS GOING INTO EFFECT ON SATURDAY. EVERYTHING FROM THE $15 MINIMUM WAGEO T EASING CRIMINAL PENALTIES TO PROGRAMS AFFECTING HOMELESSNESS AND HOUSING, SCAN THE
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Q&A: What you need to know about the upcoming changes to California’s recycling program
A new law is about to take effect in California that changes the way you deal with some of your trash.Starting Saturday, you will have to separate organic material from our other garbage. That means things like banana peels, coffee grounds, eggshells and other food will have to be thrown in the bins used for “green” waste. Until this weekend, Californians have only used these bins for things like leaves and yard waste.The director of CalRecycle, Rachel Machi Wagoner, joined KCRA 3 live to explain the changes.Q: So Rachel, this is going to be a big change for a lot of families so talk to us about the reasons for it. Wagoner: Yeah, this is really important, I've listened to a couple of the stories you've had tonight and the unfortunate affairs that happening in Boulder and we're all crucially aware of what the impacts of climate change are on our environment, on our communities. The extreme weather that we are seeing across our state, across our country, across our globe because of climate change is really pointing to the need for us to act now and act quickly to fight climate change. And one of the fastest and easiest things that each and every one of us can do to fight climate change is get our organic waste out of the landfills. Organic waste breaks down to methane which is a climate super pollutant, meaning that it is a super warmer in our environment and causes climate change at a very fast rate, it is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide. So, the sooner we get all of our organic waste out of landfills, the sooner we remove that methane from the environment.Q: So people may be wondering Rachel, what’s going to happen to all of that stuff, our kitchen waste once it is hauled away?Wagoner: Well, there are a number of different tools that we can use, but they're all really exciting. So one of the most exciting that we see here in Sacramento is our yard waste currently gets turned into compost and our food waste will be joining our yard waste and compost is amazing. It goes back into the soil and helps retain water, it helps to feed our plants and it helps to prevent pests so that we need less chemical pesticide. So we are taking what would have otherwise than a contaminant in our environment and turning it into a new resource that helps us fight climate change and fight droughts in the future, and feed our plants and our agricultural crops. It's really exciting. Q: You know, in some of the recycling streams, there's no end users. So let's talk about who will be using this compost the mulch, the natural gas that all of our kitchen trash produces.Wagoner: From the local governments who will be contributing to this new resource dream, to each and every one of us and the industries that come out of these new commodities. So we can't right now in California create enough compost to keep up with demand. So there is everybody from our farmers in the Central valley to our parks in Los Angeles and San Francisco and here in Sacramento, to our government agencies and our private industry who have the opportunity to use these resources. Q: It sounds like there could be a market willing and able to take all that. So real quick, what happens if people don't change their habits and they keep throwing out their food stuff with the regular trash? Wagoner: Well, I am very optimistic that Californians want to do the right thing. We have been recycling here in California since the 1980s and this is a big change to trash, just like when we first started recycling and every conversation I've had with every Californian about this is 'how do I do the right thing?' So my job and our government jobs are all about providing Californians the resources so they can do the right thing. In a couple of years, if local governments are not seeing that change in behavior that we need to see, there can be fines and penalties, but I don't think that that's gonna be necessary. -This is just one of dozens of new laws going into effect on Saturday, everything from a $15 minimum wage in California, to easing criminal penalties, to regulations and programs affecting homelessness and housing.

A new law is about to take effect in California that changes the way you deal with some of your trash.

Starting Saturday, you will have to separate organic material from our other garbage. That means things like banana peels, coffee grounds, eggshells and other food will have to be thrown in the bins used for “green” waste. Until this weekend, Californians have only used these bins for things like leaves and yard waste.

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The director of CalRecycle, Rachel Machi Wagoner, joined KCRA 3 live to explain the changes.

Q: So Rachel, this is going to be a big change for a lot of families so talk to us about the reasons for it.

Wagoner: Yeah, this is really important, I've listened to a couple of the stories you've had tonight and the unfortunate affairs that happening in Boulder and we're all crucially aware of what the impacts of climate change are on our environment, on our communities. The extreme weather that we are seeing across our state, across our country, across our globe because of climate change is really pointing to the need for us to act now and act quickly to fight climate change. And one of the fastest and easiest things that each and every one of us can do to fight climate change is get our organic waste out of the landfills. Organic waste breaks down to methane which is a climate super pollutant, meaning that it is a super warmer in our environment and causes climate change at a very fast rate, it is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide. So, the sooner we get all of our organic waste out of landfills, the sooner we remove that methane from the environment.

Q: So people may be wondering Rachel, what’s going to happen to all of that stuff, our kitchen waste once it is hauled away?

Wagoner: Well, there are a number of different tools that we can use, but they're all really exciting. So one of the most exciting that we see here in Sacramento is our yard waste currently gets turned into compost and our food waste will be joining our yard waste and compost is amazing. It goes back into the soil and helps retain water, it helps to feed our plants and it helps to prevent pests so that we need less chemical pesticide. So we are taking what would have otherwise than a contaminant in our environment and turning it into a new resource that helps us fight climate change and fight droughts in the future, and feed our plants and our agricultural crops. It's really exciting.

Q: You know, in some of the recycling streams, there's no end users. So let's talk about who will be using this compost the mulch, the natural gas that all of our kitchen trash produces.

Wagoner: From the local governments who will be contributing to this new resource dream, to each and every one of us and the industries that come out of these new commodities. So we can't right now in California create enough compost to keep up with demand. So there is everybody from our farmers in the Central valley to our parks in Los Angeles and San Francisco and here in Sacramento, to our government agencies and our private industry who have the opportunity to use these resources.

Q: It sounds like there could be a market willing and able to take all that. So real quick, what happens if people don't change their habits and they keep throwing out their food stuff with the regular trash?

Wagoner: Well, I am very optimistic that Californians want to do the right thing. We have been recycling here in California since the 1980s and this is a big change to trash, just like when we first started recycling and every conversation I've had with every Californian about this is 'how do I do the right thing?' So my job and our government jobs are all about providing Californians the resources so they can do the right thing. In a couple of years, if local governments are not seeing that change in behavior that we need to see, there can be fines and penalties, but I don't think that that's gonna be necessary.

-

This is just one of dozens of new laws going into effect on Saturday, everything from a $15 minimum wage in California, to easing criminal penalties, to regulations and programs affecting homelessness and housing.

**The United Kingdom** has implemented a range of successful practices.

**The United Kingdom** has implemented a range of successful practices.

**The United Kingdom** has implemented a range of successful practices.

The government plans to require retailers to bear the costs of recycling e-waste from 2026, shifting financial responsibility and fostering a circular economy .

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Risky path to meeting climate targets for Stockholm

Date:
May 29, 2024
Source:
Linköping University
Summary:
The Swedish capital Stockholm aims to capture more carbon dioxide than is emitted by 2030. Therefore, the city is investing in new technology at a combined heat and power plant. But it is a strategy that has been adopted without sufficient discussion of the risks.
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The Swedish capital Stockholm aims to capture more carbon dioxide than is emitted by 2030. Therefore, the city is investing in new technology at a combined heat and power plant. But it is a strategy that has been adopted without sufficient discussion of the risks, says researchers at Linköping university, Sweden.

"Stockholm has a very ambitious climate policy. But there's also been a kind of resignation. This new technology has appeared to offer the promise of a solution. And that's perhaps why there's been no critical discussion at all," says researcher Alexander Olsson at the Department of Thematic Studies -- Environmental Change at Linköping University.

The energy utility Stockholm Exergi is investing in new technology to capture carbon dioxide from the combined heat and power plant Värtaverket. Potentially, 800,000 tons could be removed per year and stored in the bedrock. Since the heat and power plant is fired by biofuel, this would mean that carbon dioxide is removed from circulation. These so-called negative emissions can then be offset against other emissions that politicians deem impossible to remove. The end result would be that Stockholm's net emissions would be zero or even negative. But there are many uncertainties.

Together with colleagues at the Department of Thematic Studies -- Environmental Change, Alexander Olsson has interviewed thirteen politicians and officials in Stockholm to hear their reasoning about the opportunities and risks. They have also analysed debates held in the municipal council from 2015 to 2023. Their conclusions are presented in an article in Energy Research & Social Science.

One thing is clear, according to the researchers. Neither in interviews nor in the debate transcripts is there any serious questioning of the path set out to meet the climate targets, which are to a large extent based on substantial negative emissions at Värtaverket. There seems to be a lack of an alternative plan.

"This means that Stockholm's climate targets are entirely dependent on this facility and the ability to store carbon dioxide. There is no plan B. it's a very, very risky portfolio, to put it in financial terms," says Alexander Olsson.

According to the researchers, the local decision-makers feel that much of climate policy and emissions is beyond their scope of influence. The thought of being able to make large amounts of carbon dioxide disappear through their own decisions thus appeals to the decision-makers. The opportunity to be at the forefront of technology and to be a role model for other cities is also appealing.

It is then tempting to ignore the fact that the technology may not work as intended or that implementation may be delayed. There are no ready-made solutions for how the carbon dioxide is to be transported and disposed of, or answers as to how large quantities can be taken care of. In addition, there are major environmental risks associated with the planned interim storage of carbon dioxide at the port of Värtahamnen close to the city. Almost none of this is mentioned in the interviews or in the debates.

In the light of the promise offered by the new technology, alternative measures risk appearing less important. For example, the researchers note that Stockholm's previous initiative to use biochar to store carbon dioxide has been diminished. There is also a risk that the discussion about which emissions can be influenced locally will be forgotten. For example, Stockholm wants to build a new plant for waste incineration. This would lead to increased carbon dioxide emissions, but it is not identified as a problem by the interviewed decision-makers, which may be due to the high hopes placed on capture at Värtaverket. It is easy to sit back, because the problem seems to be solved.

The researchers' advice is to set separate targets for how much carbon dioxide is to be captured and how much emissions are to be reduced from waste incineration and traffic. They say that this would make clearer which measures work and which do not. The targets should also be complemented by a risk analysis that looks at the likelihood that a measure will be successful. This would bring to light the need for alternative methods.

"We don't think things improve by not being critical. We believe that criticism is an important part of a democratic process, and that decisions will be better if there's a broader debate," says Alexander Olsson.

The study has been funded by the Swedish Energy Agency and Formas.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Linköping University. Original written by Jonas Roslund. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

  1. Alexander Olsson, Emily Rodriguez, Anders Hansson, Sigrid Jansson, Mathias Fridahl. Forerunner city or net-zero opportunist? Carbon dioxide removal in Stockholm, residual emissions and risks of mitigation deterrence. Energy Research & Social Science, 2024; 113: 103567 DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2024.103567

Cite This Page:

Linköping University. "Risky path to meeting climate targets for Stockholm." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 29 May 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/05/240529144149.htm>.
Linköping University. (2024, May 29). Risky path to meeting climate targets for Stockholm. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 30, 2024 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/05/240529144149.htm
Linköping University. "Risky path to meeting climate targets for Stockholm." ScienceDaily. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/05/240529144149.htm (accessed May 30, 2024).

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The Bower app incentivizes recycling by rewarding users with money or coupons, leveraging technology to change consumer behavior .

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'CircularOne' Thailand's first AI-enabled reversed vending machine

THURSDAY, September 22, 2022

CircularOne is the result of collaboration between SUSTAINTECH and Tencent Cloud to improve the sorting and management of used containers in response to the circular economy trend.

SUSTAINTECH, a sustainable tech startup, announces the launch of "CircularOne", Thailand's first AI-Enabled Reverse Vending Machine (RVM) innovated by the Thai people.

The CircularOne machine leverages different cloud and AI technologies from Tencent Cloud – the cloud business of global technology company Tencent to handle and store glass bottles in their perfect condition for autonomous reuse or reversed vending to check the material quality and to sort all deposited containers that range from PET bottles, aluminium cans and "glass bottles".

The solutions from Tencent Cloud allow CircularOne to operate more precisely and ensures effective recycling, reuse, and return to the system in response to the Circular Economy trend as well as the need to alleviate waste-management issues, make people's lives better and solve the global warming crisis.

Chirawat Tangkitchaiwat, Founder and CEO of SUSTAINTECH, said "The world today is facing air and natural resource crisis, a result of manufacturing, consuming, and managing misbehaviours that
subsequently, lead to increased pollution and greenhouse gas. According to data from the World Bank Group (Market study for Thailand: Plastics circularity opportunities and barriers) Thailand ranked sixth among countries responsible for plastic leakage into marine environments."

The country only recycled 616,000 tons — an equivalent to only 17.6 per cent — of the 3.49 million tons of plastics it consumed yearly. With that being said, it is paramount to create a Circular Economy system to alleviate waste management issues, improve people's quality of life and help with the global warming crisis.

Consequently, the company has developed CircularOne to sort beverage containers in order to reduce the volume of containers to be recreated and promote reuse.

CircularOne is also SUSTAINTECH's first Reversed Vending Machine that enables used bottles to be automatically reused and recycled. The deposit machine accepts PET bottles, aluminium cans and 'glass bottles and is the first of its kind from SUSTAINTECH in Thailand.

SUSTAINTECH is considered the first company to have invented and developed an automatically used container the deposit machine that is able to handle glass bottles in their original condition. The machine also incorporates cloud-AI solutions from Tencent Cloud in response to the rising demand for used container storage and sorting technology. The machine also has its own container-sorting as well as quality-checking systems.

With the use of CircularOne, SUSTAINTECH is also determined to promote Circular Economy engagement among all parties from operators of the beverage business, container business, recycling business, real estate business, and garbage collectors to consumers as a means to enhance the efficiency of waste management for the sustainable future.

Chang Foo, Chief Operating Officer of Tencent (Thailand) Co., Ltd., expressed that "Tencent Cloud is pleased to be part of an effort to improve the management and return of waste into the system through the recycling process. Tencent Cloud's solutions work together to categorize used bottles and enhance the operation and precision of CircularOne."

Apart from sorting used containers, such solutions can also detect and eject broken or damaged glass bottles and send notifications which consume less time and make the sorting process more effective.

"The collaboration is a significant milestone that reflects Tencent Cloud's determination to support Thai businesses of all sizes from various industries through over 400 diversified cloud solutions that respond to different needs. By combining our extensive industry expertise with our infrastructure strength, which includes two data centres in Thailand, the company will continue to develop solutions in response to various stakeholder requirements and become a driving force in making the circular economy principle a reality."

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Scotland’s proposed bottle deposit return scheme aims to increase recycling rates, though implementation has faced complexity and delays .

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Content: 1 hr ago
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How NSW couple cashed in $11k through Return and Earn container deposit scheme to pay for their wedding day

‘Our celebrant announced it at the wedding and everyone was so shocked.’

Just seven days out from her big day, and instead of dreaming about walking down the aisle, Pagan was towing a dozen large wheelie bins around town.

After arriving at the Return and Earn depot, the bride-to-be hauled hundreds of cans out of the bins and cashed them out for a few hundred bucks.

Pagan lives in the Dubbo region of NSW and was taking advantage of a state government-run recycling initiative offering 10 cents per aluminium can, plastic or glass bottle deposited.

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And over 19 months, she recycled more than 100,000 containers — with all the cash being put towards her wedding.

“People might laugh because it is only 10 cents (per container),” Pagan tells 7Life of her huge recycling venture.

“But every little bit counts.”

When Andie Lickiss proposed to Pagan on New Years Eve in 2021, he had no idea the pair would spend the next year leading up to the wedding collecting trash from their neighbours.

Pagan was already a keen recycler and had been using the scheme since 2018.

“It would just be our household (waste) that I took (to the depot),” Pagan says of her original efforts, adding that she used to painstakingly deposit one container at a time.

“Now Dubbo has one of the large automatic ones where you can put them all in at once.”

As the engaged couple began planning their wedding for September 2023, the costs kept rising.

With more than 50 extended family members, Andie and Pagan were estimating a guest list in excess of 100.

“We were both working two jobs, trying to save for a house, and everything is just so expensive,” Pagan says.

“We didn’t want the wedding to put us in debt.”

Sitting in the backyard one day, Pagan was trying to think of a way they could cut corners and save money.

That’s when a wheelie bin caught her eye — and instantly she thought of taking her recycling to the next level.

Jumping on the local community Facebook page, she asked her neighbours for unwanted bottles and cans to help ease the burden of the cost of their upcoming nuptials.

Within minutes, she was flooded with messages.

“I had about 50 messages from people ... saying they will just stack them outside their house and we can come and collect,” she says.

Blown away by everyone’s generosity, Pagan started work on mapping out the perfect route to pick up the recycling.

After work, Pagan and Andie would drive around town with a ute and trailer until the vehicle and trailer were bursting at the brim.

Some neighbours donated carboard boxes full of empty bottles while others would fill wheelie bins.

What Pagan enjoyed most about the experience was speaking with members of the community she hadn’t met before.

Cashing in load after load, the couple would sometimes pocket upwards of $400 a time.

Each dollar went towards their goal of $4,500 to pay for their dream photographer.

They donated their time at local sporting events and spent weekends cleaning up fields and stadiums, collecting cans and bottles as they went.

And at six months, the couple had already reached their goal.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Pagan exclaims.

“We just decided to keep going. The cost of living wasn’t getting cheaper.”

As Andie and Pagan became well known rubbish collectors, neighbours began inviting them into their yards and stopped them in the street for a chat.

“They are our friends now,” she smiles.

For 19 months when 5pm rolled around, Pagan would clock off work and drive around picking up cans.

On the weekend, she would cash in her collection at their local Return and Earn.

With 124 RSVPs for their wedding, the couple cashed in cans right up until the week before they said “I do”.

“We never told anyone how much we made,” Pagan says.

“Our celebrant announced it at the wedding (and) the looks on everyone’s faces! They were so shocked, and our photographers caught it.”

With a grand total of $11,127.50 collected from cans, bottles and plastic, a huge financial burden was lifted off the newlyweds’ shoulders.

“All because I posted on Facebook,” Pagan says.

“I hope that people who are doing it tough are not afraid to reach out and ask for help.”

The happily married couple also purchased a fixer-upper in March 2024, and plan on slowly updating the home.

And with about a dozen community members still leaving their rubbish out to collect, the couple is this time saving for renos.

Local councils, such as Milton Keynes, have introduced multi-bin systems to improve recycling quality and rates, with expectations to increase household recycling from 52% to over 60% .

Community engagement is further promoted through grassroots initiatives like The Coastline Runner, which combines litter collection with public education .

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Book Lays Bare The West's Wasteful Food Ways

San Francisco's new law mandating that everyone recycle food waste puts the city on the cutting edge of composting.

But in Asia, the practice is commonplace in some countries.

They're a rare bright spot in author Tristram Stuart's new book, Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal.

"In Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, the government in a matter of years has put a lot of energy behind recycling food waste as livestock feed," Stuart tells NPR's Renee Montagne. "It's environmentally friendly, it provides cheap livestock feed for the farmers in those parts of the world, and it avoids sending the food waste to landfill."

Stuart makes the case that much of the developed world is thoughtless when it comes to the production and purchase of food. From fields of imperfect produce to the lettuce you left in the fridge a little too long, vast quantities of food are tossed daily.

There is a more responsible approach, Stuart points out.

"In the United States, under 3 percent of municipal food waste — so that's the food scraps that goes into people's garbage cans — actually gets recycled," he says. "If you go to a place like South Korea, the exact reverse is the case. It's about 3 percent that doesn't get recycled. The rest is recycled through composting and — very largely and very sensibly — through feeding that food waste to livestock."

Stuart says the U.S. has the resources to recycle its food waste as effectively as South Korea does.

"We have the solutions, we know how to do it," he says. "We just need to do it more effectively and across the board."

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Renee Montagne, one of the best-known names in public radio, is a special correspondent and host for NPR News.

The UK’s approach demonstrates the importance of legislative mandates, technological incentives, and community involvement.

The UK’s approach demonstrates the importance of legislative mandates, technological incentives, and community involvement.

The UK’s approach demonstrates the importance of legislative mandates, technological incentives, and community involvement.

**Australia**’s New South Wales operates the Return and Earn container deposit scheme, offering 10 cents per returned bottle or can, which has effectively increased recycling participation .

Title:

Content: Published: 04/19/2024

A conversation with Vihaan Agarwal (’26), who along with his brother is revolutionizing recycling in India to protect human health and the environment.

By Jamie Hansen, Global Health Communications Manager

Cover photo courtesy of Vihaan Agarwal, One Step Greener

Vihaan Agarwal (‘26) fell in love with nature from an early age. As a toddler growing up in New Delhi, India, he grasped for the flash cards with pictures of birds and later adopted his grandfather’s passion for nature photography. He and his younger brother always requested trips to parks and wildlife refuges, and he still remembers with awe sighting a leopard striding across a majestic old gate in Ranthambore National Park.

So when worsening air pollution driven by trash-burning in landfills threatened both his health and ability to enjoy the natural world, he took action. At age 14, he and his 11-year-old brother Nav began organizing their neighborhood to sort trash and deliver what couldn’t be composted to recycling companies — thereby diverting it from landfills.

That movement grew into One Step Greener, an environmental nonprofit and social initiative working toward a zero-waste future through waste management, recycling, education, and tree planting. They also prioritize providing dignified, safe jobs to workers in the informal waste collection sector. Today, they serve more than 25,000 households for whom they have recycled about 600,000 kilograms of waste, meanwhile planting more than 40,000 trees. In 2021, the brothers received the International Children’s Peace Prize for their work.

Now a sophomore at Stanford, Agarwal continues to expand One Step Greener’s impact while pursuing his education with a focus on sustainability and international relations. While juggling coursework with 3:00am Zoom calls to New Delhi isn’t always easy, he’s energized by the ideas and resources he’s gained from fellow students and faculty.

 “A lot of the ideas I have for taking the organization forward wouldn’t be possible if I wasn’t here at Stanford,” he said.

He shared with us his story and insights for creating positive change that benefits people and the environment, one manageable step at a time.

How did you first become passionate about addressing pollution?

Around 7th grade, I started having a lot of asthma issues at the same time that air pollution in New Delhi started getting really bad. I was deeply passionate about wildlife and the environment and really wanted to do something to solve the problem that was hitting me hardest— air pollution. I planted some trees, but my research showed me this wouldn’t have a great impact and I wanted to take it a step further. At first I didn’t see anything more I could do about it.

Then, around 8th grade, pollution grew even worse, requiring children to attend school online or wear masks to protect themselves. Around that time, I was reading a newspaper on the way to school and saw an article about a fire in the city’s largest landfill, which was causing pollution throughout the city.

In that car ride, I made the connection that my waste was ending up in this landfill, which was causing air pollution, which affected me. I knew I needed to find a way to stop my waste from ending up in landfills.

Faced with such a daunting problem, how did you get started?

I started by doing some research and learned that the best way to keep the waste out of landfills was to segregate it so that it could be more easily recycled or composted. But this research was from countries with effective management systems for the waste, which was not the case in India. There were plenty of recycling companies in India, but they recycled imported waste from other countries. The supply chain just didn’t exist for them to get the waste from households like mine.

So I started composting my wet waste at home and storing my dry waste in the backyard. There was a point when our backyard became a mini mountain of dry waste, and my grandfather told me I had to do something about it.

But when I started calling recycling companies, they had no interest in handling my small amount of waste. We have WhatsApp groups for neighborhoods in India, so I messaged ours and invited our neighbors to get involved in this green initiative. That’s around the time we came up with the name One Step Greener, because we were trying to take one step towards a cleaner future. Within two weeks about 100 people signed up, which shocked us. We realized we needed to formalize the process, as my parents had been driving me around to pick up everyone’s recycling in their car and weren’t thrilled about it. We hired a truck and driver, and started storing the recycling in a vacant apartment basement that someone donated to us.

Were there ever moments of doubt or times you felt you were in over your head?

Oh, plenty of times. I remember walking into this basement filled with trash and thinking, “what in the world am I supposed to do with all this?”

I think I was definitely scared. But I was so passionate about this because I genuinely felt like every kilogram of waste I recycled was a personal victory. As one person, I’d been able to do something that benefited the environment.

At the time, we were very young and still in school, and we were growing alongside our organization in a sense. We took advice from our grandparents and parents, and my mom was very involved in the beginning since we were so young. But mostly there was just a lot of experimentation —  going out, doing it, trying new things and figuring out how it would work. We very quickly realized we needed to set up systems by which things could work without us being involved on a day-to-day basis. We formalized our NGO and hired a supervisor and a team to segregate the waste. As the organization grew from 100 to 2,000 to now 25,000 homes we kept adding systems.

Now that you’re at Stanford, how does your education inform One Step Greener and vice versa? How are you balancing these huge demands?

It’s not always easy to balance. The time difference is most challenging. I finish my schoolwork by 9 or 10pm and I’m able to take a few meetings by the time it’s morning in India. But the main thing is that I don’t have to do a lot because so much is on autopilot. We have a proper management team and my brother back home is still there to help run things.

I am trying to add value by fundraising and using my time at Stanford to incorporate technology into the organization. We are committed to ensuring that we do our work in a green way.  For instance, the vehicles that haul the waste are electric and I’m learning to map more efficient routes.

We recycle more than 95 percent of the waste that comes to us, and the rest (mostly single-use plastic) we store, which is expensive. Now, I’m trying to figure out manufacturing processes that will allow us to recycle single-use plastic. I’m talking to friends, classmates, and professors here to learn how to create the machines we need. We’re trying to close the loop completely.

What’s your advice to others looking to take that first step to address climate change or pollution?

Find an issue that’s affecting you or that you’re deeply passionate about. Think about it and think about what you can do – not necessarily to make massive change, but what’s the first step you can take?

Climate change is such a big existential threat that the natural response is fear — to question whether we can make a difference as one person. But fear shouldn’t lead to inaction. The premise of the speech that me and my brother gave when we won the Children’s Peace Prize was “take the plunge.” Yes, these problems seem so daunting. But unless you take the plunge, you’re not going to see how much you can do and the ripples you can make.

——-

Agarwal will be participating in the “Pollution and Health: Generating Evidence and Catalyzing Action to Advance Human and Planetary Health” conference on May 20-21.  Learn more and register for the conference.

Anyone wishing to learn more or get involved can visit One Step Greener here.

However, the collapse of the REDcycle soft plastics program highlights challenges in maintaining economic viability and infrastructure, especially in rural areas .

Title:

Content: In a landmark move towards a more sustainable future, the UK government has unveiled plans that will mandate retailers to bear the costs of recycling electronic waste (e-waste) generated by consumers both with household and in-store collections.

The initiative, set to take effect in 2026, marks a significant step in addressing the environmental impact of electronic devices and aims to create a circular economy where responsible disposal becomes an integral part of product life cycles.

The proposed legislation signals a departure from the current system, where consumers often bear the burden of responsibly disposing of their electronic devices, from smartphones to laptops.

The shift towards holding retailers accountable for recycling costs aligns with broader efforts to tackle the escalating e-waste crisis and promote corporate responsibility.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) proposed a plan that would allow consumers to conveniently dispose of electrical waste (e-waste) – encompassing items from cables to toasters and power tools.

In a consultation document released on Thursday, Defra outlined that consumers could either have their e-waste collected from their homes or drop off items during their routine weekly shopping trips.

The objective is to shift the financial responsibility for the safe disposal of these often toxic and obsolete products from the taxpayer to retailers. These proposed measures are set to be implemented in two years.

Material Focus, a not-for-profit organisation, reported that nearly half a billion small electrical items were consigned to landfill in the previous year.

The issue was particularly pronounced during the Christmas period, with 500 tonnes of Christmas lights being discarded, as highlighted by the government.

The proposed plan by Defra aims to address the growing problem of e-waste by providing consumers with accessible and efficient disposal options.

By placing the financial burden on retailers, the government hopes to encourage responsible waste management practices and reduce the environmental impact of improperly discarded electronic devices.

The implementation of these measures is expected to alleviate the burden on taxpayers while fostering a more sustainable approach to e-waste disposal.

The UK generates a substantial amount of e-waste annually, with millions of tons of discarded electronic devices contributing to environmental degradation and health hazards.

The new plan seeks to curtail the environmental impact by encouraging proper disposal practices and promoting recycling.

Furthermore, the proposed legislation aims to enhance transparency in the recycling process. Retailers will be required to provide clear information to consumers about the environmental impact of their products and the steps taken to ensure responsible recycling.

This transparency is expected to empower consumers to make more informed choices, supporting environmentally conscious practices.

In the post-Brexit era, the UK has struggled to match certain EU regulatory initiatives, particularly in addressing electronic waste (e-waste).

The EU has taken steps to minimise e-waste through legislation promoting the right to repair products and mandating the use of common chargers for phones, such as USB C, starting in 2024, replacing Apple's specialised lightning charger.

Cables, often hoarded or improperly disposed of, constitute a significant contributor to the e-waste problem.

The UK's deficiency in effective recycling infrastructure, particularly in areas like battery processing, has resulted in the country trailing behind its European counterparts in various recycling rates.

According to an OECD study analysing British data, the UK fell short of its household e-waste recycling targets from 2017 to 2020.

The economic think tank's review concluded that additional efforts are required for the UK to combat illegal dumping and the export of electronic waste, emphasising the necessity of implementing a proposed mandatory waste tracking system.

The proposed legislation is part of the UK government's broader strategy to tackle the environmental challenges posed by e-waste. It complements existing efforts to incentivise the recycling industry and promote the development of innovative solutions for managing electronic waste.

As the global community grapples with the escalating issue of e-waste, the UK's initiative sets a precedent for other nations to follow, emphasising the importance of shared responsibility in building a more sustainable future.

Local governments adapt by restricting drop-off amounts and educating residents .

Title:

Content: Capitol wants to put up a waste-to-energy facility

By: Morexette Marie B. Erram - Multimedia Reporter - CDN Digital | October 23,2022 - 03:19 PM

INQUIRER.NET STOCK PHOTO

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Cebu Provincial government wants to convert trash from all municipalities and cities into something useful.

Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia revealed her interest in having a waste-to-energy facility during her recent meeting with Swedish Ambassador to the Philippines Annika Thunborg at the Capitol.

Highlights of Thunborg’s visit to the Capitol were reported by Sugbo News, the Capitol’s media arm.

“Gov. Garcia, as head of the Provincial Economic Enterprise Council, has been looking for interested and capable partners for the province’s plan to convert its trash — from all municipalities and component cities — into energy,” the report added.

The Swedish diplomat was quoted as saying that they are open to working with the provincial government in helping Cebu in terms of infrastructure, transportation, and energy. This includes Garcia’s interest in having a WTE facility.

“We will need to see matching projects and see where our companies will come in and what we can offer to complement what is already being done in the province,” said Thunborg.

Sweden is home to some of the world’s most advanced WTE plants, including the largest in northern Europe. The country’s success in converting trash as a source to power homes, establishments, and even public transportation received worldwide attention.

According to earlier reports from international media, about one percent of Sweden’s trash in 2018 was sent to landfills, which experts considered as serious problems for the environment.

The province’s capital, Cebu City, albeit independently governed, is also in the works of establishing a WTE plant as part of its long-term solutions to address solid waste management.

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Australia’s experience underscores the need for robust infrastructure, economic incentives, and adaptive local government roles.

Australia’s experience underscores the need for robust infrastructure, economic incentives, and adaptive local government roles.

Australia’s experience underscores the need for robust infrastructure, economic incentives, and adaptive local government roles.

**South Korea** and **Taiwan** have achieved food waste recycling rates of about 97% by converting food waste into livestock feed, supported by strong government mandates and high public compliance .

These systems demonstrate the effectiveness of targeted legislation, infrastructure investment, and public education in urban contexts.

These systems demonstrate the effectiveness of targeted legislation, infrastructure investment, and public education in urban contexts.

These systems demonstrate the effectiveness of targeted legislation, infrastructure investment, and public education in urban contexts.

**United States** regions such as California and Massachusetts illustrate the impact of state-level legislation and local government initiatives.

**United States** regions such as California and Massachusetts illustrate the impact of state-level legislation and local government initiatives.

California’s Senate Bill 1383 mandates organic waste separation and recycling, with local governments responsible for program implementation, compliance monitoring, and resident education .

Title:

Content: Matabeleland North residents complete First Lady initiated waste recycling course

15 Jul, 2023 - 00:07 0 Views
Minister of State Provincial Affairs and Devolution in Matabeleland North, Richard Moyo (with scarf) and other delegates tour some of the stands with products made from recycled glass and plastics at the Recycling as a Business Training Course graduation ceremony in Lupane yesterday. Pictures: Innocent Makawa

The Chronicle

Blessings Chidakwa in Lupane

HUNDREDS of people from seven districts in Matabeleland North yesterday graduated after completing a recycling as a business course initiated by First Lady Amai Auxillia Mnangagwa who is the environment patron in partnership with Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry.

It was all smiles at Lupane State University as hordes of people drawn from all ages and gender celebrated their lifetime achievement after participating in the training programme.

The colourful event saw various people also displaying some products that are being made out of recycled plastics and bottles including plastic tiles, pavers, wine bottles, glasses and dishes among other products.

Globally, waste recycling is arguably the second biggest industry feeding raw materials into agriculture and clothing sectors among others.

The First Lady, Dr Mnangagwa who is also the Secretary for Environment and Tourism in Zanu-PF has been running the recycling as a business course across the country and Matabeleland North province is the sixth province to benefit from the course meant to capacitate communities.

The other provinces that have benefited are Mashonaland West and Central, Manicaland, Harare and Matabeleland South.

Some of the products made from recycled glass and plastics at the Recycling as a Business Training Course graduation ceremony yesterday

In a speech read on her behalf by Professor Prosper Matondi, chief director for Environment, Climate and Meteorological Services, Dr Mnangagwa said she envisions recycling as a key strategy in enhancing lives in Zimbabwe.

She said there are various options in the country through which a lot of entrepreneurs can be gainfully engaged in the collection, sorting and processing of materials.

Amai Mnangagwa also said some people would be running complementary business supplying necessary materials that are used in the recycling process and value chain leading to benefits sharing.

“This is not my dream alone but the National Development Strategy 1 which underpins promoting recycling initiatives as a major outcome.

“My appeal to the industry is that it is time we fully recognise support and grow the recycling industry and the solution to sustainability,” she said.

Amai Mnangagwa a champion of preserving the environment, said it was key that people should jealously preserve the environment.

“Recycling is not only potentially a billion dollar industry but also works to save the environment. Zimbabwe like any other country produces tonnes of waste products which entrepreneurs can take advantage of to build and grow the recycling business.

“The United Nations and environmental programme estimates the market for waste management from collection through recycling to be some US$400 billion worldwide while the global market for the scrap metal and paper is at least US$30 billion per year according to the World Bank,” she said.

Dr Mnangagwa said it was against such a background of realising that a lot of valuable waste products are still being dumped and polluting the environment that her office worked with the Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry through the Environment Management Agency to unlock the value in waste products.

The First Lady said this led to the rollout of the training programme to capacitate grass roots communities on the best practices in the management of waste including recovery and recycling as a business.

“We are gathered here to appreciate all those who participated in this rigorous training programme, the training did not happen in Matabeleland North province alone but it touched every district of Zimbabwe in line with the mantra of “Leaving no one and no place behind”.

“I want to urge the graduates that this graduation should not be the end to this noble initiative but this capacity business exercise should be the basis for action on the ground, I challenge you to be beacons of hope and light to the communities you come from by putting into action what you learnt and also spreading wide the same information in your community,” she said.

Minister of State Provincial Affairs and Devolution in Matabeleland North, Richard Moyo thanked Amai for initiating the training programme to capacitate communities to engage in Recycling as a Business.

“I would like to refer to this particular event as historic in that it is indeed the first time the province is witnessing the certification of an achievement in waste management by grassroots communities.

“This gesture fulfils the Second Republic’s Mantra of Leaving No one and No Place Behind towards the attainment of Vision 2030,” he said.

Minister Moyo also acknowledged the support, participation and guidance in the programme and other waste management initiatives elsewhere in the province in particular and the country at large.

“I am delighted to inform you that, Matabeleland North province conducted Recycling as a Business Training workshops in all the seven districts of the province being spearheaded by the Environmental Management Agency in conjunction with Local Authorities, Waste Recycling Companies and other Government Departments.

“To that end, a total of 785 people were capacitated with sound knowledge in the recycling value chain. The training programme was quite inclusive as being witnessed by the graduation today,” he said.

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Content: Menu Close

Scottish bottle deposit scheme to be blocked – but evidence from Europe suggests it’s the way forward

Unrecycled drink containers are a huge problem in the UK. A survey by Planet Patrol, a non-profit organisation, found that the drinks industry was responsible for more than a third of the litter found in the UK in 2020 and 2021. The items included plastic and glass bottles, metal drinks cans, single-use cups and lids.

This is a concern. Litter takes years to degrade, causing harm to wildlife and habitats, and cleaning it up is expensive. Street cleaning costs UK taxpayers an estimated £1 billion each year.

The Scottish government has proposed a deposit return scheme. People will pay a 20p deposit when they buy a drink in a single-use container, which they get back when the empty bottle or can is returned. Scottish drinks containers would also need to be specially labelled and tracked.

But the scheme is under threat. The UK government is unlikely to agree to the trade exemption needed to enable trade rules in Scotland to differ from the rest of the UK. And critics argue that a deposit return scheme will be difficult for smaller retailers in an already competitive sector due to the costs of handling returns and registering with the scheme.

However, similar schemes in other European countries have prevented huge volumes of litter from entering the environment. These deposit return schemes offer insight into how effective a measure they can be and provide a possible route for implementation in the UK.

Evidence from Europe

In Finland, a deposit return system for glass bottles was introduced in the 1950s and continues today, having included plastic drinks containers for the past 20 years. The scheme is operated entirely by the private sector, with 5,000 plastic container-return machines located across the country in shops, hotels, restaurants, offices and schools.

Each time a person buys a drink in a bottle or a can, they pay a 15 to 40 cent deposit, depending on the material the container is made out of. The containers are then recycled or the materials are reused on their return.

Almost every bottle and can in Finland is recycled as a result of the scheme. In 2020, Finnish residents recycled 94% of aluminium cans (out of 1.4 billion sold) and 92% of plastic bottles (out of 530 million). By contrast, just 82% and 57% were recycled in the UK respectively.

Norway has achieved an even more impressive recycling rate of 97%. Norway’s deposit return approach is instead supplemented with an environmental tax imposed on bottle producers. The tax is NOK 6.46 (£0.50) per unit of metal and glass and NOK 3.91 (£0.30) for plastic items. To avoid the tax, producers must recycle more than 95% of the containers they produce.

Plastic bottles usually end up being “downcycled” into other items, like fleece materials. But the tax has encouraged producers of plastic bottles in Norway to make bottles easier to recycle by using more uniform and less contaminated materials. Efforts have included using approved bottle tops and glue and labels that are easier to remove. The quality of recycled plastic in Norway is now so high that recycled bottles can be made into new bottles.

Plastic recycling schemes in Europe have also delivered social benefits. The Finnish system allows people to choose to collect their deposit or donate it to charity. In Berlin, those not inclined to return their bottles to the store can leave them under bins for others to collect and claim the reward.

Public acceptance

The success of a deposit return scheme largely depends on what happens to the item once it is returned. Success is not based on economic viability alone. Any deposit return scheme needs to be acceptable to the people who run and use it.

Cost-benefit analysis of two separate deposit return schemes (recycling and reuse) for plastic food trays in Sweden found that the costs are greater than the benefits for recycling, but not for reuse. If you consider the costs involved in packaging, washing and the recycling process, then a return scheme may work best if the item is reused.

In Scotland, concerns about how the scheme will run and its real benefit are chipping away at the confidence of the public and drinks retailers. Research finds that many people in Scotland are unaware of how the deposit return scheme would operate and why it is necessary. Some of the study’s participants even perceived the refund charge as another form of taxation imposed by the Scottish government.

Communication plays a critical role. A different study, which explored the public acceptance of a deposit return scheme in Catalonia, Spain, revealed that the way a scheme is presented to users and how much information is given influences how it is perceived. More information (given over the phone) tended to yield a more positive viewpoint.

Clearly, more information is required for Scotland’s recycling scheme to be accepted more widely.

If designed correctly, deposit return schemes can encourage recycling by raising the value of plastic waste. Recycling and reuse schemes are also made more technically and economically viable if backed up with tax incentives.

But the barrier facing the adoption of a deposit return scheme in the UK is a lack of uniformity. We should not be asking if Scotland should adopt a scheme or not. Instead, plans for the rest of the UK to adopt this approach should be accelerated to get the whole of the UK on the same page.

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Massachusetts’ Sustainable Materials Recovery Program provides grants to municipalities for innovative recycling and composting programs .

Title:

Content: Policies on household solid waste still display inadequacy

SGGP

The amount of household solid waste (HSW) in major cities nationwide is expected to increase by 10-16 percent a year on average. However, the most common waste treatment method in Vietnam, which is mere burying, has proved its unsuitability for the modern and environmentally friendly development trend at present.

The waste treatment area in Da Phuoc Commune of Binh Chanh District in Ho Chi Minh City.

Statistics from the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry reveal that in 2021, the total volume of HSW in Vietnam reached 51,585 tonnes a day, more than 30,000 tonnes of which came from large cities. Such an amount, plus low awareness of communities in certain places, led to a low rate of waste collection and treatment. 71 percent of this HSW was buried in landfills, most of which are unhygienic. As the land resource for landfills becomes increasingly scarce, this method proves unsustainability in a long term.

Director Pham Hong Son of the Environment Protection Authority of the Central Highlands and Central regions explained that the limit in HSW management results from inconsistent legal documents regarding environment protection, and thus displaying an unclear duty of state units in this matter.

Limited state budgets for HSW treatment add to this problem as they cannot meet the high demands of the community. In the meantime, unattractive preferential policies and mechanisms for this aspect have prevented a successful mobilization of possible resources in the society.

Moreover, there is not yet detailed regulations on assessing waste treatment technologies, so localities are frustrated choosing suitable ones to apply in their areas. Adding to that is a low focus on scientific research for advanced waste treatment technologies, forcing the country to maintain the harmful method of garbage burying, which is not at all environmentally friendly.

Environmental experts mentioned that it is unattractive preferential policies that strongly discourage businesses from investing in advanced equipment or technologies to process waste. This calls for amendments in current policies by the State so that these businesses feel more eager carrying out technology upgrades.

In particular, expert on environment management Nguyen Quoc Cong from Hanoi Architectural University shared that the development and investment capital of the State for environment protection now only answer 50 percent of the real needs, not to mention inadequacies in budget allocation to different regions. Meanwhile, inconsistent and incomplete legal policies have created high risks and low profit in HSW treatment, pushing investors away from this field.

Mr. Cong, therefore, proposed certain feasible solution such as promoting HSW sorting at source; changing the awareness and thinking about private economic and private enterprise development; ensuring reasonable and transparent profits in legal policies when mobilizing social resources for waste treatment; allocating a certain state budget amount for investment in this field to attract the private sector.

He stressed that the State should allow businesses to actively suggest feasible waste treatment technologies in specific locations in accordance with the local land use planning as long as these technologies can ensure environment protection, while the land and capital use shows transparency.

Chairman Nguyen Van Thien of the Board of Directors of Binh Duong Water – Environment JSC. said that at present, the mechanisms and policies related to waste treatment are still vague and weak, leading frustration of localities when applying. Many businesses use capitals from different sources, yet cannot achieve their expected results. A lot of them have to stop operation after some time due to profit loss and no money to repair broken equipment.

“The Finance Ministry should develop a price framework for waste treatment and proper preferential policies (favoring recycled products in the market), introduce financial support to reduce the prices of recycled products to attract more consumers, and encourage the community to recycle a product through many cycles before destroying them via burning or similar methods. The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry should advise the Government on devising supporting mechanisms and policies for waste treatment in Vietnam to fulfill the goals set in the Environment Protection Law 2020” proposed Mr. Thien.

Representative of Vietnam Waste Planning Co. Ltd. Hideki Wada shared that in Japan, HSW sorting is divided into stages according to the real situation of the country. Japan uses waste bags of different sizes to calculate the waste amount for service fee identification. This has made its citizens high aware of disposing less garbage to save money, and in turn leading to cost reductions in waste collection and treatment.

By Minh Hai – Translated by Thanh Tam

Other news

Eleven U.S.

Eleven U.S.

Eleven U.S.

states introduced EPR laws in 2023, shifting financial and operational responsibility for recycling to producers .

Title:

Content:  |

Upward trend on German PET recycling market has levelled off a little

08.03.2022 −

In February, many market players in Germany described post-consumer PET bottles, flakes and recycled pellet as too expensive. Flakes cost €300 more and regranulate fetched up to €900 per tonne more than primary PET, recyclers said, adding that they had frequently faced the impacts of converters being reluctant to make purchases. Projects increasing the use of recycled PET in products were being delayed as a result, market players said.

In a few instances, recyclers even reported that their inventories of flakes had built up because customers did not want to pay the high prices anymore. The gap between primary PET and flake prices had to be narrowed, one recycler commented.

Consequences of war in Ukraine for industry not clear yet

The repercussions of the Russian war against Ukraine are not yet clear for the plastics recycling industry. Some respondents fear a breakdown in supply chains because the shortage of lorry drivers will likely become even more severe. After all, many shipping companies in Europe are reliant on Ukrainian drivers who largely work for Polish and Lithuanian transport or haulage companies. According to the German Haulage, Logistics and Waste Management Federation (BGL), one in every three lorry drivers working for Polish transport and haulage companies come from Ukraine. Many drivers from Ukraine had stopped working immediately after the first reports of fighting to return to their families as quickly as possible, BGL reported.

The full market report appears in the print and e-paper issues of EUWID Recycling & Waste Management (05/2022), published on 9 March. Online subscribers can access the report immediately here:

Post-consumer PET bottles in Germany

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Brisk Turkey export business pushes steel scrap prices up in Germany in February  − next

Local governments play a pivotal role in funding, legislation, and community engagement, as seen in Cincinnati’s hackathon for recycling innovation and Enfield’s revised solid waste policy .

Title:

Content: Save The Planet — and Your Dollars — By Making Your Office Gadgets Greener. Here's How. Millions of offices around the globe need to rethink their use of electronics.

By Kerry Chen

Key Takeaways

  • The global secondhand market is booming, and this is especially true for consumer electronics.
  • Recycling or refurbishing used tech is a multifaceted process that requires a well-coordinated network of services.

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

In this decade, more and more businesses feel the need to adjust their operations in favor of more long-term sustainable practices. From consumer demands to politics and investors, environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices have never been discussed more than today.

However, this boom is not just about using green energy in production or donating towards environmental efforts. It's about changing entire corporate cultures, making employees and partners aware of sustainability issues and implementing shifts across all departments.

Contemporary businesses are profoundly dependent on consumer electronics such as smartphones and laptops. These devices present distinct sustainability challenges and opportunities, spanning from recycling to lifespan extension. As such, they not only offer global entrepreneurs an exceptional chance to demonstrate their dedication to ESG principles by implementing adequate company policies and educating their workforce but also enable them to reap significant financial benefits in the future.

E-waste and secondhand smartphones

The global secondhand market is booming, and this is especially true for consumer electronics. In fact, according to CCS Insight, refurbished smartphone sales grew by more than 14% in 2023, outshining new smartphone sales and reaching a total of $13.3 billion in Q1 2023 despite suffering from a severe supply shortage. This growth is a testament to the evolving consumer sentiment, and this trend is poised to continue flourishing throughout the current decade and beyond.

One of the key driving factors behind the expansion of secondhand mobile markets is the growing concern over electronic waste or e-waste. The proliferation of electronic devices has led to an alarming increase in e-waste, which poses serious threats to the environment, human health and animal well-being. Over 53 million metric tons of e-waste are produced around the globe annually, and only 17% of this e-waste is recycled.

From toxic chemicals leaching into soil and water to hazardous emissions during the disposal process, the consequences of improper electronic waste management are far-reaching and detrimental. Furthermore, manufacturing new smartphones and other consumer electronics requires a substantial amount of resources, which are valuable and limited.

With the raw materials that are found in e-waste being estimated to be worth around $60 billion, there are many reasons for companies to care about recycling and repairing used smartphones. Failing to recycle and reuse these resources exacerbates the scarcity of raw materials, which leads to higher production costs and an unsustainable product life cycle.

Related: How the Circular Economy of Consumer Electronics Can Change Sustainability

The infrastructure is advancing

As consumer sentiment continues to lean toward sustainability, the necessary infrastructure to support the growth of secondhand mobile markets is developing in tandem. The global electronics recycling market amounted to about $40 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach a value of $110 billion by 2030.

Recycling or refurbishing a used smartphone is a multifaceted process that requires a well-coordinated network of services. According to a 2022 study, convenience is a major factor when it comes to recycling.

Japan, a global leader in handling e-waste, provides thousands of convenient drop-off points for consumers to discard their used smartphones, dedicated examination centers for a thorough assessment of devices, and avenues for repair and refurbishment.

At ATRenew, we are now aiming to intensify recycling-related infrastructure development in China. For example, to facilitate convenient recycling, ATRenew has opened nearly 2,000 offline stores in a bid to provide the necessary infrastructure.

Related: How the Circular Economy of Consumer Electronics Can Change Sustainability

How businesses can position themselves

Crucially, it's not only the device manufacturers and refurbishment centers that can make a lasting impact. Every modern-day organization aware of these issues can position itself as a responsible entity committed to reducing e-waste.

As usual, the first step to reducing e-waste and increasing the lifecycle of devices is to invest in the education of employees. Holding training sessions on the responsible usage, maintenance and eventual disposal of electronics can greatly enhance their longevity and suitability for refurbishment. Additionally, companies could organize public presentations or workshops to educate both employees and regular consumers, thus showing their commitment to the public.

Finally, there are also a number of internal policies that could make a big difference. For instance, offices could introduce shorter tech refresh cycles during which current devices are upgraded, or even allow employees to bring their own devices – with appropriate security measures, of course.

Regardless of which measure is ultimately used, all organizations can choose to put them on public display via social media and thus achieve a great branding effect with consumers and talent alike.

Related: 70% of Consumers Say They'll Buy 'Green' Products, but Only 5% Actually Do. That's Due to a Common Marketing Mistake By Eco-Friendly Brands.

A sustainable path forward

The increasing prominence of secondhand mobile markets reflects a broader shift in consumer behavior, and this change is not merely a passing trend. Instead, it is a well-founded response to the challenges posed by e-waste and resource scarcity.

As consumers are becoming more conscious of their choices and the impact of their actions, secondhand smartphones have become a preferred option since they align with the principles of sustainability and responsible consumption. This, in turn, is animating businesses to follow suit and provide a supply to quench that demand.

With this positive feedback loop, the growth of secondhand smartphone markets in the recent past will definitely continue over the next decade. By reducing e-waste, conserving valuable resources, and making advanced technology accessible to a broader demographic, these markets are shaping a more sustainable and equitable future.

Kerry Chen

Entrepreneur Leadership Network® Contributor

CEO of ATRenew, Inc.

Kerry is the CEO of ATRenew, the leading pre-owned consumer electronics transactions and services platform. ATRenew is on a mission to give a second life to all idle goods by facilitating recycling and trade-in services, and distributing the devices to prolong their lifecycle.

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Plastic labeling needs 'sustainability scale,' says new report

Labeling of plastic products needs a drastic overhaul, including a new "sustainability scale" to help consumers, researchers say.

Plastic pollution is a growing global problem, with an increasingly complex mix of plastics found everywhere from the Arctic to Mount Everest.

Simplistic, unhelpful labeling and low recycling rates even in the best-equipped countries are major barriers to tackling this issue.

In a new paper, experts from the University of Exeter and the University of Queensland suggest a new internationally applicable labeling system that moves focus from recyclability to sustainability, is specific to the country and region of purchase, and informs the public about plastic additive content.

"We need to empower consumers to make more sustainable choices," said first author Stephen Burrows.

"Instead of 'yes-no' recycling labels, which are often misleading, a 'sustainability scale' could take account of recyclability but also other factors such as the environmental cost of production and potential human health risks from additives.

"Requiring packaging to carry region-specific directions for disposal would shift responsibility away from consumers and towards regulators and plastic producers.

"This is vital because the mix of plastic products is so complex and confusing, industry must be responsible for clear, accurate and accessible instructions on how best to dispose of plastic items.

"The same is true for the chemical additives found in many plastics. These chemicals are added to plastics to give them certain properties such as color, flexibility and fire resistance.

"Requiring producers to list all additives would be a major step towards informing the public and helping them make decisions regarding environmental impact and human health."

The researchers stress that their recommendations should not detract from the urgent need to use less plastic—especially single-use items.

At present, about 368 million tons of plastic is produced worldwide each year.

Estimates of recycling rates vary dramatically. For example, Germany recycles 62% of its plastic waste—well above the European average of 30%.

Meanwhile, China recycles an estimated 25%, while the figure in the USA is just 8%.

Professor Tamara Galloway, from the University of Exeter, said, "Our recommendations for a sustainability scale are designed to reduce some of the confusion around plastic disposal.

"The ultimate aim is to protect the environment and human health from the harmful effects of plastic waste."

Professor Kevin Thomas, from The University of Queensland's Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences and Minderoo Centre for Plastics and Human Health, said, "We hope that our recommendations initiate a reassessment of plastics labeling and that implementation of a sustainability scale will allow individuals to make informed decisions in how they use plastics.

"This is just one small necessary step towards helping people help the environment."

Coffee cup conundrum

Speaking about consumer confusion, Burrows gave the example of PLA (polylactic acid) bioplastic single-use coffee cups.

Many such cups are now labeled as recyclable and compostable—but these are separate processes.

Depending on the composition of the cup, it might be recyclable, but it depends on whether local facilities are equipped to process PLA. So it may not be suitable for your recycling bin.

It might also be compostable—although many such cups can only be broken down in an industrial composter (not in a garden compost heap). So if thrown in general waste, it will end up as more in landfill.

"If someone uses one of these cups then sees a green recycling bin and a 'general waste' bin, where should they put it?" said Burrows.

"Most people don't know, and in fact the answer may depend on several factors not usually indicated.

"Our suggestions for a new system based around a scale are designed to tackle this confusion."

The research team included the University of Bath.

Explore further

Plastic recycling shouldn't be an end in itself

More information: Stephen D. Burrows et al, The message on the bottle: Rethinking plastic labelling to better encourage sustainable use, Environmental Science & Policy (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.envsci.2022.02.015
Citation: Plastic labeling needs 'sustainability scale,' says new report (2022, February 28) retrieved 28 February 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-02-plastic-sustainability-scale.html
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**Ireland**’s national farm plastics recycling scheme charges farmers a fee for fertilizer bag collection, doubling recycling volumes over five years and supporting national targets .

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Content: Irish farmers are increasingly recycling their fertiliser bags, with the volume recycled doubling over the last five years to the current level of 1,000t per year.

Fertiliser bags were collected at over 200 bring centres in 2022, operated by Farm Plastics Recycling CLG, a sister company of the Irish Farm Films Producers Group (IFFPG), the national farm plastics recycling scheme. Farmers were charged at a rate of €10 for each half-tonne-sized bag filled with fertiliser bag waste delivered to bring-centres, with almost 20,000 bags of waste collected.

The present level of recycling is in line with the current national plastics packaging recycling rate of 34%

The volume of fertiliser bag recycling has more than doubled in the last five years, with an estimated 30-35% recycling rate currently being achieved for this waste stream. The present level of recycling is in line with the current national plastics packaging recycling rate of 34%.

Recent progress can be attributed to a number of factors. They include the relative convenience (the average farmer is six miles from a local bring-centre), cost effectiveness of the bring-centre service, as well as growing environmental awareness among farmers. In addition, Repak, which is the national packaging recycling scheme, is making more funding available for plastic packaging recycling to ensure that a challenging 50% recycling target is met by 2025.

Fertiliser suppliers in Ireland currently meet their obligations through Repak membership. This involves paying fees to Repak for every tonne of packaging placed on the Irish market.

In turn, Repak uses this funding to stimulate recycling by subsidising the collection and recycling of plastic packaging. In the case of fertiliser bag recycling, additional Repak funding has been largely used to further increase awareness of the service among farmers.

Repak, which is the national packaging recycling scheme, is making more funding available for plastic packaging recycling

Key to the success of fertiliser bag recycling is the correct presentation of fertiliser bag plastics at bring-centres. This involves farmers having to segregate the different plastic types into different bags.

As bulk fertiliser bags are comprised of two different plastic types, the outer part of the bag (polypropylene) must be separated from the inside line (polyethylene) before presentation at bring centres.

The small fertiliser bags, which are made of the same plastic as the liners of the bulk fertiliser bags, can be presented mixed together at bring centres.

IFFPG manager Liam Moloney said: “Feedback from recyclers confirms that the quality of presentation of fertiliser bag at bring centres is improving year-on-year and critical to the recycling success of this waste stream.”

All fertiliser bags collected are sent for recycling into a range of new products, including bags, crates and car parts.

In the case of one Irish recycler, IFF Plastics, which is located in west Clare, fertiliser bags are recycled into fence posts, which are sold back to Irish farmers in an excellent example of the circular economy at work.

Feedback from recyclers confirms that the quality of presentation of fertiliser bag at bring centres is improving year-on-year

IFFPG had another exceptionally successful year in 2022 across the range of farm plastic wastes that the scheme manages.

In the case of silage wrap and sheeting waste, which accounts for over 95% of all collections, almost 37,000t of waste was recycled and an 88% recycling rate was achieved (equivalent to plastic from 18m bales), while over 1,100t of netting and twine waste was also collected for recovery.

For further information visit www.farmplastics.ie or telephone 01-408 9966.

Health and safety

Big bags

The following guidelines should be adhered to when handling big bags of fertiliser:

  • 1 Beware of overhead wires, power cables and other hazards.
  • 2 Never load, unload or handle big bags on a slope. Always choose a flat piece of ground.
  • 3 No one should stand beneath or close to the load when it is being lifted, moved or emptied.
  • 4 Before lifting, check that lifting loops are not worn or cut. Forks or hooks being used should be smooth.
  • 5 Never allow the loop of the bag to slide along the fork that is lifting it. Keep the fork level at all times.
  • 6 Big bags should never be pulled along the ground or dragged sideways.
  • 7 Once lifted, complete the task and do not leave the load hanging in the air.
  • 8 Big bags should not be allowed to swing against handling equipment.
  • 9 When cutting the big bag, never stand underneath the bag.
  • 10 Never cut the underneath of the bag.
  • 11 When emptying, suspend the bag over the spreader and cut an X on the side of the bag, 15cm above the base, with a long-handled knife. Particular care should be taken here.
  • 12 You can partly empty the bag into the spreader by cutting at the appropriate level to let out the required amount of fertiliser.
  • Small bags

  • 1 All bags should be lifted by a minimum of two people.
  • 2 To minimise lifting, lift off a trailer at waist height or by drawing along a trailer to the spreader.
  • 3 When lifting the bag, adopt a shoulder-wide boxer stance with your feet firmly on the ground, grip firmly, bend your knees, keep your back straight and lift with your thigh muscles.
  • 4 Always keep the bag close to your body and grip it firmly.
  • 5 Face in the direction of the spreader and never twist your spine by having your back to the spreader.
  • 6 Always have your feet turned in the direction of movement.
  • 7 Put the bag down first, then adjust its position.
  • 8 Training should be undertaken and alternatives should be considered to minimise lifting.

Local governments conduct household waste management surveys to gather community input and improve strategies .

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Will 2025 plastic packaging commitments ring hollow?

[GreenBiz publishes a range of perspectives on the transition to a clean economy. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the position of GreenBiz.]

In 2018, hundreds of companies joined the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) Global Commitment to tackle plastic pollution. Many major companies — representing 20 percent of all plastic production globally — were part of this cohort, voluntarily pledging to accomplish the following by 2025:

  1. Ensure 100 percent of plastic packaging is reusable, recyclable or compostable
  2. Increase the share of post-consumer recycled content across all plastic packaging used
  3. Decrease the use of virgin plastic in packaging
  4. Take action to move from single-use towards reuse models where relevant
  5. Eliminate problematic or unnecessary plastic packaging

For all but the first goal, signatories set their own progress metrics. Coca-Cola pledged 25 percent post-consumer recycled content (PCR) in its packaging, Nestlé a 33 percent reduction in virgin plastic use, and on and on.

If this sounded too good to be true to you at the time, you were right.

Back in 2021, Gartner predicted that 90 percent of these commitments wouldn’t be met by 2025. And in its 2022 Progress Report, EMF confirmed that fear: In almost all areas, most commitments won’t be met, and the target of achieving 100 percent reusable, recyclable or compostable packaging will “almost certainly” not be met. In fact, there’s actually been an overall increase in the use of virgin plastic — back to 2018 levels.

Economic downturn and empty promises

We first have to step back and acknowledge economic conditions. The Global Commitment pledges were made at a time when the economy was roaring and the supply chain was humming. The COVID-19 pandemic was nowhere on the radar. There was no war in Ukraine. With years until their pledges came due, organizations felt they had time. Time they needed for multi-stakeholder dialogues, such as the U.S. Plastics Pact, to actually lead to tangible improvements in the systems for producing, using, recovering and processing plastics.

We also can’t ignore the fact that it’s easy to make commitments. There’s no expectation of immediate action or results. And, by the time the due date for the commitment arrives, the person who made it may not even be in their role anymore. Commitments can be used as a cover or tactic to buy time, and the PR benefit of making a commitment always seems to outweigh the negative attention from failing it — especially when a company is just one of many that failed.

I’m not insinuating that empty commitments were the status quo for the Global Commitment. In fact, many — maybe even most — signatories did make some progress against at least one key metric.

Offering a few highlights from the 2022 Progress Report, several major fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies — Keurig Dr Pepper, L’Oréal, SC Johnson and Unilever — have increased PCR use in their packaging portfolio by 10 percent or more. Some companies have gone above and beyond their plastic packaging reduction goals, such as clothing brand H&M, which has achieved a 34.4 percent reduction over its goal of 25 percent by 2025. Looking to reuse, a space in which few signatories have shown much progress at all, L’Occitane has increased its percentage of reusable plastic packaging to 16.3 percent.

Pledges only go so far

We can honor these steps in the right direction while still recognizing that we need leaps and bounds. Even for the positive examples I just mentioned, you might say, “Too little, too late.” Or rightfully question whether some signatories intentionally set achievable goals when they could be pushing themselves to go further.

What’s standing in the way of faster and more meaningful progress when it comes to plastics?

  • The economics of recycling: Most kinds of plastics aren’t broadly recyclable, not because they can’t be recycled, but because the economics don’t line up. It costs more to recycle them than to landfill them. The only solution is major money flow. But even great tools such as extended producer responsibility (EPR) or deposit return systems (DRS) don’t bring about enough money flow to ensure that everything collected gets recycled. Take a look at Germany, one of the first countries to set up EPR (back in the 1990s). Of the items collected in yellow bins there, like plastic packaging, less than half is actually recycled, with most being incinerated (44.1 percent in 2014). EPR is still an important tool, but it needs to create enough money flow to make hard-to-recycle items profitable to recycle. That means taxing companies more, which isn’t an easy sell (especially during an economic downturn). Now, the good news is, when a profitable economic equation is present, infrastructure will magically appear (no need to subsidize it). In other words, it’s not “build it, and they will come” but “set it up for success, and it will be built.”
  • Convenience and profit as motivators: While recycling is an important part of the circular economy, it’s only part of the answer to the waste crisis. What should really be the main focus is reducing and reusing (addressed in Global Commitment targets five and four, respectively). Why hasn’t there been more momentum here? It comes down to convenience and profit. Consumers are used to the convenience and low prices of the disposable products available today. Companies want to maximize profits. The result is that they choose the cheapest packaging options available, typically highly disposable and hard to recycle.
  • No unified and comprehensive legislation: As EMF says in its progress report, voluntary corporate pledges aren’t enough. Comprehensive and unified government action is needed to accelerate progress toward a circular economy for plastics. For sustainability to be a true commercial priority for corporations, legislation must incentivize sustainable choices and de-incentivize unsustainable ones. Governments around the world have begun stepping up, enacting recycling claim standards, packaging bans and EPR laws. Progress is slow, but it’s gaining momentum.

What’s next?

Because of the looming recession, expect to see companies further deprioritizing sustainability investments this year. But they’re already thinking ahead about damage control, planning consumer-facing sustainability programs for 2024 and 2025 that will distract from larger unmet commitments.

In 2025, there will be media and consumer outrage around all these failed commitments. While we can recognize economic pressures and other barriers, as well as the progress that has been made (however small), we should hold companies accountable. And we must also use that moment to call for legislation that actually holds them legally accountable.

Ultimately, we need to move away from plastic entirely. The true solution is to stop it at the source. We all need to vote for a better future by buying less.

Source: GreenBiz

**Community engagement** is a common thread in successful systems.

**Community engagement** is a common thread in successful systems.

South Africa’s Mpact Recycling rewards schools for collecting recyclables, fostering youth involvement and environmental stewardship .

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After the deluge comes the garbage.

German and Belgian authorities are struggling to clear mountains of waste — washing machines, smashed furniture, paper, cars, plastics, chemicals, sewage and building debris — washed up by this month's catastrophic floods. The tsunami of trash is so vast that the main priority is getting rid of the stuff before it poses a risk to human health and not recycling and reusing it as called for by EU guidelines.

Only “a small quantity” of post-flood trash in the Belgian city of Liège is being sent to recycling facilities, said Jean-Jacques De Paoli, spokesperson for the local waste management association Intradel.

“We sort what we can and when we can,” De Paoli said. The cleanup managed to set aside metals, electric and electronic waste — like fridges and washing machines — some construction waste and biowaste like trees. But most of the waste is going “either to our landfill or our incinerator.”

The flood created a mishmash of garbage that's essentially impossible to segregate.

“The main issue is the heterogenous mixture of waste,” said Patrick Hasenkamp, vice president of the German Association of Local Public Utilities (VKU) and head of the waste management services of the city of Münster. The waste is not only soaked or mixed with sludge, but also contaminated with feces or chemicals. That makes sorting extremely difficult. “We can only separate rough aggregates, such as building rubble … or electric equipment.”

Due to contamination, reuse and recycling is almost always ruled out — a large part of the bulky waste has to be incinerated, said the Federal Association of the German Waste, Water and Raw Materials Management Industry (BDE).

That's going to be an issue because German incinerators already operate at over 95 percent of capacity, said Hasenkamp.

“To incinerate all the waste, we would technically need an additional waste incineration plant,” he said, adding: “The disposal may even take a number of years.”

The quantities are vast.

Germany has to sort through and dispose of “unimaginable additional amounts of waste” caused by the floods, Hasenkamp said. The full scale will only be clear once the job is done. The BDE estimates that the floods created hundreds of thousands of tons of bulky waste.

In Belgium, it is estimated that the floods generated about 1.5 million tons of waste in just a few days. That’s the equivalent of three-quarters of the average annual volume of waste generated by households in Wallonia.

“About 2,000 tons of waste were generated in 24 hours” in the region of Liège, De Paoli said. There was so much additional garbage that authorities had to dump it on an unused highway and at an old industrial site.

The floods also wreaked havoc on cars. “We estimate that between 40,000 and 50,000 vehicles are now out of use” because of the flooding in Belgium, said Cédric Slegers of Comet, a Belgian company that collects and recycles end-of-life vehicles, small electronic appliances, as well as metals and tires.

Now that the floods have abated, the key is to get rid of the debris as quickly as possible.

“There is a public health risk for the population” if waste containing hazardous substances is not removed rapidly and “a risk of polluting the environment,” said Slegers. “Therefore, the priority for us is collection.”

Leaked substances also risk polluting water supplies. Bonn's public utility company, which is also responsible for the water supply in affected areas, recommended people to boil any water before use, as it “cannot guarantee that it hasn’t been contaminated.”

Didier Hellin, director general of the public water utility in the Belgian province of Namur, said some water treatment plants had to be shut down because of the flooding.

“Floods carry sludge, which damages wastewater treatment plants,” he said, noting that a number of plants will have to be repaired which could take some time. If the water is not properly treated, “there is a risk of harming the aquatic environment,” especially as we’re facing a “significant oil pollution” from things like broken oil heaters.

However, the scale of pollution is mitigated by the vast quantities of water. “The pollution is very diluted so the impact can be limited,” Hellin said.

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More from ... Antonia Zimmermann and Louise Guillot

Zimbabwe’s training programs empower communities to view recycling as a business opportunity, promoting economic development and sustainability .

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Content:
Driving Sustainability: Trends And Technologies In The Waste Collection Vehicle Market

(MENAFN- EIN Presswire)

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Waste Collection Vehicle Market Size, Share Report by Loader Type, Vehicle Propulsion: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2022-2032

NEW CASTLE, DELAWARE, UNITED STATES, January 29, 2024 /EINPresswire / -- Waste collection vehicle, also known as garbage collection vehicle, dustbin lorry, bin van, bin lorry, trash truck, is used to collect garbage from various places in the city and dump/transport it to a landfill or a waste management center. This vehicle may differ in size and design country to country, as this is available with separate covered compartments for dry and wet garbage. Some of these vehicles are equipped with hydraulic systems for lifting and dumping the trash in the landfill or at the garbage collection center.

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Increasing amount of waste driven by increasing population and urbanization, growing focus towards effective waste management are some factors expected to drive the global waste collection vehicle market during the forecast period. According to The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, India, per capita waste generation ranges between 0.2 Kg to 0.6 Kg per day in cities with population ranging from 1.0 lakh to 50 lakh. Furthermore, the integrated solid waste management system is also used on a large scale globally. It is basically defined as a strategic method for management of solid wastes, that covers all sources and aspects, covers generation, separation, transfer, sorting, treatment, recovery, and dumping in a prescribed manner.

In addition, the government initiatives towards clean environment are also propelling the demand for waste collection vehicles globally. For instance, EU countries have decided to recycle at least 55% of its municipal waste by 2025, 60% by 2030, and 65% by 2035. These countries also decided to manage the landfill issues by reducing it to 10% or less by 2035. However, slow and no adoption in underdeveloped countries and high capital investment is expected to hinder the market growth during the forecast period.

Automation in Vehicle Design
With the increasing demand for waste collection and management, the vehicle manufacturers are investing in new-age technologies such as vehicle tracking, IoT, radio-frequency identification to ease the waste collection process. Technoton, European advanced machinery telematics provider, offers garbage truck monitoring system that monitors the garbage level in the vehicle and track locations for garbage loading and unloading. It also helps to control unauthorized dumping of garbage.

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Segment Overview
By loader type: The waste collection vehicle market is categorized by loader type; front loaders, rear loaders, automated side loaders, and others. Front loader vehicles are equipped with hydraulic forks on the front to lift up the garbage bin by using slots on the sides. Rear loaders can be used for any kind of collection whether it is garbage, soil and others. The automated side loaders are mainly used for residential routes. An automated arm is controlled by driver from inside the truck. The arm grabs the trash and dumps it in the truck.
By technology: The waste collection vehicle market is segmented by technology; manual and automated.
By vehicle type: The waste collection vehicle market is divided by vehicle type; light duty vehicles, medium duty vehicles, and heavy duty vehicles. The demand for medium duty vehicles is growing constantly due to increased usage of trucks for delivery, pick-up, small dump, and lighter garbage collection applications. These trucks are gaining momentum due to their short turning radius of around 10-15 meter and greater visibility.
By vehicle propulsion: The waste collection vehicle market is categorized by vehicle propulsion; internal combustion engine (ICE) and electric. ICE vehicles are equipped with heat engines. It sometimes also known as gas powered vehicles. Electric vehicles are either partially or fully powered on electric power.
By end-use: The waste collection vehicle market is categorized by; municipal, industrial, and others.

Regional Overview
Asia-Pacific has a considerable market share in waste collection vehicle market, due to increasing population and urbanization. According to World Bank, East AsiaPacific is expected to generate 602 million tons of waste per year by 2030, followed by South Asia with 466 million tons waste per year. However, Middle East and Africa is expected to be the fastest growing region in terms of waste generation due to increasing industrialization and tourist's footprint. Thus, the industry players are striving to expand their business in these markets to capture large pie of the market. For instance, in 2021, Terberg RosRoca Vehicle Manufacturing Company inaugurated a modern manufacturing facility in Dubai industrial city. It is aimed at providing products and services in UAE along with support operations in adjacent GCC countries.

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Competitive Analysis
Competitive analysis and profiles of the major players in the waste collection vehicle market such as AMA S.P.A., EcoZeta S.R.L., EnviornmentalSolutionsGroup, Fratelli Mazzocchia S.P.A., and others.

Companies are focusing on merger & acquisitions and establishment of new manufacturing facilities to expand their market reach. For instance, in April 2022, Heil Environmental acquired Canada-based Boivin Evolution Inc., which specializes in designing and manufacturing all types of all-electric refuse collection bodies, to enter the fully electric automated side loader market.

Key Market Players
.FAUN Umwelttechnik GmbH & Co. KG
.Bridgeport Manufacturing
.Curbtender Sweepers, LLC
.Heil Environmental
.Ceec Trucks Industry Co. Limited
.IVECO S.p.A
.Haul-All Equipment Ltd.
.Geesink B.V.
.Terberg RosRoca Vehicle Manufacturing LLC
.EZ Pack

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In India, grassroots initiatives like One Step Greener and Recykal’s Samudra Manthan campaign mobilize communities for waste sorting and recycling, diverting significant waste from landfills and providing dignified jobs .

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Content: AI and robotics are transforming recycling with EPR laws

JD Ambati, founder and CEO of EverestLabs and RecycleOS, explains how AI and robotics are transforming recycling under Extended Producer Responsibility law

JD Ambati is the founder and CEO of EverestLabs and RecycleOS, the first AI-enabled operating system for material recovery facilities (MRFs). The companies offer highly flexible and easy-to-install AI and robotics solutions to automate material sorting within facilities, thus increasing recycling rates and contributing to a circular economy

Through their data-driven approach, MRFs gain enhanced visibility into their daily operations, which proves crucial as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policies impose more stringent recovery and audit requirements worldwide.

We sat down with Ambati to find out more.

What is the intent of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) laws?

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is an emerging legislation that places responsibility on the producers for the end-of-life of packaging. What this means is a packaging producer of say plastic water bottles will be held both financially and operationally responsible for the recovery and recycling of the product (plastic water bottle). Packaging producers will now have to provide the capital and services (collecting, sorting, reusing) necessary to assist and manage their products from creation all the way through the end of their life after it is discarded.

Eleven US states have introduced legislation on EPR for packaging in 2023. More extensive EPR programmes are expected to go into effect over the next 12 months. This will completely change the economics of recycling and the role packaging producers and recyclers play in enabling a more sustainable future.

How is the municipal process and the economics of recycling going to shift under EPR laws?

Currently, recycling programmes are funded by local municipalities and consumers with some mandated requirements for baseline recovery rates. Under EPR-based schemes, producers will fund recycling programmes typically through an industry-appointed non-profit called a PRO (producer responsibility organisation). EPR legislation also imposes higher standards for recovery rates and the use of recycled content.

By putting the responsibility on producers, it creates an incentive to make packaging more recyclable, increasing the demand for recycled commodities, which will create a truly circular economy compared to one propped up by municipal programmes.

Europe and Canada have been early drivers of EPR and have experienced impressive results. The U.S. can expect to experience a similar shift with the implementation of EPR across more states.

ERP Chart

Do you believe putting the responsibility on the producer is appropriate? Or do you believe there is a better approach to get producers and recyclers to actively participate in the creation of a circular economy?

Yes, EPR is one of the most effective ways to spearhead the creation of a circular economy. By putting the onus on the producers of waste, the EPR-led model for recycling will have a very positive outcome on recycling programmes and recycling rates going forward.

Currently, the burden of responsibility to recycle is on the consumer and the recycling/reprocessing companies who do not control the supply. Packaging is hard to collect, harder to recover, and even harder to reprocess back into raw material. Producers actually do have the ability to control these things which they will do more effectively if they are responsible for the entire life cycle.

Do you think producers and recyclers today are ready for the EPR laws to take effect? What kind of implications should producers and recyclers prepare for under this new model?

Some packaging producers and recyclers have taken positive steps forward in preparing for new legislation. Others, however, need to be more proactive in preparing for the changes to come.

Packaging and CPG companies must prepare for more scrutiny on the use of recycled material and the recyclability of their packaging. They must prepare for greater visibility into the lifecycle of their packaging, and greater emphasis on what exactly is being recycled. This will lead to higher quality and volumes of recovered materials to be reprocessed into feedstock, and producers will be incentivised to make packaging more reusable, recoverable, and recyclable, leading to wider availability of recycled material supply.

Other implications for recycling companies and MRFs specifically include greater scrutiny of sorting operations, increased audits of incoming and outgoing materials, higher performance and quality standards on existing sorting processes, and the sorting and processing of new types of packaging or materials that will be produced and prioritised following a full roll-out of these new laws aimed at sustainability.

What solutions should they implement now to accommodate the increased audits and visibility into their processes in 12 months' time?

Packaging producers and recycling companies need to modernise their operation processes to be able to easily accommodate the greater visibility and adaptability that will be required under EPR laws. If not, they may run the risk of some fines and/or a lacklustre reputation in the industry. Artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and other technologies are available today to help meet new standards.

AI solutions can be deployed throughout a recycling facility to identify and capture more granular data on what materials are coming in, being recovered, and being sent to landfill. EverestLabs’ AI infrastructure, for example, is designed to adapt to new material and packaging types subject to EPR programmes within days to weeks of observing the new object type. This enables our AI to distribute the knowledge of that object to all other facilities once it becomes aware so that different facilities can learn from one another and make a larger impact. This data can serve as the basis for EPR-driven audits in a continuous fashion with visibility for all stakeholders including recyclers, producers and non-profit or government agencies. This same data can also be used to improve recycling operations that target specific packaging.

Robotic solutions can immediately improve the recovery of a recyclable object from existing sorting facilities without huge retrofits or new builds. This presents MRFs with an opportunity to meet the higher standards that they will encounter. Robots can be placed in existing conveyors and sorting stations to augment the current sorting processes to deliver higher recovery rates. Additionally, AI-driven robotics is the only solution today that can evolve with improved packaging designs and recovery processes.

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Other magazines that may be of interest - EV Magazine | Energy Digital

Please also check out our upcoming event - Sustainability LIVE in London at the BDC on Sept 6/7th 2023

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Remaining soft plastics recycling facilities inundated after REDcycle collapse as councils pick up the slack

Australia's remaining soft plastics recycling services are struggling to meet a huge surge in demand following last year's collapse of the scheme run inside Coles and Woolworths.
It's prompted extreme measures to limit how much waste the facilities receive, with one council-run service now checking recyclers' driver's licences before they can drop off their plastics.
It comes after the nation's largest soft plastics recycler, REDcycle, which collected soft plastics from Woolworths and Coles stores around Australia, was forced to halt collections last November when huge stockpiles of soft plastics were discovered in its warehouses.
On Friday, Coles and Woolworths struck a deal with the NSW EPA to clean up thousands of tonnes of the material in an attempt to avoid it being consigned to landfill, but the future of soft plastic recycling by the supermarket giants remains unclear.
Environmentally conscious shoppers have been scrambling to find an alternative destination for their plastic waste since REDcycle's collapse.
In Sydney's north, the Thornleigh Community Recycling Centre saw the amount of soft plastic it was accepting more than double in a matter of weeks, as people reported travelling from all over the North Shore to use the free service.
Operated by Hornsby Council, the recycling centre has been collecting an array of hard-to-recycle goods without restrictions for more than three years, but has now restricted soft plastic recycling to residents only.
Workers at the centre are checking users' driver's licences or rates notices.
The volume of soft plastics residents can drop off has also been restricted to one 40cm by 40cm shopping bag per week.
Despite the new restrictions, Hornsby Council estimates it will accept around 50 to 80 tonnes of soft plastic material in the next 12 months.
"We are delighted that so many people want to care for the environment by seeking opportunities to recycle soft plastics," a Hornsby Council spokesperson told 9news.com.au.
"However, there is currently significantly more soft plastic waste being generated than the processing and manufacturing capacity of the small numbers of factories in Australia that recycle it."
With supermarkets no longer an option, many more councils are starting up similar programs.
In Melbourne, Monash Council began accepting soft plastic waste from its residents last December in direct response to REDcycle's collapse.
These are recycled by Melbourne-based company APR Plastics, which converts them into fencing, boardwalks and other outdoor furniture.
In Sydney's eastern suburbs, the Randwick Recycling Centre in Matraville is now accepting soft plastics again after being forced to halt operations with REDcycle's collapse.
Within a few days of launching on February 10, almost 100 residents had made use of the service.
"Randwick had been looking at soft plastics recycling ahead of (REDcycle's) collapse, but once that happened there was an overwhelming desire from our community," mayor Dylan Parker told 9news.com.au.
"Even my landlord was chewing my ear off saying, 'what are you doing about it?'.
"We can't just leave the community in the lurch."
The mayor says he's reasonably confident their partnership with recycling firm Plasmar can accommodate local demand within their council, but it remains a small-scale stop-gap measure.
He is pushing for a national and state government approach to the problem.
It's a view that's shared by Eugenie Alonzo, who heads up Recycle Smart - an organisation that does home pick-ups of soft plastics as well as other items like old clothes and e-waste.
"Amongst all the items we collect, soft plastics are the one thing that crystalises everything," she said.
"It is the one thing that keeps on showing up because it is really hard to get rid of in your household."
Recycle Smart pick-ups are currently available in 16 councils across NSW and South Australia, with the soft plastics then sent off to APR Plastics in Victoria.
Alonzo says Recycle Smart is all about making recycling as easy as possible for Australians, but remains a small operation, with plans to ramp up operations to collect around 15 tonnes each month.
Their partner, APR Plastics, can currently process around a tonne of soft plastics per day.
By contrast, there are currently 5200 tonnes of soft plastics collected by REDcycle sitting in warehouses in New South Wales alone, with similar stockpiles in other states.
This means it would take an operation the size of APR Plastics 14 years to process the current NSW stockpile, assuming they worked 365 days a year and no other new waste came in.
"The reality is that state and federal governments are going to need to come up with a national solution working alongside major supermarkets in order to take soft plastics out of supply chains," Parker said.
"This is bigger than any one council or community."
But for now, it will be up to Coles and Woolworths to find a destination for the warehouses full of floor-to-ceiling plastic.
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Content: EU tags copper and nickel as strategic, but industry wants more

By Eric Onstad

LONDON, March 16 (Reuters) - The European metals sector welcomed a move by the EU on Thursday to include copper and nickel as strategic materials for the first time and ensure speedier permits and easier access to capital, but said more could be done to secure supplies.

The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) unveiled by the European Union adds the two major industrial metals to a list that had previously focused on more niche minerals such as cobalt, lithium and rare earths.

Copper is used in renewable energy systems and for wiring in electric vehicles (EVs) while nickel is a major component in many EV batteries.

Mining and metals companies, including Sweden's Boliden , cheered EU plans in the CRMA to provide streamlined permits and access to financing for projects pegged as strategic.

However, to ensure a supply of materials needed for the green transition, other industrial metals such as aluminium should be included while fair competition with China also needs to be addressed, industry groups and firms said.

The VDM Association of German Metal Traders and Recyclers was among those pushing for aluminium and zinc to be included.

"These areas of the metal industry also need fast approval procedures and, above all, competitive energy prices," the group said in a statement.

The EU already produces about 15% of its needs for copper, well above the overall 10% target set by the EU for strategic minerals, but the situation could deteriorate, the CEO of Aurubis, Europe's biggest refined copper producer, said.

"Every mine gets depleted therefore it is time to act now to ensure that new mining projects, which will take years to develop, are being approved in time," Roland Harings told Reuters in an interview.

Harings also said the EU must ensure fair competition with China and other countries so the metals recycling industry can thrive.

"We have absolutely no problem in being in competition if there's a level playing field. If everybody has to respect minimum environmental, labour and other standards."

Aurubis sees recycling as a huge growth area with new plants being built and has the intention in the longer term to also move into recycling of electric vehicle batteries. (Additional reporting by Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels;Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

EU tags copper and nickel as strategic, but industry...

Title:

Content: Nickel-and-diming your trash

New York has collected a nickel tax on bottles since 1982, while Virginia now “taxes” bags at a nickel apiece.  Where does that money go: averting climate chaos or patching local budgets?  And is there a better way?

On September 28, a U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee held a hearing on the implications of waste from bottled beverages.  It got me thinking.

It’s been 40 years since New York State enacted its bottle deposit law.  I was in New York in graduate school at the time, and then-governor Mario Cuomo hawked it as an environmental cleanup measure.

New Yorkers have spent forty years schlepping bottles back-and-forth to the store. I’d like to know some things:

  • How many people buy bottles and don’t bring them back to the store?
  • Have we ever done a demographic study of the non-returners to find out if they’re primarily poorer folks who don’t want to lug empty bottles around all day till they get to the store versus those nasty wealthy plutocrats who can zoom up in their Porsches?
  • What happens to the money that’s paid but is never reclaimed?  What kind of windfall is that for New York, and where does that money go?

I ask because these kinds of “tax your trash” schemes seem especially to proliferate in Blue States.  Before Glenn Youngkin took over Virginia in 2021, the previously blue legislature imposed a nickel-per-plastic-bag tax on the state, again, ostensibly, in the name of the environment (that is, “climate change,” the “existential” threat to humanity).

I’d really like to know how that nickel averts climate apocalypse versus, more likely, plugging holes in the commonwealth’s budget.  I’ll admit, there are two grocery chains in the area.  One asks, at self-checkout, “how many bags did you use?”  The other asks, “how many bags would you like to buy?”

As regards the latter query, my honest answer is “none.” Of course, I must ask whether the local commonwealth attorney -- who ignores real crime in the name of “restorative justice” -- might decide to save us from environmental Armageddon by enforcing bag fees.

The one advantage of Virginia’s system is that one can at least get a bag.  Back in my much bluer native New Jersey last summer, I found I could not get a bag for love or money.  The legislature had simply outlawed them.

Consider our “service” culture.  I go to the grocery store.  I pay inflated prices.  I then am supposed to engage in self-checkout, because stores won’t hire enough cashiers.  I can’t get a bag to tote the inflated goods I bought home.  And I need to run across the parking lot with my cart to get a quarter back because the poor store can’t hire a teenage kid to make a few bucks in the afternoon collecting carts.

After considering these various tax schemes, which I suspect do more for the health of big spending states than the environment, I have to say I’m beginning to like the system I experienced in Switzerland.  When I lived there, it was simply illegal to throw bottles away.  The trashman would not collect them.  Every Swiss brought bottles back to a recycling collection point, usually right outside most stores, bins available 24/7.  They sorted them by color.  Folks usually made it a once-a-week habit.  And, perhaps most importantly, there was no deposit.  It’s simply what people, who had no other way to discard the empties, were expected to do and did without the government nickel-and-diming them while enriching itself.

Any American takers?

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Reverse vending machines in Thailand and large-scale PET recycling plants in the Philippines demonstrate the role of technology in scaling recycling operations .

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Content: OPINION

Around Town: Footing the bill for a better tomorrow

Pat Orr
For the Victorville Daily Press

The Oct. 5 Apple Valley Town Council meeting included a presentation by CalRecycle Environmental Scientist Darin Sprecher on Senate Bill 1383, which was also mentioned in the recent Burrtec newsletter.

Now, California was a pioneer in legislation to cure the planet’s ills, starting in the mid-1960s with the simple goal of cleaning up our dirty Southern California air. That evolved into smog rules, catalytic converters and clean-air standards that our state imposed on the automobile industry. Initially, we were not out to save the world, just our part of it.

Well, in 2008, California initiated its far-reaching Climate Change Strategy. The state Air Resources Board took action to begin regulating landfill emissions and set new recycling targets. Landfills, it turns out, are just as guilty as cows insofar as methane emissions are concerned.

Recycling has become the emphasis in recent years: Bans on plastic bags and straws, increased biodegradable packaging and more have been “encouraged” by California regulators. The Cap-and-Trade program proceeds have gone towards recycling “infrastructure” projects — whatever they may be.

But California has been closing its recycling facilities. China, which was our No. 1 client for recycled plastics, has demanded in recent years that the material be cleaned before it’s compacted and delivered. That is cost-prohibitive, so you may've noticed in some small jurisdictions that recycling has all but disappeared. It’s up to the trash hauler to sort everything and worry about the final cost of packaging recyclable material.

This means your trash bill will soon go up. The most important new mandate that will soon affect residents started in the business community. Before I retired from the pizza business, we were told we needed to start separating pizza waste and other organic material from boxes or packaging trash. This occurred in preparation for a new mandate based on SB 32, a 2016 law that set an organic waste disposal target of 75% by 2025.

It's a requirement of this law that “local jurisdictions plan for the additional capacity to recycle all their organic waste.” What does that really mean? It means your city or town either must build a state-of-the-art composting and disposal facility or contract with a company who has. Burrtec Waste Industries has the largest share of the local disposal market, and they just completed a new facility to comply with the law.

That means your trash fees are going up. In addition, each authority is required to establish a program to monitor and assist, or punish, businesses that don't comply. Of course, the state legislation provides no money for your city or town to fulfill this function. So your trash fees — billed through your city, town or county — are going up to recover costs. Now that Burrtec has a facility, the law can be enforced on small, medium and large High Desert businesses.

But wait. There's more.

Another section of the organic waste regulations provides for food waste from grocers, restaurants and farms to be salvaged, if possible, for use with food kitchens, homeless facilities and nonprofits. Frankly, I am not too sure how this works in practice. Restaurants in particular are very wary of giving away food lest they be held liable for any foodborne illness after it leaves their Health Department-approved kitchen.

The final piece to this recycling plan is that the same requirement to separate organic material will be required of all California residents on Jan. 1, 2022. Get used to a third trash can, which will likely also cost us more.

The alternative is to start composting, which produces a mixture that can be used to enrich garden soil and satisfy your ego since you're doing your part to save the planet. Here in the desert, we have lots large enough to store compost away from the house to avoid the odors. But imagine a horse stall in every backyard. Composting would likely produce neighborhood discussions then.

I seriously doubt if this will aid in our illegal-dumping problem either, as our code enforcements may be too busy tracing some crate of rotten lettuce found in the trash behind 7-11 to worry about a couch on the side of the road.

CalRecycle has an entire department with regional employees to advise communities on compliance and messaging. Visit www.calrecycle.ca.gov/climate/sclp to learn more.

The Apple Valley Town Council, already in a budget crunch, didn't seem thrilled at the idea of more unfunded state mandates. Other local cities may be stronger financially, but none can afford to not pass on the costs of these climate-saving regulations to those of us who pay the final bill.

Welcome to California.

Contact Pat Orr at avreviewopinion@gmail.com.

Title:

Content:   • GENERAL NEWS

Japan Sends Water-recycling Shower Set to Turkey

A Japan Disaster Relief Team has flown a water-recycling shower set to Turkey, which was rocked by a devastating earthquake on Feb. 6.

The move leverages lessons learned following the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, when evacuees in affected areas were unable to wash properly due to temblor-damaged water supplies.

The shower equipment — which is expected to improve sanitary conditions in shelters — uses multilayered filters to remove bacteria and other impurities and can recycle 98% of the water used.

It is the first time for this type of shower set to be used in a disaster-hit overseas area.

The shower system was jointly developed by Hokuryo Co., a medical-use gas sales company based in Kitakami, Iwate Prefecture, and WOTA Corp., a startup based in Chuo Ward, Tokyo.

The shower set comprises a filter capable of converting sea water into fresh water using a small purifier that primarily utilizes activated charcoal; a tank capable of storing up to 100 liters of used water; and a tent-like shower stall.

The equipment can eliminate most bacteria and viruses, and the filtered water meets Japan’s quality criteria for use in public bathhouses.

Following the 2011 quake, disease-bearing microbes caused many evacuees to fall ill, including with the norovirus. People affected by the April 2016 Kumamoto Earthquake faced similar problems.

Hokuryo President Ken Kasai, who has taken part in relief activities in disaster-hit areas of Japan, wanted to help people facing difficult circumstances. To collaborate on the plan, Kasai solicited WOTA, which had been developing an outdoor-use water-recycling purifier system. The initial shower set was completed in 2017.

The first sets were installed in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture, which was damaged by torrential rains in July 2018, and in Nagano City, which was seriously damaged by Typhoon No. 19 in October 2019.

Following the installation of the showers, sanitary conditions in the evacuee shelters improved markedly.

According to the Japan International Cooperation Agency — secretariat of the Japan Disaster Relief Teams — a single shower set was transported to Turkey on Feb. 8 and sent to Kahramanmaras in southern Turkey, close to the earthquake’s epicenter.

“I’m very glad to see ideas and technologies born from experiences learned following earthquakes [in Japan] being utilized overseas,” said Kasai, 48. “I hope as many lives as possible — even if it’s only one — will be saved.”

The EU’s Plastics2Olefins project and T-REX textile recycling initiative exemplify investment in advanced recycling technologies and closed-loop systems .

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Japanese Inventor Built a Machine That Turns Plastic Bags into Oil

Could plastic bags fuel your car?

The plastic bag converting machine. UN University/YouTube

Let's talk numbers. On average, Americans use 100 billion plastic bags a year, which are produced with 12 million barrels of oil. When you think about the fact that one plastic bag takes 1,000 years to degrade, that's a lot of waste lying around in landfills or poured into the ocean. What's worse is that these plastic bags don't even break down completely. They get polluted by the sunlight and turn into microplastics that absorb toxins, polluting the environment.

While the stats look worrisome, there are many, and usually ingenious, ways to properly recycle plastic bags. One smart solution belongs to a Japanese inventor, Akinori Ito. Ito has created a household appliance that converts plastic bags into fuel. The resulting fuel can be used for various applications such as the generation of heat.

The future of plastic

Ito realized that since plastic bags are created from oil, they can be converted back into their original form. The crude oil produced can be used to heat generators and some stoves. It can serve as an alternative to gasoline when refined and can even be used to power cars, boats, or motorbikes.

One kilogram of plastic can produce approximately one liter of oil. The conversion process requires approximately 1 kWh of electricity, which is worth approximately 20 cents.

By converting plastic into oil, we are eliminating CO2 pollution. Although the end product is still a fuel that will give off CO2 when burnt, this recycling method could revolutionize the way waste plastics are treated. It raises awareness of the potential of plastic fuel.

The ingenious system is built for household use which has the potential to create energy independence among consumers. This, in effect, creates less of a need to extract more oil from the earth.

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How it works

The machine uses highly efficient pyrolysis which is the transformation of a compound into a smaller and simpler compound under high temperatures. It is able to process different types of plastics such as polyethylene, polystyrene, and polypropylene. However, it is unable to process PET bottles.

The process begins with the heating of the plastic. It is then fed into the pressurized oxygen-free oven. It is heated to 800°F (427° C) which turns the plastic into a liquid. The machine then transforms the liquid into a gaseous state. The gas that is produced is then trapped and stored away for cooling. The vapor condenses when it's cool and forms crude oil.

The video below shows Ito demonstrating his machine at work.

The crude oil produced by the machine is a mixture of gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and heavy oil. The machine does not produce any toxic substances when fed with the proper materials such as polyethylene, polystyrene, and polypropylene. Furthermore, the machine produces a small amount of inert char residue which can be disposed of along with regular garbage.

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Content: ENFIELD — The Town Council has voted to revise the solid waste policy, effective March 1, to limit the number of trash barrels the town will collect from each household, encourage recycling, and change yard waste collection.

According to Mayor Bob Cressotti, disposal of solid waste is a statewide and national issue. He said current market conditions are very volatile for costs associated with solid waste and recycling.

Under the revised policy, each household will have one primary gray barrel for trash that will be picked up every week. In February, public works staff will attach red tags to these barrels along trash routes.

Anyone who wants a second barrel will need to buy a tag good for one year for $85, which will be available at the Public Works offices at 140 Moody Road from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Monday to Friday.

Residents can have up to three blue barrels for recycling at no charge.

The town’s revised policy will eliminate the subscription program for unlimited yard waste barrel pick up from April to October and limit it to four barrels. The town will dispose of two free brown barrels containing yard waste weekly at no cost for participating households. These households will also be eligible to buy two additional tags for brown barrels for $45 each.

According to the ordinance revising the solid waste policy that was unanimously passed by the Town Council on Jan. 18, the volume of municipal solid waste produced in Enfield and the cost of its disposal has been increasing at a significant rate.

The rate of recycling as a percentage of total waste, however, has been declining.

The town’s pays $81.50 per ton to dispose of trash and $11.04 per ton for recyclable materials.

“This has become a crisis due to China’s Sword policy (meaning that China will no longer accept shipments that are mixed with trash, the wrong type of recyclable, or low-quality recyclables like greasy paper goods), which has limited the country’s purchase of the United States’ after-market recycling product, and compounded by the problems with trash disposal sites like what we are seeing with the Materials Innovation and Recycling Authority in Hartford,” Cressotti said in a written statement this week.

MIRA announced in September 2021 that it would close its trash-to-energy plant in June, citing financial problems and aging equipment. The trash plant has been taking in about one-quarter of the state’s garbage.

Councilwoman Cynthia Mangini supported the ordinance but said she is ideologically opposed to charging residents $85 for an additional gray barrel. It’s not the money, per se, she said, but rather the principal given that some residents have purchased additional barrels and will now have to pay for tags to use them.

Other said paying the additional $85 per year for an additional barrel is not unreasonable.

Councilman Nick Hopkins said Enfield is one of the few towns that has a municipal waste service. “I think that’s an incredible benefit,” he said. “It’s much cheaper than using a private service.”

Ken Boullete, deputy director of public works, said it will be a tight schedule for the department to reach all the barrels while they’re still on the street and tag them in order to be ready for the March 1 date. He said it might even be closer to April 1 before the revised policy is strictly enforced.

The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection adopted a comprehensive materials management strategy, which is a roadmap to achieving the state’s goal of 60% diversion of materials from disposal by 2024.

“In order to reach these goals, we need to improve the performance of municipal recycling programs and reduce waste, including increasing participation and compliance with mandatory recycling provision,” Councilwoman Marie Pyznar said.

The town will be working with local groups and organizations as well as the schools to encourage recycling and re-use in an effort to reduce the amount of trash collected. The town offers free drop off for electronics, cardboard, and textiles at the transfer station, 77 Town Farm Road.

Residents may also bring yard waste for free, up to five visits, to the transfer station. On April 30, the Public Works Department will hold a household hazardous waste collection at the facility on Moody Road.

For more coverage of Somers and Ellington, follow Susan Danseyar on Twitter: @susandanseyar, Facebook: Susan Danseyar, reporter.

Reporter

Susan covers the towns of Somers and Ellington. She joined the JI in May 2021 and graduated from Skidmore College. She recently completed docent training for the Wadsworth Atheneum and hopes to start giving tours some time next year.

**Challenges** persist even in leading countries.

**Challenges** persist even in leading countries.

Economic viability, infrastructure gaps, regulatory complexity, and consumer behavior can hinder progress.

Economic viability, infrastructure gaps, regulatory complexity, and consumer behavior can hinder progress.

For example, Germany faces issues with simplistic plastic labeling and the need for additional incineration capacity .

Title:

Content: The Coastline Runner heading to Falkirk district on his latest litter picking run

A runner who has been covering the coasts of the UK collecting rubbish as he goes is heading to Falkirk district this week.
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Environmentalist Luke Douglas-Home, known as The Coastline Runner, will be running the Forth & Clyde Canal as he kicks off his litter picking runs for 2024.

Since November 2021, Luke has been on a mission to educate and engage with communities as he runs around the country’s coastline, collecting ocean-bound rubbish and meeting local people and councils to impact and influence their schemes that prevent ocean waste.

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He’s ran more than 700km of the UK’s coastline and collected in excess of 670kg of rubbish while running.

This week he’s heading to the Falkirk area as he plans to run 50k along the Forth and Clyde Canal between The Kelpies and Clydebank in Glasgow.

Luke’s day job is running ‘A Future without Rubbish CIC’ – an environmental impact consultancy that works with schools, councils, businesses and communities on improving environmental impacts.

Luke said: “Collecting rubbish and putting it in the bin as I run is a tiny action – something we can all do, and it’s this idea of working together that has an impact. I have been constantly energised, by all the good actions that I have seen.

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"We must see waste reduction as the starting point, not recycling. There is a long way to go, but people are waking up and taking their own actions, which is wonderful to see.

"If people see what I’m doing then realise they can do it too, it’s making an impact.

"I say to everyone who litters – Pack it in! Put it in the bin! and that would stop the need for me running coasts collecting plastic pollution.”

Related topics:

Title:

Content: Recycling app that pays to use comes to Lancashire

A new recycling app aimed at fighting the plastic pandemic has launched in Lancashire this week.

Swedish app Bower, which has launched all over the UK, will financially reward people whenever they recycle every day items.

Co-founded in 2015 by brother and sister team Suwar Mert (CEO) and Berfin Roza Mert (COO), the free-to-use app rewards users with money and coupons, or enables them to donate to charitable causes, such as The Hunger Project and the National Heart and Lung Foundation, whenever they recycle everyday waste items.

It has come to Lancashire with the hope of ingraining recycling into community behaviour.

Suwar said: “We are really excited by this next chapter in the story of Bower. The Bower community of recyclers are a brilliant example of how we can all do our part and how recycling can benefit the planet and people simultaneously. Our vision, our goal, is to never say trash to anything again.”

With over half of UK households throwing recyclable items into general waste bins, Bower works with the likes of Nestlé, L’Oréal and Unilever to encourage more people across the UK to recycle to help them reach their sustainability goals.

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Companies using Bower can follow their products’ life cycles through the app’s data, and understand consumer behaviour in terms of item types, and recycling times and locations.

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This insight, alongside access to an extensive app userbase, allows companies large and small to improve their environmental efforts and make sure more items are recycled.

Bower’s 380,000 users in the Nordic region recycle more than two million packages every month, and the platform has helped save over 1,300 tonnes (1.3 million kg) of CO2 to-date.

The app is available on both Android and iOS and allows users to register any product by scanning its barcode, and any recycling location that they take it to.

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Once an item has been recycled, rewards can be claimed in the form of points - which can be exchanged for coupons that provide users with discounts on future purchases - or redeemed as money.

Users can deposit this money directly into their bank accounts, transfer it to a friend, or give it to charity.

The Bower app also educates the public on waste and plastic pollution.

For more information CLICK HERE.

The EU identifies countries at risk of missing recycling targets, highlighting the need for continuous improvement .

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Indorama Ventures : opens the largest PET recycling plant in the Philippines in partnership with Coca-Cola

10/14/2022 | 05:53am EDT

Bangkok, Thailand - 14 October 2022 - Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (IVL), a global sustainable chemical company, announced the official opening of its PETValue bottle-to-bottle recycling plant in the Philippines, in partnership with Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines-the bottling arm of Coca-Cola in the country. The plant is IVL's latest recycled PET facility as the global integrated petrochemicals company builds on its position as the world's largest producer of recycled resin used in plastic beverage bottles.

PETValue Philippines, located in General Trias in Cavite Province south of Manila, is the country's first food-grade, bottle-to-bottle recycling facility, and the largest in the Philippines. It was built by IVL in partnership with Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines, Inc. in accord with The Coca-Cola Company's 'World Without Waste' program to collect and recycle the equivalent of every bottle it sells by 2030. As a result of the joint venture with Coca-Cola, IVL will recycle about 2 billion additional used PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottles in the Philippines every year and create about 200 new local jobs. The plant will wash and shred post-consumer bottles into flakes to produce recycled PET resin that is suitable for use in food-contact applications.

Managed under IVL's regional business lead for Recycling Vertical Mr. Anivesh Tewari, PETValue brings together an experienced leadership team led by Site Manager Mr. Joel Potian, who has nearly three decades of manufacturing and chemical engineering expertise in the Philippines and Korea. He is supported by Mr. Aris Castillo as Chief Financial Officer, formerly from Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines with more than 10 years in supply chain finance and manufacturing.

Mr. Sanjay Ahuja, Executive President of Combined PET, Indorama Ventures, said, "PETValue is an important development for IVL, for our partner Coca-Cola, and for the Philippines community. IVL, as the largest producer of recycled PET resin, is bringing our global experience and know-how to grow capacity and recycle more bottles. This, together with our partner Coca-Cola's powerful consumer footprint, represents significant potential for us, as purposeful companies, to close the loop on plastic bottle recycling and help resolve waste in the Philippines."

IVL has already surpassed the half-way milestone* towards meeting its 2025 target of increasing its recycling capacity to 750,000 tons per year. The company is investing US$1.5 billion globally to expand recycling facilities and sustainable production, including a new ambition to reach post-consumer PET bale input of 1,500,000 tons per year by 2030.

PETValue will introduce the most advanced technology and infrastructure in the Philippines, helping to improve collection and recycling rates and prevent leakage into waterways. The new plant will encourage a more robust waste value chain to help address the growing post-consumer waste management problem in the Philippines. The unique PET plastic used in soft drinks and water bottles is 100% recyclable and the most collected plastic packaging in the world. Global brands including Coca-Cola are using more recycled plastic in their bottles to close the loop and deliver a circular economy.

Mr. Yash Lohia, Chairman of ESG Council at Indorama Ventures, said, "By the end of this year we will have increased our recycling capacity to more than 375,000 tons. In 2021, we acquired a PET recycling plant in Texas and announced plans to build a new facility in Indonesia. In 2020, we signed a joint venture agreement with Coca-Cola to build a state-of-the-art recycling plant in the Philippines, which culminated in today's announcement. In the same year, we also acquired recycling plants in Brazil and two in Poland. This is to be celebrated given the challenging pandemic environment. These seven plants will join a family of existing recycling sites in Alabama, Ireland, two in France and the Netherlands."

Mr. Gareth McGeown, President and CEO of Coca-Cola Beverages Philippines, Inc., said, "Sustainability is at the heart of who we are as a company, as evidenced by more than a century of Coca-Cola treating the Philippines as its home. We are extremely proud of PETValue Philippines and our partnership with Indorama Ventures, whose global expertise in recycling technologies will prove to be an asset to the Philippines' collective goals for more sustainable practices and a truly circular economy for recyclable plastic packaging. It is through innovations like PETValue Philippines and the strong partnerships we've formed with like-minded entities like Indorama Ventures that Coca-Cola can continue serving Filipino communities for another hundred years."

* In 2021, IVL's post-consumer PET for recycling reached 317,064 tons, almost half of its goal of 750,000 tons per year by 2025.

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Indorama Ventures pcl published this content on 14 October 2022 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 14 October 2022 09:51:59 UTC.

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Australia’s experience with soft plastics and Malaysia’s struggle with imported plastic waste illustrate market and regulatory challenges .

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Content: Circular Economy : 18 EU Member States at risk of missing waste targets

Which countries are at risk of missing the 2025 targets for preparing for re-use and recycling of municipal and all packaging waste and the 2035 landfill target? The European Commission answered this question in a recently published early warning report. But first the good news. Nine Member States are on track to meet the 2025 targets: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Slovenia.

And just as a reminder, these are the targets set out in the Waste Framework Directive and the Directive on packaging and packaging waste we are talking about:

  • 55% recycling and preparing for reuse of municipal waste;
  • 65% recycling for total packaging waste;
  • and material-specific packaging waste recycling targets (75% for paper and cardboard, 70% for glass, 70% for ferrous metals packaging, 50% for aluminium, 50% for plastic and 25% for wood).

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Bad news for some countries

And now the bad news: 18 Member States are at serious risk of missing one or both of the 2025 targets.

Estonia, Finland, France, Ireland, Latvia, Portugal, Spain and Sweden are at risk of missing the municipal waste target.

Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania and Slovakia are at risk of missing both the municipal waste and the total packaging waste targets for 2025.

In addition, some countries continue to landfill most of their municipal waste and are likely to miss the 2035 landfill target. The Commission is making recommendations to these Member States, building on the ongoing financial and technical support provided to improve waste management performance. These recommendations cover a wide range of actions: reducing non-recyclable waste, increasing re-use, promoting separate collection, developing treatment capacity for sorting and recycling, improving governance, using economic instruments and raising awareness.

"Implementing waste reduction and recycling measures on the ground is key for our circular economy transition. Turning waste into resources helps us on the way to climate neutrality, increases the security of supply of energy and raw materials, and creates local jobs and innovation opportunities. The early warning report allows us, in close cooperation with the Member States, to detect shortcomings, take action ahead of the deadlines for meeting the targets, and share best practices in sound waste management," said Virginijus Sinkevičius, Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries

Waste generation on the rise

On average, Europeans generate 530 kg of municipal waste per person per year (waste from households and similar waste from businesses). Although it is increasingly recycled and less landfilled, municipal waste (MSW) is still one of the most complex waste streams to manage. In the EU, about 50% of MSW is recycled or composted and 23% is landfilled. The amount of packaging waste generated is constantly increasing. Between 2013 and 2020, the amount of packaging waste generated in the EU will increase by 15% to almost 80 million tonnes. Around 64% of packaging waste is now recycled, although this varies by material. More than 75% of paper, cardboard and metal packaging is recycled, but less than 40% of plastic packaging - a problem in most EU countries, many of which are at risk of missing the material-specific target for plastic packaging waste recycling.

The early warning report allows us, in close cooperation with the Member States, to detect shortcomings, take action ahead of the deadlines for meeting the targets, and share best practices in sound waste management.
Virginijus Sinkevičius, Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries

Significant differences between Member States

Looking at the report, one thing is clear: There are considerable differences in waste management performance across the EU. Some countries still have a long way to go to meet the targets agreed in EU legislation and further reforms are needed, in particular to ensure the treatment of biowaste, which accounts for a third of municipal waste, to ensure separate collection of waste - a prerequisite for recycling - and to improve data quality. However, most EU countries have introduced or are in the process of introducing waste reforms to improve recycling rates, some of which are expected to bear fruit in the coming years.

The results were also influenced by external factors, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which reduced or stopped separate collection in some countries. The recent rise in energy prices is also having a negative impact on recycling activities.

The early warning report builds on the Environmental Implementation Review, which had already identified problems with the implementation of EU waste legislation. In particular, almost 2000 illegal or substandard landfills are still operating in the EU, representing a significant source of pollution and greenhouse gases and a missed opportunity for the recovery of secondary raw materials.

**Urban versus rural differences** are significant.

**Urban versus rural differences** are significant.

**Urban versus rural differences** are significant.

Urban areas benefit from structured systems and infrastructure, while rural regions face challenges such as limited access and transportation barriers.

Urban areas benefit from structured systems and infrastructure, while rural regions face challenges such as limited access and transportation barriers.

Urban areas benefit from structured systems and infrastructure, while rural regions face challenges such as limited access and transportation barriers.

Innovative solutions like Alaska’s mobile recycling facilities and Zimbabwe’s community training address rural needs .

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Content: AM 890 and kbbi.org: Serving the Kenai Peninsula
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Building community with recycled synthetic lumber: A new Alaskan business is helping Homer recycle more plastic

Pulling back the brush up above the tideline during a beach clean up effort in Prince William Sound, Patrick Simpson was astounded to see a kaleidoscope of shredded plastic. Growing up in Cordova, and the son of a fisherman, beach debris wasn’t new to Simpson, but seeing this tangle of tiny plastic pieces felt different.

“It’s going to sit there forever, and I don’t know what the long term effects of that are,” he recalled thinking.

As an engineer and entrepreneur, Simpson decided he wanted to find a way to help, launching a new business called Alaska Plastic Recovery.

It’s hard to avoid plastic — from food packaging to electronics, it’s everywhere. Recent research finds that as it degrades, the material breaks into tiny fragments called microplastics, which have been found in salmon and mussels, potentially harming human health. But disposing of plastics is complicated, especially in Alaska, since most of the state’s recycling needs to be transported to the Lower 48 to be processed, after which it’s often shipped abroad.

With the pollution he’d witnessed as motivation, Simpson dreamed of turning post-consumer plastics like food and drink packaging — and eventually ocean-borne plastic debris, and retired fishing nets and gear — into something useful.

“[Plastic’s] filling our landfills, it's ending up on our beaches, it's getting burned and polluting our atmosphere. We can do a better job,” Simpson said.

As the COVID-19 pandemic brought life to a virtual standstill in 2020, Simpson dedicated his newfound spare time to apply for funding to develop a novel plastic-to-lumber recycling project. It took hundreds of hours of research and eight separate proposals to different federal agencies, but Simpson eventually managed to secure $100,000 funding through an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Small Business Innovation Research program to pursue his vision.

With Alaska’s rural communities and limited road network, Simpson knew that a conventional model — collecting plastics from across the state and processing them at a central hub — would be prohibitively expensive. So he came up with a way to transport his processing facility to the pollution itself.

Working with the American Sierra Plastics company in New York to secure used equipment, Simpson created a mobile recycling facility in a moveable 53-foot trailer, which can grind, melt and form plastic into lumber on site.

Transforming plastic into building materials isn’t itself a new concept, but April Richards, who helped the EPA decide to fund Simpson’s project, said that his innovative design was perfect for Alaska, “taking what would be a waste and making it into a commodity.”

In order to garner support from the agency, Richards said that business proposals have to solve problems, while not creating new ones.

“We want these technologies to really be used and have impact,” she said, adding that Simpson’s plan held commercial promise and had qualified for an additional $400,000 funding that enabled him to acquire the equipment and start operating in Seward, Palmer and Soldotna.

Simpson’s company also offers the potential to help address plastic marine debris on remote coastlines.

Peter Murphy, the regional coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, said that cleaning up marine debris in Alaska isn’t as simple as handing out gloves and garbage bags to volunteers on a beach, and then tossing the trash into a dumpster. Debris clean up efforts might be miles from the nearest community, and many more from the road system. A lot of landfills in smaller communities can’t accommodate big influxes of debris, Murphy said, “so that can mean that you have to figure out alternate disposal solutions that can be expensive or challenging.”

Simpson hopes to be able to repackage his mobile processor into smaller 20-foot containers to reach communities off the road system and process retired fishing nets, plastic ocean debris and post-consumer plastics while there, but for now, he’s focused on building a market for his synthetic lumber.

In October, Simpson produced his first 100 samples of two-by-fours, tinted emerald green from the pipe-thread protectors he is recycling from the North Slope.

He is sending the lumber out for third-party testing soon, but said he envisions it being used for non-structural projects like decking, fence posts, picnic tables and raised garden beds. He recently gave samples to American Fast Freight, a logistics and transportation company which is interested in using the lumber as a possible substitute for the wood used to protect freight.

It currently costs Simpson $1.87 to produce one pound of lumber, and based on Home Depot prices, he plans to charge about $2 per pound — or around $30 for an eight-foot-long two-by-four.

“It's not going to be an incredibly great moneymaker,” Simpson said. “But it can break even.”

He said he needs at least 50,000 pounds of plastic to make processing in a location make sense financially.

It’s taken the support of a growing network of community organizations around the state for Simpson to transform growing stockpiles of plastic to synthetic lumber.

Work with the waste reduction group Sustainable Seward led to a connection with the Kenai Peninsula Borough transfer facility in Seward, which now collects plastic for Simpson directly. “It fiscally makes sense,” Simpson said, since they no longer have to pay to transport plastics to a central facility. He hopes to convince other communities like Soldotna and Homer to follow suit — and to store plastics for him to process on site — lowering everyone’s transport and recycling costs.

Ben Boettger of Cook Inletkeeper first heard about Simpson’s project through Sustainable Seward, and wanted to give people in the central Kenai Peninsula a chance to participate in what he calls “an exciting, new, innovative way to deal with plastic.”

Inletkeeper helped establish collection points in the Soldotna area, at The Goods Sustainable Grocery and Inletkeeper’s Community Action Studio. And starting this past fall, people in Homer now have the chance to participate too. You can drop your plastics off in the white super-sacks outside of Sustainable Wares on Ocean Drive and at the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies.

Simpson is collecting plastic Types 1, 2, 4, and 5 — which can all be mixed together, though he asks that you remove bottle caps and clean out food (especially peanut butter and ketchup).

“If you're not sure what kind of plastic it is, and it can be recycled, go ahead and throw it in anyway,” Simpson said. “We’ll figure it out.”

The Homer transfer station only accepts Type 1 screw-top bottles and Type 2 plastics, so this represents a chance to recycle more common household plastics, like certain plastic bags, yogurt cartons and clam-shell salad greens containers.

Henry Rieske, marine debris coordinator with the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies, said they are filling about one super-sack per week right now, but sees this as a great opportunity going forward. They are looking for regular commuters with trucks who might be willing to transport the super-sacks of collected plastic to Soldotna, and are offering a small gas reimbursement.

Rieske’s work with marine debris clean up and educational outreach gives him a clear grasp of the pollution washing up along the beaches of Kachemak Bay. Because of the tides and currents in the bay, Rieske said litter that makes it to the area’s beaches is mostly local consumer waste — “it’s from what we in the community are doing.” That may be disconcerting, he said, but “it means that we can solve it.”

While not all of the waste that Rieske and other volunteers gather and document along the bay is plastic, he’s excited about how Simpson’s project can help expand the community’s recycling capacity and dramatically cut down on shipping plastic waste to the Lower 48 and abroad.

“Recycling staying local in Alaska is a big deal,” he said.

Sean is a photographer and writer originally from Minnesota, and very happy to now call Homer home. His work has been published in Scientific American, Grist, HuffPost, Undark, and Granta, among others.

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