WASTE NOT -
As the circular economy continues to gain steam, two new public-private partnerships have emerged, driving the widespread reuse of recycled plastics towards the mainstream.
In an effort to make good on its goal to design 100 percent of its packaging to be recoverable or recyclable by 2025 and to increase packaging recovery and recycling rates, food and beverage giant PepsiCo has partnered with nonprofit The Recycling Partnership.
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The unveiling of new research across industries has revealed that existing tools and collaborative research could hold the key to driving forward the shift to a more circular economy.
COLLABORATION -
Pallets, ubiquitous throughout our economy, have been an early example of the potential for a circular product system, with reusable, pooled pallets reducing waste in logistics. For decades, wood has been the dominant pooled pallet material. While a natural, renewable material, wood can break, is porous and can create worker safety issues from handling. With roughly 10 billion pallets in circulation, there remains a significant opportunity for improvements.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
When it comes to sustainable fashion, the contribution of children’s clothing to the textile waste problem is often overlooked. While the sector represents only 12 percent of overall market share, it constitutes a considerable portion of the 26 billion pounds of textiles entering landfills each year. Children themselves embody the fast fashion model, with their rapid growth rate requiring a constant flow of new clothing to keep up with lengthening limbs and expanding feet.
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The way people buy, consume and discard their electronics is changing — and for the better. A new report by WRAP has revealed that an industry-wide adoption of circular principles could unlock new economic opportunities and drive the economy towards greater sustainability. The research outlined in Switched on to Value: Powering Business Change shows that while only 10 percent of UK households use household recycling schemes to discard their unwanted electrical items, 83 percent of households have demonstrated interest in retailer take-back and trade-in schemes, which can provide customers with a convenient way to properly dispose of products while ensuring data protection and safety.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
As circular business models begin to gain steam, a new strategic service is helping companies in the technology, electronics and telecom sectors uncover new ways to reuse, remanufacture and recover technological devices, while simultaneously turning costs into profits.
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Industry heavy hitters are making moves to create circular solutions that keep everyday products, such as chip bags and plastic drinking bottles, out of landfills with the launch of groundbreaking waste-to-energy programs and closed-loop packaging solutions.
PRESS RELEASE -
The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) announced today it has teamed up with national nonprofit, Keep America Beautiful, to award two $50,000 grants for organizations to establish Hefty® EnergyBag™ programs in their communities. The program is an innovative approach to diverting traditionally non-recycled plastics – like chip bags and juice pouches – from landfills and converting the materials into valuable energy sources.
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Fashion is slowly shedding its negative rep as brands continue to embrace circular and forward-thinking practices that drive innovation and product durability.
Only weeks after announcing a new partnership with Parley for the Oceans, luxury label Stella McCartney has made yet another push to keep the world’s oceans waste-free. The brand has revealed that its Autumn 2017 collection of Falabella GO bags will be made with yarn derived from converted ocean waste.
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Arizona State University (ASU) continues to blaze new sustainability trails with the launch of a new innovation incubator program in partnership with the City of Phoenix, Arizona.
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The Nordic region continues to blaze trails on the zero-waste front, as innovators from across the region vie for the Nordic Council Environment Prize and a chance to bring their projects and initiatives to a global audience. The Council has announced the nominees for its 2017 prize, which seeks to raise awareness around the environmental work being done across the Nordic region. This year’s theme focuses on initiatives promoting, developing or initiating waste-free solutions.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute has announced the winners of the 5th Cradle to Cradle Product Design Challenge, including MyEcoWall, a mobile acoustic wall made from Ecovative mushroom material and Scout, a children’s jacket that “grows” with the child. The Challenge is the fifth in an initial series of six circular design challenges that incentivize and inspire the design community to envision viable product design solutions for the circular economy using Cradle to Cradle product design principles.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
Not all circular news is good news. As a new startup accelerator launches to drive forward sustainable solutions to everyday challenges, a prominent defender of the circular cause lands himself a spot in federal prison for copyright infringement.
The UK’s first-ever sustainability accelerator fund — the cleverly named Sustainable Accelerator — has been met by enthusiastic reception, successfully raising over £700,000 through crowding.
WASTE NOT -
Reliance on virgin raw materials to produce products has a significant, often detrimental, impact on both ecosystems and communities. A widespread shift towards a more circular model is essential to secure a more sustainable future, yet there exist systematic barriers to the acquisition and sourcing of high-quality, secondary materials.
PRODUCT, SERVICE & DESIGN INNOVATION -
There’s no stopping the circular economy. Both the public and private sector continue to drive circular innovation towards the mainstream, offering new opportunities for budding disruptive businesses to gain exposure and scale up operations.
Italian banking group INTESA Sanpaolo hosted its 101st Start Up Initiative, in partnership with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, in London last week, providing budding circular innovators with the opportunity to present their ideas on a global stage.
PRESS RELEASE -
Here’s my prediction: in the not-too-distant future, circular economies – where the resources you use to create a product eventually return to the business to be reused or recycled – will be the norm. Businesses of tomorrow will look back at our sluggishness in making the switch and they will shake their heads in wonder.
But why has business been sluggish? After all, doing more with less, creating more value with fewer resources, has long been standard in business: you pursue profitable growth while also staying efficient with resources.
That’s just good business.
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Circular initiatives may be on the rise, but an impending commodity crisis for cobalt indicates that we still haven’t learned our lesson as far as resource depletion is concerned.
The ferromagnetic metal is primarily used in the preparation of magnetic, wear-resistant and high-performance alloys and is a critical component of batteries designed for electric vehicles, laptops, smartphones and a host of other electronics.
And we’re running out.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
After months of waiting, the British Standards Institute (BSI) has finally launched BS8001, the world’s first standard for implementing circular economy principles.
PRESS RELEASE -
The European PET Bottle Platform (EPBP) has given interim approval for the recyclability of polyethylenefuranoate (PEF), produced by Synvina C.V., Amsterdam, in the European bottle recycling market. Following EPBP’s assessment PEF bottles are expected to be disposable through existing recovery systems the same way as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the conventional material for plastic bottles. The interim approval applies to a PEF market penetration of up to 2%.