CLEANTECH -
The electronics giants announced a series of innovations including personal-care device recycling, smart home energy-efficiency improvements, and a new laundry cycle and filter designed to eliminate microplastic pollution from synthetic materials.
WASTE NOT -
While recycling and lightweighting packaging strategies are helpful, they still align more with a linear rather than circular economy. Here, Upstream CEO Matt Prindiville lays out his organization’s vision for a truly plastic waste-free future.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
80M tons of plastic waste will end up in the environment just in the next 10 years. Without voluntary, global producer responsibility programs to unlock capital towards infrastructure and bridge the policy vacuum, how else do polluters suggest for us to tackle this massive financing gap in the meantime?
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Developing and optimizing a fully circular plastics value chain is a complex challenge that can’t be achieved with any single solution. We challenge our peers and other key stakeholders to be courageous and take risks, to explore new possibilities and partnerships, and persist until we have solutions.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
As seen in ongoing incidents of greenwashing and a new Greenpeace report, the onus is on consumer product manufacturers to take more comprehensive approaches to stemming their flow of plastic into the world — and turning the tide of public opinion.
BEHAVIOR CHANGE -
As US consumers report more conservative gifting plans due to money worries, alternatives such as Freitag’s S.W.A.P. events and Poshmark’s Secondhand Sunday meet the downshift in enthusiasm for the Black Friday shopping frenzy.
WASTE NOT -
Key recommendations failed to understand plastic pollution from a holistic perspective — placing too much blame on the five most impacted Asian countries and suggesting carbon-heavy options for disposal.
FROM PURPOSE TO ACTION: BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE TOGETHER -
In Latin America, where recycling rates remain below 10%, grassroots circular solutions are slowly beginning to scale — thanks to growing legitimacy, education, organization and protections for informal waste workers, who remain the backbone of the region’s collection and recycling infrastructure.
WASTE NOT -
Recycling, circular industry partnerships and marketplaces for refurbished devices are growing in popularity, but they won’t be a match for the tech industry’s throwaway approach anytime soon. But some smaller, more intrepid brands are proving the validity and demand for longer-lasting, easy-to-repair electronics.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
More brands seem to be taking a two-pronged approach to growth — continuing to sell new products while demonstrating their ‘care’ for the planet through circular initiatives and takeback schemes. When will companies truly commit to changing the products they sell and how
they sell them?
WASTE NOT -
A new accelerator from the US Plastics Pact aims to catalyze broader adoption of reusable and refillable packaging options, while an upskilling program from
rePurpose Global aims to help sustainability leaders more effectively tackle plastic pollution.
FROM PURPOSE TO ACTION: BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE TOGETHER -
Enabling a circular economy is a complicated challenge that governments, communities and businesses globally are struggling to solve. But as Dow’s work in Africa proves, solutions exist — and success comes when organizations and communities collaborate to create change rooted in local context.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
Many brands that offer pre-owned merchandise through their own retail channels initially do it for sustainability reasons — to keep useful products out of landfills. While that is an important benefit of recommerce, thinking of it only in those terms is overlooking major business opportunities.
THE NEXT ECONOMY -
Latest research from Planet Tracker proposes a practical business solution to the problem of plastic waste, whereby packaging is treated as an asset to be returned, rather than a liability to be tossed.
CHEMISTRY, MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
The latest in a growing wave of circular textile innovations, the materials-science company and the global retailer have both launched collections that turn waste materials into new, colored textiles that require no dyeing.
WASTE NOT -
The problems we’re facing aren’t going to be solved by forgoing plastic straws. Yes, every small action makes a difference; but these actions need to be a piece of a greater puzzle in which every council, government, company and community is building towards better waste management overall.
FROM PURPOSE TO ACTION: BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE TOGETHER -
“We’ve been working on design for recyclability for years now. But the next step is to make packaging fully recyclable and then collect the packaging to recycle it into new products. We’re very close to creating a low-carbon, circular economy.” — Han Zhang