CIRCULAR ECONOMY -
At SB ’14 San Diego, the Plastic Disclosure Project, the UN Environment Program and Trucost unveiled the fist-ever assessment of plastic use in business, along with the business case for dealing with its global impacts: Among the sobering figures, the report calculated the total natural capital cost of pl
MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
British grocery chains Tesco and Waitrose have added a new facet to their waste-mitigation efforts by launching upcycled packaging.Beginning this month, Tesco shoppers could get their groceries in recycled plastic bags made from back-of-store waste plastic, such as pallet and multi-pack wrapping. Recycling firm Eurokey is collecting and sorting Tesco’s plastic waste, and plastics recycler Papier-Mettier is processing it and turning it into single-use carrier bags.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY -
Recycling in the United States is an economically unsustainable trend — or at least that’s what New York Times writer John Tierney recently argued in his opinion piece, “The Reign of Recycling," published in the October 4th Sunday Review.
INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY -
Frustrated by the amount of disposable packaging discarded at events and the amount of time it takes for disposable cups (including biobased plastics) to degrade, Chelsea Briganti and Leigh Ann Tucker created a “biodegredible” – biodegradable and edible – cup. Last week, the women pitched their startup, Loliware, on the ABC show “Shark Tank” and secured a $600,000 deal for 25 percent of their company.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY -
Ocean Conservancy on Wednesday released a report that proposes a four-point solution to cutting ocean plastic waste by 45 percent by 2025 with the ultimate goal of eradicating the issue by 2035.
Stemming the Tide: Land-based strategies for a plastic-free ocean is a first-of-its-kind, solutions-oriented report in partnership with the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment that outlines specific, land-based solutions for plastic waste in the ocean, starting with the elimination of plastic waste leakage in five priority countries: China, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY -
Researchers found that roughly a quarter of the fish sampled from fish markets in California and Indonesia contained man-made plastic or fibrous material in their guts. The new study is from the University of California, Davis and Hasanuddin University in Indonesia and was published on Thursday.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY -
This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post, "What's Working: Sustainable Development Goals," in conjunction with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The proposed set of goals will be the subject of discussion at the UN General Assembly meeting on Sept. 25-27, 2015 in New York; they cover 17 key areas of development — including poverty, hunger, health, education, and gender equality, among many others.
MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Keurig Green Mountain Inc. is making progress towards its goal of making all K-Cups recyclable by 2020. Following successful recycling research trials, the company has unveiled plans to transition the entire product line to polypropylene, according to Plastics News.
PRESS RELEASE -
BASF is now expanding its expertise in top mounts to enable car manufacturers an optimum combination of weight savings, pleasant acoustics and vibration damping. The unique NVH (noise, vibration, harshness) solution is made possible by combining two of BASF's plastic specialties: the micro-cellular polyurethane elastomer Cellasto® and the highly glass-fiber reinforced polyamide Ultramid® A3WG10 CR. The top mount with the Cellasto® element and the Ultramid® housing is around 25 percent lighter than conventional aluminum die-cast versions with rubber. It was developed and optimized for serial production using BASF's simulation tool Ultrasim®.Combination of polyurethane and polyamide
MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Plastic bottles are some of the worst offenders in packaging waste, but sales of bottled water continue to grow: U.S. bottled water volume apparently rose 7 percent last year.
CIRCULAR ECONOMY -
You might already be using them in your garden or they might be fueling your commute — but now you can use them in your 3D printer: Coffee grounds seem to be wasted less and less by the day, thanks to waste-to-energy and upcycling efforts across the globe.
MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
TerraVerdae BioWorks, an industrial biotechnology company developing advanced bioplastics and environmentally sustainable biomaterials, announced Monday that it has successfully achieved key milestones for the commercial production for its line of Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA)-based biomaterials. These include 10,000-liter production runs of its line of biodegradable, natural microspheres for use in personal care and cosmetic products.
INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY -
We have been following Chile-based startup Bureo from its launch in late 2013 to its first incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign last year. Now the company, which got its start upcycling plastic marine waste lining Chile’s waters and shores, has expanded its product range to sunglasses.
MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Conventional plastic — found just about everywhere you can think of and in many places you wouldn’t — is made from ethylene, a cheap hydrocarbon made using petroleum and natural gas – through a process that emits more carbon dioxide than any other chemical process. At the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), researchers have been experimenting with ways to make ethylene production less toxic to the environment, and are apparently finding success with the help of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, according to ClimateWire.
INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY -
A new shoe based on textile biomimicry promises easy recycling and soft, robust textures with a single heat-treated material and 3D printers.Designer Amno Liao from the Royal College of Art in London has created the Bio-Knit shoe, which is knitted on a 3-D knitting machine and then treated to harden its various parts. Heat is used to change the stiffness of the threads, so a semi-rigid heel and sock-like textures are produced from the same material. Creating a shoe without composites, as most footwear contains, will dramatically reduce recycling costs.
INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY -
San Francisco Bay Area startup ECOlunchbox has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $30,000 to bring to market its Blue Water Bento collection, a new line of lunch containers that combine no-leak silicone lids with non-toxic stainless steel bottoms.
MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Procter & Gamble (P&G) Fabric Care has announced a new initiative that will see 230 million bottles of flagship brands such as Ariel, Dash, Lenor and Unstopables made out of Post-Consumer Recyclate (PCR — aka recycled packaging). If laid out end-to-end, the 230 million bottles would stretch roughly the distance between the North and South Poles, the company says.
MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
Yesterday resource® Natural Spring Water announced the debut of a remodeled bottle made entirely of recycled plastic (rPET). Part of the Nestlé Waters North America (NWNA) portfolio of bottled waters, the resource brand reflects Nestle’s exploration of environmentally sound packaging options across its family of beverages.The remodeled bottle, available in 700ml and 1L sizes, is sourced and bottled in the US. It is produced with 100 percent rPET, excluding the cap and label. resource says it hopes the new bottle will focus attention on the uses of rPET and encourage bottle-to-bottle recycling among consumers.
MATERIALS & PACKAGING -
The bioplastic known as polylactic acid (PLA) is already a part of our everyday lives — comprising items such as biodegradable drinking cups and vegetable wrapping foil — yet, it is not considered a fully viable alternative to traditional petroleum-based plastics, as it is costly to produce.Now, researchers from the KU Leuven Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis have presented a way to make the PLA production process simpler and waste-free. Their findings were published this week in Science.
INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY -
This week at the United Nations headquarters, adidas celebrated its new partnership with Parley for the Oceans by showcasing the first innovative footwear concept born from the collaboration.Parley for the Oceans brings together creators, thinkers and leaders to raise awareness about the disastrous state of the oceans and to collaborate on promising projects that can protect and conserve them. As a founding member, adidas supports Parley for the Oceans in its education and communication efforts and its Ocean Plastic Program that aims to end the rampant plastic pollution of the oceans.