The latest in the growing number of efforts directed at reducing, repurposing and ultimately eliminating waste in all its forms.
U.S. Water Services, a water treatment company providing industrial and commercial water management, has announced a breakthrough in sustainable chemistry for cooling water treatment.The PhosZero™ family of water treatment products is designed to provide scale and corrosion control similar to “traditional” phosphorus containing chemistries, but without the discharge or aquatic toxicity of older technologies.The PhosZero products are made with E-FexTM technology, which the company says includes the following benefits:
British coffee drinkers can now support biofuel production on their morning commutes. Network Rail, the company owning and operating Britain’s stations announced a partnership Tuesday with bio-bean, a company recycling waste coffee grounds into carbon-neutral fuel.Following a successful trial at London’s Victoria and Waterloo stations, the scheme will be introduced at Network Rail’s six largest stations, which generate nearly 700 tons of coffee waste annually. Instead of sending the grounds to landfill, generating roughly 5,000 tons of carbon emissions, the waste will now produce over 650 tons of biofuel — enough to power 1,000 homes a year.
With ever-changing fashion trends, cheap and disposable clothing creates heaping piles of landfill trash around the world. Two recent developments in the fashion industry — an art exhibit and a recycled clothing line — aim to spread awareness of and combat this mounting problem. Waste on Display First, a new art installation in Hong Kong by eco-friendly fashion NGO Redress illustrates the enormity of clothing waste and the associated environmental impacts. Made from 360 kg of discarded clothing, the YWASTE? exhibit represents the amount of textiles dumped into Hong Kong landfills every two minutes — 10,800 kg, or nearly 800 lbs an hour!
The Dewar’s Aberfeldy Distillery in Scotland has cut its carbon footprint by 90 percent after installing a biomass boiler late last year.Traditionally, distilleries are heavy users of fossil fuels, but this is the latest example of investment in biomass gaining traction industry-wide.“Moving away from boilers that use heavy fuel oil – to more efficient wood pellets – helps reduce energy costs and lower emissions into the environment,” a spokesman for the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) said in a statement.
Arizona State University (ASU) athletics and ESPN recently continued bold efforts to reduce waste and carbon emissions at their high-profile sporting events.ASU’s Sun Devil Athletics was recognized for its participation in the 2014 Game Day Zero Waste Challenge as part of the Pac-12 Conference. The team scored first in the Challenge’s recycling and organics-reduction categories, recycling an average of 1 pound of waste per person. It also placed second in the conference diversion rate category and third in GHG reduction.
As awareness has grown of the reprehensible amount of food we throw away in the western world (an estimated 40 percent), efforts to combat food waste have emerged from a variety of places along the food value chain, particularly at the retail level, and primarily in Europe: Last year, French supermarket chain Intermarché led the pack with its ingenious “Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables” campaign, which aimed to prove to picky shoppers that less than perfect produce is still just as delicious and nutritious (and slightly less expensive).
Recyclebank, which claims to to inspire and reward smarter, everyday choices for a more sustainable future, has named Mayor Bryan Barnett of Rochester Hills, MI “Mayor of the Year” as part of the first annual Recyclebank Awards.The awards recognizes one “Mayor of the Year” and participating U.S. cities and towns that go above and beyond expectations to “slash the trash” by promoting recycling efforts and recycling education.
Noted sustainability leader Unilever is spearheading a movement for industrial waste reduction.Last week the CPG giant hosted an event in partnership with 2Degrees, bringing together over 100 representatives from academia, NGOs and companies, including Mars, GSK, Coca-Cola Enterprises and Sainsbury’s. Entitled “The zero waste mindset — new ways of thinking to deliver transformational change,” the event created an open discussion on moving companies to zero waste.
Net-Works, a social entrepreneurship initiative from carpet manufacturer Interface and conservation charity Zoological Society of London (ZSL), has since 2012 collected more than 66,860 kilos of nets from residents in 14 collection sites in Danajon Bank and the Bantayan Islands, according to a recent announcement.In addition, the program has yielded 508 memberships in community banks, with the opportunity to earn supplemental income through the sale of nets, as well as access to financial infrastructure via locally-established CoMSCAs (Community Managed Credit and Savings Associations) or local microfinance initiatives.
The largest landfill in the world can’t be found on land at all — but in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The so-called “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” consists of millions of pounds of trash, mostly plastic, which have created an oceanic desert where only tiny phytoplankton can survive.
UK grocery giant Tesco has announced a new scheme to mitigate food waste, where surplus food from its stores is redistributed to people in need.Tesco has partnered with UK food redistribution charity FareShare and Irish social enterprise FoodCloud to trial the FareShare FoodCloud app in the UK. Tesco has already been working in different areas of the supply chain to tackle food waste — including through its existing partnership with FareShare — and this new scheme will mean eliminating the need to throw away food in Tesco stores that could otherwise be eaten.
Anheuser-Busch InBev today announced it achieved a water use ratio of 3.2 hectoliters per hectoliter of production from 2013 to 2014, which the company says makes it the most water-efficient brewer in the world.This resulted in saving the equivalent of the amount of water it takes to make more than 4 billion cans of beers.In addition to the work done within its brewery walls, the company says it also engages in a comprehensive water stewardship program, including watershed protection measures in brewery communities facing water stress and working with barley growers to obtain the most "crop per drop." The efforts aim to improve the quality and quantity of available water for all users.
Fashion is probably the last thing you think about when you see a leather airplane seat – yet through a partnership between Southwest Airlines and textile and accessories upcycler Looptworks, 43 acres of leather collected from 80,000 discarded Southwest airplane seats were turned into LUV Seat weekender duffle bags, shoes, soccer balls and more that embody how creative partnerships can help companies close loops and benefit the environment.
Raphael Bemporad, Founding Partner and Chief Strategy Officer at BBMG, kicked off Wednesday’s SB ‘15 San Diego plenaries by anchoring the day’s conversation in the human story. As the day’s moderator, he asked attendees to wonder what it would mean to design brands for humans — not merely consumers — through a lens of “abundance without waste” and set the stage for plenary discussions focused on design, innovation and leadership.
On Tuesday, the week of learning at SB ’15 San Diego continued as Nina Goodrich, director of GreenBlue, moderated a discussion on innovative partnerships around recycling and reuse initiatives.
On the opening afternoon of SB ’15 San Diego, a much-anticipated workshop on reducing food waste — featuring Sally Uren, Chief Executive of Forum for the Future, and Raphael Bemporad, Chief Strategy Officer for BBMG — provided an interactive and enthusiastic forum on the subject, engaging audience members from all sectors for both personal and professional reasons.Bemporad began by reminding everyone that to make lasting change we need a better understanding of the human heart as it relates to sustainability and particularly food.
Organic matter produced during brewing and coffee roasting processes is becoming a farming and gardening staple as an effective, low-cost alternative to commercial fertilizer and feed for a growing contingent of farmers and gardeners in Maine, according to the Bangor Daily News.As more of the state’s ubiquitous microbreweries are finding ways to make their operations more sustainable, they’ve realized repurposing their spent grains as fertilizers eliminates waste, while simultaneously benefitting local farms and gardens.
The Eco Laundry Company, the world’s first certified B Corp dry cleaner and laundry service franchise, has announced a strategic partnership with famed denim heavyweight G-Star RAW. As part of the partnership, The Eco Laundry Company will offer free dry cleaning for life for any piece of clothing from G-Star’s RAW for the Oceans collection, a clothing line curated by Pharrell Williams and made with fabric spun from recycled ocean plastic.
As concerns over bulging landfills abound, a diverse and growing group of innovators across the country are looking for new ways to transform trash into something less wasteful.The Minnesota Twins and Eco-Products, for example, recently partnered to reduce the waste generated at Target Field through a new effort to divert fans' trash from the landfill by turning it into fertile soil.Eco-Products, which makes single use foodservice products made from renewable and recycled resources, is supplying hundreds of thousands of compostable cups, plates, trays, utensils and straws at Target Field. Virtually all packaging used at Target Field will be either compostable or recyclable, the company says.
Nestlé is investing in technology to help reduce the amount of water it uses in California at the five water bottling plants and four facilities where food or petcare products are manufactured.Work is underway to transform the Nestlé milk factory in the city of Modesto into a ‘zero water’ factory, meaning the plant will not use any local freshwater resources for its operations.The project is expected to save nearly 63 million gallons of water each year, equivalent to 71 percent of absolute withdrawals in 2014. Around $7 million has been invested in the project, which is due to be completed by the end of 2016, the company says.