The latest in the growing number of efforts directed at reducing, repurposing and ultimately eliminating waste in all its forms.
On Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, 30 CEOs, government ministers, global institution executives, and civil society leaders announced the launch of the latest full-scale attack on global food waste: an all-sector collaboration aimed at increasing political and social momentum to achieve Target 12.3 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Energy, water, waste, chemical consumption and support for local communities are now issues that hotels may take into consideration when adopting a sustainability approach, whether they do so for ethical, financial, or branding reasons. However, one fundamental aspect of hotel operation remains neglected - one with a staggering environmental impact that’s not included in the criteria for the most advanced green hotel certification schemes. And it can cause tremendous damage to a hotel’s income statement. Too often considered a necessary evil by hoteliers, food waste is the elephant in the room that the vast majority of operators still try hard to ignore.
Carpet tile manufacturer and sustainability leader Interface is expanding its ReEntry recycling program by “creating a new network of regional recycling allies,” beginning with Oakland, Calif.-based Rethink Green. The company is seeking additional strategic partner recyclers in order to increase carpet recycling across North America each year.
Although summer is now officially in 2015’s rear-view mirror, water — access and pricing — is still making waves throughout the country. Water rates continue to rise in almost every major U.S. city, and in the West, unprecedented drought conditions have spurred tougher regulations and restrictions on residential and commercial customers.Ecova has more than 700 commercial and industrial clients representing more than 700,000 individual sites across the country. Recently, Ecova polled a group of its existing clients with sites in California to better understand:
While the circular economy package adopted by the European Union earlier this month was bashed by critics as being too weak, Europe seems to be hitting the ground running with its efforts to follow through: The following week, the European Commission put its money where its mouth is and opened up €24 billion (~US$26.4B) in funding for businesses looking to transition to a circular economy model. And a variety of smaller-scale efforts from both the public and private sector are continuing the momentum – here, we highlight a few specific to textiles.
Making shoe soles and washing solvent-drenched rags instead of discarding disposables are two ways General Motors is approaching its aspirational goal of becoming a zero-waste manufacturer.With the addition of six landfill-free sites in Mexico and England, the company’s industry-leading landfill-free count totals 131 facilities.Luton Assembly and Ellesmere Port Assembly achieved landfill-free status, making all 18 Opel/Vauxhall manufacturing plants in Europe landfill-free, which means daily waste is recycled, reused or converted to energy.
Bad news: You might be a water hog. Americans use more water per person than anyone else in the world – 27 billion gallons every day. Unfortunately, it is the river systems, lakes and wetlands and the wildlife of those habitats that suffer the most as a result of reckless water consumption. A new campaign is trying to call attention to the issue, engage people, and help them learn how to save water for wildlife.
Heineken has become the first alcohol company member of the The Recycling Partnership, a national nonprofit committed to improving curbside residential recycling, according to a recent announcement.As a leading sponsor, the brewer will provide industry expertise to help improve consumer education, elevate the quality of curbside recycling and drive increased recovery of recyclable glass in communities nationwide.The Recycling Partnership works to improve recycling in communities across the country.
Only 15 percent of textile waste is donated or recycled in the United States. About 21 billion pounds of clothing, footwear, towels, bedding, drapery, and other textiles end up in American landfills every year, which adds up to more than 5 percent of the country’s municipal solid waste. At the same time, textile recyclers claim that up to 95 percent of textiles can be reused or recycled.
Researchers from UC Davis and UC Cooperative Extension are testing a new method for capturing excess water flows during California’s rainy season by diverting it from rivers into the network of canals running through Central Valley farmland, SFGate reports.This irrigation system remains empty during the rainy months, and the scientists are exploring the possibility of filling some canals with water and directing it onto farmland where it can seep underground.
The latest celebrity chef-led TV show is going beyond delicious meals to dish out hard truths about waste. Chef-turned-food-waste-activist Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall “is on a mission to reduce the amount of waste that Britain produces,” in the new BBC One series, "Hugh’s War on Waste."
What if we could get rare metals for computers and smartphones from plants? What if food and beverage waste could be used to create components for LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes)? We’re one step closer to these realities thanks to scientists from Germany’s Freiberg University of Mining and Technology and engineers from the University of Utah.
Food waste has proved to be a persistent global challenge despite numerous efforts to reduce it from stakeholders throughout the value chain, from corporates, to non-profits, to startups. At the same time, it may not be obvious to business owners and employees what they can do to be reducing food waste in their daily operations.
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
Asahi Group Holdings, Colgate Palmolive, Ford Motor Company and Toyota Motor Corporation are among the global corporations achieving an A rating for their efforts to improve water security, according to the first global ranking of corporate water stewardship revealed this week by CDP — which holds the most comprehensive dataset of publicly available corporate water information collected on behalf of investors.
Levi Strauss & Co. claims its consumer care recommendations could have saved California 35 billion liters of water over the past four years — the amount of time that the state has been experiencing a severe drought.
UK waste-reduction charity Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has announced a three-year commitment to reducing clothing waste through a new €3.6 million pilot project. Funded by EU LIFE, the European Clothing Action Plan (ECAP) aims to divert over 90,000 tonnes per year of clothing waste from landfill and incineration across Europe by March 2019.
As we prepare for the innumerable resource challenges of supporting a population expected to top 9 billion in the next 35 years, it is simply unacceptable to continue wasting food. Organizations large and small are now focusing a variety of efforts on eliminating food waste.
Cross-Posted from Product, Service & Design Innovation. Despite recent food-saving innovations such as FreshPaper, efforts to promote “ugly produce” and industry-wide commitments to reduce food waste, millions of tons of food are still discarded every year.
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.