The latest in the growing number of efforts directed at reducing, repurposing and ultimately eliminating waste in all its forms.
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.
Cross-Posted from From Purpose to Action: Building a Sustainable Future Together. To create a truly circular ecosystem for plastics, we need scalable innovations to close the gap between what consumers can recycle now and which plastics might become a regular part of a future recycling system.
Cross-Posted from Chemistry, Materials & Packaging. Protein Evolution’s technology can turn unused polyester and nylon fabrics from Stella McCartney’s previous collections into good-as-new, infinitely recyclable fibers — and could present a new circular solution for the fashion industry.
Cross-Posted from 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?
Cross-Posted from From Purpose to Action: Building a Sustainable Future Together. Last month, Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics and Fast Company co-hosted the virtual summit to convene policy experts, industry leaders and innovators with the expertise and resources to drive real progress toward a circular economy.
Cross-Posted from Supply Chain. Tesco Exchange, aka ‘Tesco Tinder,’ matches suppliers who have too much of a product — for example, crops, byproducts, ingredients or packaging — with other Tesco suppliers that can put it to use.
Whether making a widget or a culinary treat, prioritizing a circular life cycle for products helps keep them out of waste streams until they are negligible — or better yet, they never land there.
Cross-Posted from From Purpose to Action: Building a Sustainable Future Together. While flexible packaging plays an important role in keeping food fresher longer, it has long been difficult to recycle. Designing more recyclable flexible packaging from the start and determining a better end-of-life process for current materials is a vital step in reducing food waste.
Cross-Posted from Collaboration. The joint effort from WM and Dow aims to provide a solution to make it easier for households to recycle the film while the companies explore new options to reuse it. When fully implemented, the program is expected to prevent 120,000 tons of plastic film from reaching landfills each year.
Cross-Posted from 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.
On a practical level, we simply cannot recycle our way out of the damage that plastic waste is doing to our world, our environment and ourselves. That’s why it's time to consider uncycling — or reducing our use of single-use plastics down to zero.
Cross-Posted from From Purpose to Action: Building a Sustainable Future Together. A circular plastics supply chain is still in its infancy. So, how do we work together to create a viable marketplace for advanced recycling to thrive? Here are a few strategies and approaches that show early promise.
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.
Cross-Posted from Supply Chain. Whether the priority is to reduce the plastic in packaging, increase the recycled content or just figure out where to start, it all begins with opening up a dialogue with suppliers. That is exactly what one major US retailer did when it sought to re-energise its plastics and packaging pledge during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cross-Posted from 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.
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.
Cross-Posted from Behavior Change. The pop-up will resemble a walk-in freezer with familiar food items frozen in innovative ways to help reduce food waste, keep nearly ‘off’ items fresh for longer and help maximize space — with all foods on display given away for free.
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.
Cross-Posted from Cleantech. Globally, 80% of wastewater is discharged into local environments with minimal or no treatment — water that could be recycled and reused. California-based startup Aquacycl's waste-to-energy solution protects water resources while helping companies reduce costs.
Cross-Posted from Product, Service & Design Innovation. New report shares insights to guide retailers on effective reusable bag models — a key solution as regulations to reduce reliance on single-use plastic bags grow across the US.