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Trex Co. Inc is revamping its thin-film collection and recycling programme in Southern California. The programme initially started in 2008 but faded, in large part because of technical issues. The old balers apparently struggled with reliability, and the large bales were difficult to manage. The revamped programme uses compressed-air mini-balers that produce bales weighing a little over 20 kg. Trex makes composite decking from the bags, with the bags comprising more than 95% recycled content. The key components are polyethylene plastics and sawdust. Relevant site: Trex Co. Inc: http://www.trex.com/index.html
AgriProtein Technologies has developed a fly factory in Stellenbosch, SOuth Africa that transforms blood, guts, manure and discarded food into animal feed. The flies are trained to lay eggs in one place by creating their ideal conditions in human grade food. The eggs are then taken out and put into the waste. At the end of 72 hours, one kilo of eggs turns into about 380 kilos of larvae. The larvae are then dried, reducing the weight by about 70%. A large scale plant produces about 28.5 tonnes of dried protein per day. Different species of flies are used to deal with different waste blends. Relevant site: AgriProtein: http://www.agriprotein.com/
EPreward is a Florida based company that recycles cardiac electrophysiology stents for use by researchers. It also recovers the used metals in stents and sells unused inventory from one hospital to another, reimbursing hospitals about $1 million a year.
As an example, EP stents cost anywhere from $200 to $3,000 apiece, but can go unused when a physician moves on to another job. With EPReward, hospitals can get new stents at half price or less.
EPReward is also big on collecting used medical equipment to recover the metals.
In all, a very interesting company that has been running for about a decade now.
Relevant site: EPReward: http://www.epreward.com/
Crosskix as a new athletic shoe that can be disassembled, is fully recyclable and is fully usable for running and training (the latter being a useful feature for athletic shoes).
Crosskix has also developed the RECY-KIX program, which allows used or worn shoes to be sent back to the company for recycling. You even get a 15 percent discount on the next purchase of Crosskix, which will be accepted at select stores around the world.
Perhaps not going to rid the world of waste, but a step in the right direction.
Relevant site: Crosskix: http://crosskix.com/
This is very interesting. Veolia Environnement sees strong growth in its toxic waste recycling business and will keep spending up to 100 million euros per year on plants to treat industrial solvents, old batteries and pharmaceutical waste. Veolia forms partnerships with the chemical, pharmaceutical, automotive and other industries to collect and treat the waste and resell the recycled products as raw commodities or fuel. The pricing structure is also very interesting. At the moment Veolia gets the waste at no charge, but expects in future to be paying for the waste received. That is a very, very interesting development in a market where waste generators typically pay for the disposal of their toxic waste.
Outlet malls owned by the real estate company Simon Property Group Inc, based in Indianapolous, USA, have begun collecting and baling clear plastic packaging materials for recycling. The initiative is significant because it enables tenants to recycle plastic easily. Sources of plastic include individual plastic bags that contain the clothing that is delivered to the malls and shrink wrap.
This is an entrepreneurial way of dealing with public place recycling. Rather than simply slapping a recycling bin or two in public places and hoping for the best, Greener Corners puts in a large bin that is funded through local business advertising on its sides. Taking it a step further, Greener Corners also engages with the community to educate people about recycling. "Green Teams" are assembled from local volunteers, and they get out and educate people in schools, civic centres and the like. Greener Corners has also involved smartphones, including QR codes that, when scanned, show what materials can be recycled in that municipality. Relevant site: Greener corners: http://www.greenercorners.com/
The Hilex Poly Bag-2-Bag Programme recently received the 2013 Society of Plastics Engineers Environmental Division’s Award for Plastics Recycling Technologies and Applications. The Bag-2-Bag Programme takes plastic bags and remanufactures them into new plastic bags. Hilex Poly invested more than US$25 million in its recycling center in Indiana, USA, which recycled in excess of 20 million pounds (over 9,000 tonnes) of bags, sacks and wraps in 2012.
Compared to conventional bags, the bags made of recycled content reportedly require 20% less energy to produce and reduce lower carbon emissions by 11%.
The St. Lawrence Country Department of Highways is using Struxure boards manufactured by Axion to repair and restore bridge decking on a bridge in Clare, New York. The Struxure boards are made from recycled plastic and plastic composite building composites. There is a very significant market for this application. Another of Axion's products being used in a separate project are the Ecotrax railway ties. They are being used for part of the Trinity Railway Express between Dallas and Fort Worth. The Ecotrax ties are made from a composite of recycled polyethylene plastic and fibreglass. Relevant site: Axion International: http://www.axionintl.com/
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) are looking for ways to reuse recycled cathode ray tube (CRT) glass from computer monitors and television sets, with a US$10,000 prize for the best proposal. It is expected that more than 2 billion pounds of legacy CRT TVs and monitors will enter the recycling stream in the coming years. Historically, CRT glass has gone back into new CRT displays. WIth this market rapidly diminishing, new recycling options are needed. Previous winners are: Mario Rosato, who proposed a closed-loop process for separating the lead from the glass in a form with high market value; Nulife Glass Processing, which proposed a process that uses an extremely energy-efficient electrically heated furnace, uniquely designed to produce minimal emissions; and Robert Kirby, who submitted an idea for combining CRT glass with cement to create tile and bricks that are tested, labeled and sold specifically for applications where lead shielding is required, such as X-ray and fluoroscopy rooms. Relevant site: CRT Challenge: https://www.innocentive.com/ar/challenge/9933317
Diskrecycling is a UK company that recycles CDs and DVDs. The plastic that can be obtained from recycling CDs and DVDs can then be used in a variety of applications: As components for the automotive and electronics industriesAs a raw material to make new plasticAnd as jewel cases, for CDs!
19 year old Boyan Slat has designed the Ocean Cleanup Array which could reduce the world’s oceanic garbage patches by removing 7,2500,000 tonnes from them. The array is a network of floating booms and processing platforms laid out to funnel the plastic in the direction of the platforms, where the plastic is separated from plankton, filtered and stored for recycling. Note: Deep Sea News gives quite a few reasons for why this concept may not work, so read their site before deciding that the Ocean Cleanup Array will solve marine debris: http://deepseanews.com/2013/03/the-ocean-cleanup-the-newest-of-the-new-plans-to-remove-marine-plastic/
Solar powered Bigbelly bins compact waste and are equipped with a chip that delivers real-time data to the city's waste management division, showing when the units are full and need to be picked up. Each bin can apparently replace 5 ordinary bins, but they are still not cheap. 13 bins have been installed in Santa Monica (California) at a cost of $99,000.
They lead to savings though. Bins at Boston University have enabled the university to lower its collection trips to fewer than twice a week, compared to 14.
This is quite incredible.
Relevant site: Bigbelly Solar: www.bigbelly.com
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Flip-flop sandals once harmed wildlife on beaches; now Kenya’s Ocean Sole sandal recycling company is making them into eco-friendly merchandise Relevant site: Ocean Sole: http://www.ocean-sole.com/
R3 Recycling, located at a landfill in Florida, is sorting construction and demolition (C&D) waste for recycling. When R3 Recycling commenced 4 years ago, the goal was to get to 75% recovery by 2020. They are currently recycling 86%, handling 35,000 tons per year. The success depends on improved processing techniques and finding new markets for recyclable products. Related site: R3 Recycling: http://www.R3Recycling.com
It sounds like something from a science fiction film, but the concept of robots cleaning our streets is becoming a reality with what is believed to be a world first.
IBM’s Global Asset Recovery Services (GARS) remanufactures and demanufactures just about any kind of IT equipment, regardless of whether IBM made it. Last year, the company's remanufacturing operations processed a quarter of a million units of equipment. Of all the equipment and material that GARS has processed in its demanufacturing centers, over 99 percent was recycled or reused. The GARS approach seeks to reuse old products and design new products that last longer and can be better used at their end of life. This philosophy is a welcome change from a typical approach of planned obsolescene that chews up scarce resources, including rare earths. Relevant site: GARS: http://www-03.ibm.com/financing/us/recovery/
Relivit is an Australian firm developing a plant in Sydney using the US Knowaste technology for recycling disposable nappies, adult incontinence aids and female hygiene products. The plant will open in 2014. The technology first sterilises the items with an autoclave, and then separates the products into softwood pulp fibre and plastics. Both can then be onsold for further manufacturing. Relevant site: Knowaste: http://www.knowaste.com/
Rumber Materials manufactures products from 100% recycled tyre rubber and plastics.
Many of the products are boards that can substitute for wood or plastic. The Rumber composite material can also be molded, extruded or pressed into different types of products.
Rumber products are reportedly very durable, giving them an advantage of other materials through less down time, fewer replacement costs and a longer life for the products.
This seems to be a great way to make new, long lasting products from waste tyres and plastic.
A whole lot of batteries are used in daily life. Invariably they are single use alkaline batteries. Sometimes people buy rechargable batteries but have problems with losing chargers or not being able to wait for the battery to recharge. Entery Bettery, a company setting up rechargeable battery dispensers in Portland and Seattle, USA. The idea is that you buy an initial pack of rechargable batteries for $10 a four pack, and then return the batteries to replace with recharged units for $2.50 a four pack. This is a similar concept to the "Swap-N-Go" concept for LPG (barbeque gas) cylinders in Australia. A great idea. My only reservation is that the batteries can't be recharged (as far as I can tell) by the purchaser. You have to return the battery to get it recharged. I would have thought that a great additional offering would be to sell home rechargers too, giving people who are happy to wait that option. It would seem to make the offering better rounded, and less reliant on Bettery. The dispensers are debuting at Whole Foods stores. Relevant site: Bettery: http://betteryinc.com/
A really interesting report done by WRAP into the psychology of buying second-hand goods. A headline finding is: "only 27% of consumer shoppers would have bought their item new if they could not have found it second hand"
Understanding the psychology of buying second hand is very important if we are to encourage a better reuse economy.
Via Anna Evangelista
This article is from August 2011, and so not news. It relates to an Irish mattress recycling company called Envirogreen Recycling. It has apparently developed a "sophisticated mattress dismantling machine" designed by an Irish engineering firm. The details of what the machine does are not revealed in the article or on the company's website. I am very curious as to what the machine actually does. A note of correction for the article: a mattress takes up 23 cubic feet in landfill, not 23 cubic yards. Relevant site: Envirogreen Recycling: http://envirogreenrecycling.com/commercial-mattress-recycling/
Canada-based platform Trashswag offers crowdsourced images and information about salvageable goods nearby. It works by mapping photos and information of salvagable items, either posted by the person them on the verge or passers-by. The idea is to help people reuse items before they are destroyed in landfill or incinerator. Relevant site: Trashswag: http://trashswag.com/
A great story on the business of end-of-life aircraft. The economics are really challenging. Recyclers typically purchase end-of-life aircraft for up to $20m (though typically much less), and then dismantle them to recover parts for resale. That works when fleets are stable, however when there is a large shift in fleets (such as where inefficient aircraft are replaced), then the parts are worth much less. Then the aircraft are recycled for scrap metal. An organisation leading the way here is the Aircraft Fleet Recycling Association. It accredits organisations in dismantling and recycling aircraft, and has a good handle on the industry. At its heart, to make money in dismantling aircraft, you have to know the aviation industry. Very well. Relevant site: Aircraft Fleet Recycling Association: http://www.afraassociation.org/
This is some really clever design thinking for a rapidly urbanising world. It considers all of the space issues that arise from clothing (closets, washing machines, dryers) as well as the waste and logistics issues from the whole clothing industry, and replaces it with a printer. The printer prints out your clothes according to designs you can download using thread cartridges you buy, and then breaks them back down into thread for future reuse. It is a really neat idea for massively disrupting how we think about clothing.
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