These Companies Convert Waste to Profits

fruit store

Both the food and clothing industry produce tons of waste, waste which has traditionally been dumped into landfills. One company is taking food waste and mixing it with special bacteria to breakdown the food faster to create entirely new products. Another company is sourcing fabrics to create clothing, therefore diverting textiles from entering the stream of waste. Of course, the best way to deal with waste is not to produce any in the first place. Remember: reduce first, reuse second, and if you can’t accomplish the first two then recycle.

Beyond the cutting waste, there’s also the water consumption. “It takes 2,700 litres of water to make one new t-shirt — that’s the same amount the average person drinks over three years. We saw this as an incredible opportunity to make a difference.”

They canvassed local clothing designers and producers to collect gently used or unused textiles that would normally end up in waste streams. They then use the fabric to produce colourful children’s clothing.

While production has been on a small scale to date, Nudnik is poised to scale its operations, Lorusso says. “At a startup demo, we met someone who was going to work for their family business in Bangladesh and was interested in bringing sustainability to the industry.”

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Reducing Waste in Food Courts

fries

Poor waste management presents more than just food waste in food courts located in mass or offices. The waste of time, money, and energy plague most of these food operations. In yet another example of how being more efficient with waste saves more than the planet, the CBC took a look at how some food courts in Canada are dealing with waste. There are easy solutions like better signage and reducing what restaurants need to hand out with every meal and there are more complex solutions like dehydrating the food waste. Of course, the best way to reduce waste in food courts is to bring your own lunch from home.

The food court at Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto used to generate 120 bags of garbage a day. Now it produces just three — despite the fact that it serves noodles, fried chicken, burgers and other fast foods to 24,000 customers a day.

The good news is that far more food court waste is recyclable than you might think. Cromie and his team went through a load of garbage collected at a local food court by CBC News and found 86 per cent of the items in the “garbage” stream could actually have been recycled.

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How to Deal with Problematic Recyclables

Recycling programs still can’t recycle every consumer good, which means that we still need to think about what we put in the blue box (or whatever colour it is where you live). Some plastics are too hard to recycle and some containers too hard to clean. The CBC recently ran a live Q&A (video above) on common concerns around recyclables and what to do about it. Of course, the best thing you can do as a consumer is just buy less stuff and reuse what you can. Reduce, reuse, and recycle are in that order for a reason.

Coffee pods

Why they’re a problem

These contain many parts with different materials that need to be separated. In some places, like B.C., the plastic from plastic pods can be recycled when separated. But in other recycling programs, because the pods are small, pieces of them can drop through mechanical screens at recycling plants and contaminate other streams, especially glass.

What are the options?

The plastic parts can be theoretically recovered, provided everything else is separated out. Some brands let you return these. There are also private programs that recycle them.

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Stick it to Straws

People are more aware than ever before about the damage to our planet caused by plastics. The whole life-cycle of plastics causes harm from collecting non-renewable oils to the long lifetime of most plastic products. Plastic has even been found at the bottom of the Mariana Trench (video below)! Of course, campaigns exist to try to reuse plastic use on a industrial scales while increasing recycling capacity. There is something that you can do today to help reduce plastic waste: skip the straw when you order a drink.

So we wanted to help out reducing the plastic straw. Today. Not waiting for politicians or governments to take action but just by the power of people. So we made a little sticker that can help to change our habits. A friendly one that bar owners can appreciate (because they can buy less straws)

Made by the Lieke. aka Liekeland. Everything she draws looks just..beautiful. I’d highly recommend to check out her website, best enjoyed with a cup of tea.

OK back to it. You can find 3 different stickers in this download kit.
1: Menu Stickers. Small to stick on the drink section on a menu
2: Counter Stickers. Slightly bigger and contain some extra information, perfect to stick on the bar or counter
3: Street sticker. Spread the word on the streets. Simple but effective! (we occasionally sell a few in our bazar)

Read more and get the sticker kit.

Straw

EU Launches Urban Mining Project

construction

The European Union’s newest mining project focuses on urban areas throughout the continent. Their ProSUM project built a database of metals, chemicals, and materials brought into the EU market over the last ten plus years; the idea is that the produced goods can be “mined” again. It’s a really novel way to approach recycle by positioning the recycling process as a mining opportunity. To help companies and organizations understand the plentitude of materials available in existing products (most of which are in landfills or recycling centres) they launched a website the Urban Mine Platform.

The project outcomes are embedded in the European Commission’s (EC) Raw Materials Information System (RMIS) in order to create a more comprehensive and structured repository of knowledge related to primary and secondary sources consumed in the EU, relevant for many stakeholders:

  • Manufacturers can gain confidence about future recycled raw material supplies.
  • Recyclers will have better intelligence about the changes in product types and material content which impact on their business and provide future recovery potential.
  • The mining industry will have greater certainty about the quantities and types of materials needed in the marketplace, mitigating risk and improving profitability.
  • Policymakers will be better informed on raw material supplies, which affect jobs and financial institutions, and how materials are linked to energy consumption.
  • Researchers will have better data quantity, quality, completeness and reliability.

Read more.

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