waste

As You Sow’s work reveals that Coca-Cola and Nestlé Waters North America have started to push for extended producer responsibility (EPR) laws for post consumer packaging.

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Turning computers off, or configuring them to sleep when inactive, can be a very simple way to reduce energy use. But because the computer manufacturing process itself has a significant environmental impact, arbitrarily turning computers off when idle is not necessarily the best way to amortize this impact over the life of the equipment.

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Ontario’s JBI has signed an exclusive 10-year agreement with Rock-Tenn to convert waste plastic from paper mills and Materials Recovery Facilities into liquid fuels. JBI’s patent pending, energy efficient Plastic2Oil technology offers plastic waste to oil conversion efficiency as high as 90% with the resulting off-gas used to power the process.

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In another stunning reversal, our American government appears to have taken another step away from its sworn duty to protect the American people in its continuing effort to better serve the corporate interests that are paying for their political campaigns. Last week, the US EPA announced that exhaust streams from coal-fired power plants injected underground [...]

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Target partners with EcoSet, an environmental production company founded as a response to the environmental impact of the film production industry, for commercial shootings.

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By Jonathan L. Gelbard, Ph.D. From the standpoint of a conservation scientist who understands what’s really ‘green’ (in terms of measurable benefits for the health of ecosystems and people) vs. what’s merely greenwash (a claim with little if any measurable positive impact), the world of sustainable business is ripe with opportunity to help companies raise [...]

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What do you think happens when you toss a plastic drink bottle in the recycle bin? Another gets made from it? Sadly, that hasn’t historically been true. If that plastic is repurposed it is more likely to end up as a fleece jacket or piece of treated lumber than a new bottle. But, bottle to [...]

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Server underutilization is a major barrier to energy efficiency. Most large IT departments have been trying to improve server utilization for some years, primarily through the use of server virtualization technology. But many of these efforts have stalled for a number of reasons including financial constraints, organizational politics, and a shortage of sufficiently skilled IT staff.

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This post is part of a series on Stakeholder Engagement sponsored by Jurat Software. By Mike Watson
, Director of Dell Take Back Programs If consumers and organizations have been reluctant to recycle their outdated computers in the past, we can hardly blame them. Data destruction is a critical issue, and until now the only standards [...]

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by David Jaber Benchmarking doesn’t require site assessments, as the Orchard Hotel and Xanterra examples in Part 1 show.  We just need the data. For example, a state in the Western US wanted to look at the comparative environmental performance of five plants in one of its most prominent industry sectors.  They already had data [...]

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GM grabbed the spotlight in the sustainable vehicle field last year when its newly launched gas-electric Chevy Volt was named Motor Trend’s North American Car of the Year, and the company has been taking some solid steps to back up its green cred by improving conservation programs at its facilities. GM already has a landfill-free [...]

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I recently had a chance to chat with Carl Eckersley, Director, Environmental Product Stewardship, Personal Systems Group, at HP.  He provided insight not only on designing for environmental sustainability at HP by taking account the entire life cycle (LCA) of the product, but also how the electronics industry has joined forces to push forward the human dimension of sustainability. [...]

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The non-profit ForestEthics ranked twelve financial and communications firms after gauging how their operations—especially those pesky mailers—affected forests. Sprint scored an A.

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By: Matt Courtland The Green Committee, which I founded and lead at the software company where I work, has been developing an initiative for zero waste. Last week I met with our building’s facilities manager to discuss the partnership the committee has forged with EcoMovement Consulting & Hauling. They are a local startup who will soon [...]

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The challenge for a more mainstream supermarket like Albertsons is to bring conservation and recycling topics home to a clientele that may be less inclined to press for changes than a Whole Foods shopper.

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Earlier this month at Sustainable Brands ’11,I interviewed Eric Ostern, Unilever’s Senior Manager of Corporate Responsibility and Community Relations, about the company’s Sustainable Living Plan. In my wrap-up, I noted that I had two questions left unanswered. Lucky for me — and you — the answers landed in my inbox yesterday. Here they are: 3P: [...]

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London businesses hoping to fit their offices with new equipment need look no further than Ourgreendistrict for their needs. Ourgreendistrict was the brainchild of local law firm Olswang LLP, developed in partnership with inmidtown. Their aim was to foster closer ties and create a platform where local business communities could become greener and save money. Ourgreendistrict [...]

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CWA found that the biggest source (49 percent) of litter is fast food. The five most significant sources were McDonalds, Burger King, Seven Eleven, Starbucks and Wendy’s. Up to 31 percent, according to CWA’s findings, of the trash collected could be eliminated by reusable alternatives.

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By: Jeremy Seifert For many years now, I have fed my family food from the dumpster. It’s not because I can’t afford to shop at grocery stores like other, normal folks. It’s because supermarkets across the nation toss perfectly good meats, cheeses, eggs, and produce into the trash every, single day. So I dumpster dive, [...]

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Last Thursday California joined a unique book club, which already includes 16 other states. This book club doesn’t celebrate the release of new books, but actually promotes the disappearance of one. This is still a celebration because we’re talking about a book that is redundant and wasteful, and yet about 6 million Californians receive a [...]

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DHL Supply Chain is adding a new offering to its Go Green menu of services, a dedicated waste and recycling arm in the United Kingdom, called DHL Envirosolutions. The service aims to help businesses reduce their carbon footprint and meet environmental and sustainability targets. It’s a full package of environmentally-related services, sort of a one-stop enviro [...]

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Biodegradable products are becoming more and more common these days.  Just when you thought we were heading in the right direction, it turns out the very biodegradable products meant to help the us and planet, may actually be contributing to climate change. That’s right, those corn based plastic cups, potato based utensils, or bamboo based [...]

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South Africa needs houses, and coal mining waste should be recycled. Enter Anglo American, a mining company which is using its eMalahleni water reclamation plant in Mpumalanga province, South Africa to turn mining waste (gypsum) into houses. The plant turns up to 200 tons of gypsum a day into bricks. The gypsum turned into bricks [...]

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Bloomberg Businessweek reported last week that USPS is on the verge of bankruptcy. There are many reasons for that, but one thing I find disturbing is that USPS’ plan to raise its falling revenues is mainly based on sending you more junk mail and convincing banks and other businesses to keep sending you paper bills. [...]

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Less than one percent of 34 rare metals studied in a UN Environmental Program (UNEP) report are recycled. Less than a third of 60 metals studied have end-of-life recycling rates above 50 percent, but less than one percent of 34 rare metals are recycled. Overall recycling rates are “discouragingly low,” according to the report. Lead, [...]

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HP’s recently released CSR report touts a variety of accomplishments worthy of praise. The company has manufactured over one billion ink cartridges that contain some degree of post-consumer recycled plastic among other things. For example, HP replaced the 100 percent virgin fiber in HP consumer photo paper with 100 percent recycled fiber that contains a [...]

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Join BBMG’s Mitch Baranowski and gDiapers founder Jason Graham-Nye. In the interview, Graham-Nye looks back on gDiapers’ “epic journey,” and explains how the company’s success has been fostered by its dedication to a triple bottom line of people, planet and prosperity.

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Last week, Amazon joined the array of companies that offer an electronic trade-in program. To trade in an electronic device, a customer can click a “trade-in” button on Amazon.com, then print out a pre-paid shipping label in order to ship the device to Amazon for free. After Amazon receives the device, the customer receives credit [...]

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Plastics from single serving water bottles, or grocery bags accumulating in the world’s oceans have long been in the spotlight as eco villians. Initially, biodegradable and compostable plant material based bottles seemed to be the cure for this convenience quandary. But beyond the simple math of eliminating petroleum as source material, there’s a problem: Most [...]

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The following case study is part of a project by MPA students at the Presidio Graduate School on information management technology and policy. You can read the rest of the series here. By Amy Hammes, Waste Warrior Food grown in the United States is abundant, cheap and has allowed for unprecedented prosperity. These factors have [...]

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