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The UK paper industry has lent its voice to the growing clamour for action over the collapse in demand for waste material from Chinese recyclers, urging the government to bolster domestic UK recycling capacity to help limit the risk of a repeat of the current crisis. Demand for waste paper, cardboard, plastics and metals has collapsed in recent weeks with many of the Chinese recycling firms that dominate the global industry refusing to buy material from the UK and Europe amidst fears a recession will dampen demand for its products. The price of a tonne of cardboard has reportedly collapsed from ... |
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Aluminum has always played a large role in the recycling game. If we were to recover 75 percent of the aluminum cans we throw away, recycling them instead, we would save 11.8 million metric tons of carbon generated to produce new cans. Though steel and iron were recycled before aluminum, this infinitely recyclable metal, was the source of a 1968 Reynolds pilot can-recycling program which was a significant step in starting the consumer recycling movement. Since this initial program, recycling has certainly spread. We now have bins in our offices and pick up at our homes. At the same time, across ... |
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Organic wastes should be reused in the environment in a safe and economical manner. Cambi`s solution is based on a heat treatment of the waste, without the addition of air (anaerobe process), so that the most easily degradable substances dissolve in water. The liquid phase is used for the production of biogas or as a carbon source for a biological wastewater treatment plant. Alternatively, the entire waste mass can go through a digestion process after hydrolysis in order to produce a maximum amount... |
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Shredding of waste wood from industries and parks. Our SD-1360 and SD-1430 are developed for pulverising wood waste as well as organic waste from garden and parks. These machines have a 354 to 428 hp Mercedes engine. A digital computer secures that the capacity is utilized in the best possible way and thereby optimizing the operation economy. The SD range can shred material up to 150 mm in diameter and has a capacity up to 280 m³/h. The important thing is that the material is shredded in a way that ... |
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Around 1.5 million tonnes of container glass were recycled in the UK in the past twelve months to June 2008, 200,000 tonnes more than a year earlier. However, although there was an increase in the amount of cullet going into remelt applications – including domestic container manufacture, glass wool and export – the majority of the increase was absorbed by the aggregates market. Moreover, the amount of cullet used by the UK container manufacturing industry remains substantially below the peak ... |
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In June 2007, Toronto`s City Council approved the “Target 70” plan to achieve 70 percent diversion by 2010. Target 70 includes construction of two, 55,000 metric tons/year anaerobic digestion plants to process residential source separated organics (SSO). City Council says that the digester facilities, along with adoption of single stream recycling and a pay-as-you-throw funding system, will enable the city to meet its goal of 70 percent solid waste diversion - and extend the life of its Green Lane ... |
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Consumers are an ephemeral bunch. They love their television sets, cell phones, computers, MP3 players and any other electronic equipment that enriches their daily lives. Yet they throw them away with such abandon that 50 million tons ends up discarded every year around the world, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. Most of this electronic waste (e-waste) ends up in landfills where its toxic substances leach into the surrounding environment. Some television monitors, for instance, contain up to four pounds of lead, a toxin that can cause brain damage in children. Other toxic ... |
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As part of its strategy to reduce food waste, WRAP is calling for proposals from food industry partnerships to develop innovative solutions to food waste throughout the retail supply chain and in the home. With food production and consumption accounting for 18% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions, and overall food waste thought to be around 18 – 20 million tonnes, WRAP is building on its existing drive to reduce household food waste by extending the scope of its work to make better use of resources all the way through the supply chain, from manufacture, distribution and back of store. As ... |
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Mayor of London Boris Johnson has said that London needs about 300 more waste management facilities to cope with the effects of climate change. He launched a draft consultation document entitled London Climate Change Adaptation Strategy last week. The document highlighted the possibility of climate change affecting the type and quantity of waste the city produces, and suggested that collection services were also vulnerable to extreme weather conditions. Johnson hopes to encourage more facilities such as the east London based Bywaters materials recycling facility and the Closed Loop Recycling plant. Extreme ... |
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One of the largest providers of waste management services in the Bay area is facing penalties from the US Environmental Protection Agency, after being been found liable for numerous violations of the Clean Water Act. The company, California Waste Solutions, provides waste management services for large portions of Oakland and San Jose. US Environmental Protection Agency inspectors found evidence California Waste Solutions violated its permit and discharged waste and other pollutants into nearby waterways in three locations for nearly 5 years. "The EPA requires companies to take simple, ... |
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In June, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) joined with Eco-Cycle and the Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance (GAIA) to release Stop Trashing the Climate, a report documenting the link between climate change and unsustainable patterns of consumption and wasting. Authored by Brenda Platt of ILSR, with coauthors Eric Lombardi of Eco-Cycle (Boulder, Colorado) and Dave Ciplet of GAIA, the report concludes that preventing waste and expanding reuse, recycling and composting programs - that is, ... |
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Exports of recovered materials for recycling overseas have grown at a rapid pace over the past decade. In 2007, 4.7 million tonnes of recovered paper and half a million tonnes of recovered plastics were exported. The principal destination for these exports was China. The environmental benefits of domestic recycling are well understood. However, one question often asked in respect of exports is whether the benefits of recycling are outweighed by the emissions associated with transporting the material ... |
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The US Department of Energy (DOE) will unveil The Art of Recycling: The Coolest Show in Town, a special exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C.. Students, institutions, utility companies, private organizations, and individual artists will feature old refrigerators transformed into artistic displays as part of DOE's ENERGY STAR® Recycle My Old Fridge Campaign. The exhibit runs from August 25 - September 2. "This event allows participants to express their creativity while bringing attention to the millions of wasteful refrigerators still in use," DOE Assistant Secretary ... |
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Waste reduction policies should concentrate on reducing the high levels of commercial waste instead of focusing solely on consumers. The House of Lords Science Committee has called on Government to restructure local authority waste targets to allow them to address commercial and industrial waste. In a report entitled Waste Reduction, the committee said ministers must also take steps to ensure more is being done at a national level to encourage all businesses to reduce waste and to introduce true individual producer responsibility. The VAT system could also be amended to introduce variable ... |
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clean-up team has safely destroyed the first of the major hazards from the experimental fast reactor programme at Dounreay, Scotland. They took more than 1500 tonnes of radioactive liquid metal from the Prototype Fast Reactor and turned it into harmless salt water. It is a milestone in the site clean-up, representing the first of the major hazards to be cleared since the decision was taken a decade ago to close down the site. Attention will now turn to cleaning the out the last few tonnes of residue still inside the reactor circuits to allow the whole system to be cut up safely and disposed ... |
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nvironmental Secretaries from all ten US - Mexico border states met this week in Hollywood, Calif., to sign the Tire Initiative Letter of Understanding, which implements tire pile prevention measures and strives to eliminate tire piles public health risks. To date, 4 million tires have been removed by Border 2012 Program Partners. The Border Governors Conference features representatives from California, Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. The Tire Initiative is a joint partnership by the US Environmental Protection Agency and Mexican... |
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New research from the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has found four main barriers which stop people recycling more. The study outlines a series of simple steps to help local authorities overcome these. In the last ten years recycling rates have increased from 7% to 33% and two thirds of English households are now committed recyclers but this study shows there is great potential for those numbers to go higher if barriers can be overcome. The study found that the barriers are: Physical - when containers for collecting recycling are unsuitable; when there is no space for ... |
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Republic Services of Southern Nevada, the current operator of the Sunrise Mountain Landfill located in Clark County, Nev., has agreed to construct and operate a comprehensive remedy for the site and to pay a US$1 million civil fine in order to resolve alleged violations of the Clean Water Act, the Justice Department and US Environmental Protection Agency announced last week. The consent decree, filed in US District Court in Las Vegas, requires Republic Services of Southern Nevada to implement extensive stormwater controls, an armored engineered cover, methane gas collection, groundwater monitoring, ... |
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Moves to cut waste, increase recycling, and reduce landfill are continuing to deliver results, according to the latest figures. The provisional municipal waste statistics, published on Thursday, have been welcomed by Environment Minister Joan Ruddock as evidence that the efforts of local authorities and householders are paying off. Municipal waste includes household waste and recycling, as well as waste from parks, public gardens, beaches, civic amenity sites and clearance of fly tips. The latest findings, which cover the period from October to December last year, include: Household waste ... |
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The latest place where we have discovered high tech toxic trash causing horrendous pollution is in Ghana. Our analysis of samples taken from two electronic waste (e-waste) scrap yards in Ghana has revealed severe contamination with hazardous chemicals. The ever-growing demand for the latest fashionable mobile phone, flat screen TV or super-fast computer creates ever larger amounts of obsolete electronics that are often laden with toxic chemicals like lead, mercury and brominated flame retardants. Rather than being safely recycled, much of this e-waste gets dumped in developing countries. Previously, ... |
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M&S has announced that it has achieved an 80% reduction in the total number of food carrier bags used since the UK-wide launch of carrier bag charging in early May. This means that M&S customers have used over 70 million less plastic bags in the last ten weeks alone. With all profits from the 5p charge going to charity, in the same period, over GBP 200,000 has been raised for M&S' environmental charity partner, Groundwork. The money is being invested in creating or improving 'Greener Living Spaces' such as parks, play areas and gardens. From this funding, five projects are already ... |
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MIT`s cogeneration plant, which provides most of the electricity, heat and air conditioning for the campus, could get even more efficient if a team of students` project to harness surplus heat works as expected. Andy Muto and Daniel Kraemer, graduate students in mechanical engineering, and Bryan Ho, a graduate student in materials science and engineering, have been working together on a thermoelectric system that could be installed in a hot-water pipe, or in exhaust flues at the plant, to get some extra electric power from heat currently going to waste. Thermoelectric devices are solid-state .. |
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The audience for this guide is anyone who works in the metal scrap recycling industry-employers, employees, safety professionals, and industrial hygienists-should read this publication. This guide can help you identify and manage the hazards associated with exposure to various metals and processing chemicals and with related processes and equipment used in metal scrap recycling operations. Why is this guide important? Metal scrap recycling, also called secondary metal processing, is a large industry ... |
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Every year people buy thousands upon thousands of electrical equipment in the UK alone. Every year British people then throw away thousands of electrical items and why not. Since the introduction of the WEEE directive on 1 July 2007 home uses have been able to take their old electrical equipment to the local council house hold waste recycling centre for recycling. All county councils in the UK now have WEEE recycling solutions set up for the equipment arriving at their household waste recycling ... |
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Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi last week declared that the waste crisis that has plagued Naples for months is over. Visiting the town on Friday, he said the piles of rotting garbage that had filled the streets were gone but a permanent solution to the problem of the area`s waste could take several years. According to an official statement released on Friday, police have also seized eight mafia-controlled landfill sites and charged 17 suspects with environmental damage, illegal waste trafficking and criminal association with the mafia. The crisis first began in spring last year when piles ... |
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INEOS, the world's third largest chemical company, announced this week that it is aiming to produce commercial quantities of bioethanol fuel from biodegradable municipal waste within around two years. INEOS' new technology will produce bioethanol in large quantities from municipal solid waste, organic commercial waste and agricultural residues amongst other things. According to Peter Williams, INEOS Bio CEO, "In North America and Europe we will see around 10% or more of petrol (gasoline) being replaced with bioethanol. Our technology will make a major contribution to reducing greenhouse gases ... |
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A new ISO International Standard will assist the emerging worldwide market for plastic recovery and recycling. Because plastic products are traded internationally and many of the plastic resin manufacturing companies and industrial users are multinational companies, the arrival of ISO 15270:2008, Plastics - Guidelines for the recovery and recycling of plastics waste, is particularly opportune. ISO 15270:2008 has been developed to assist all plastics industry stakeholders in the development of : a sustainable global infrastructure for plastics recovery and recycling a sustainable market ... |
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The number of beverage cartons recycled in Europe has increased notably in 2007. Europeans recycled close to 330,000 tonnes of beverage cartons in 2007, representing 32% of total volume, an improvement by 7% over 2006. "Our industry is committed to increase recycling levels of our beverage cartons. This is why we encourage collection schemes through partnerships with local authorities and drive innovation for our products", said Christian Verschueren, ACE Director General. In the UK, an initiative launched in 2007 between the beverage carton industry association ACE-UK2 and local authorities ... |
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Trash is a pervasive but unnoticed part of our lives. The great irony of waste management is that even the most efficient and well-run waste collection programs remain out of sight, ignored by the public that they serve. Only with failure does the omnipresence of trash really come to light. Today, many nations face a looming waste management crisis, as their landfills reach capacity and continue to degrade the environment. But new and innovative waste-collection and construction techniques - far ... |
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A few weeks back, I was writing about CO2-friendly supply chains and saw the hefty list of US companies that the Environmental Defense Fund had helped switch to recycled content in a drive to reduce paper waste across the nation. Now, paper is back under the public eye in fuller force than ever because of its significant climate change footprint. "Paper is a tremendously resource-intensive product to produce," explains project manager Victoria Mills, "and the decomposition of paper in landfills ... |
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