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Kamel first became involved with the community in 1982 when she started an informal school. Since zabbaleen children accompany their fathers on forays to collect garbage from an early age, she designed the school so that attendance is flexible.
Oil and gas companies make far more money churning out new plastic than reusing old. Meanwhile, the public gets the blame, writes Arwa Mahdawi
It turns out that the industry had lobbied states to mandate that the symbol go on every plastic, even if it was not viable to recycle, and evidently even environmentalists approved. The symbol became a green marketing tool, helping convince the public that it was just fine to use all this plastic because it was getting recycled. Meanwhile, it made the stream of plastic even more expensive to separate and process. No wonder it so much of it was shipped to China, where the labor was cheap enough to have people go through it and pick out the valuable stuff, and the environmental standards were poor enough that everything else could be dumped or burned. When China closed its doors, the whole façade fell apart.
This year, the EWWR challenges you to get informed and raise awareness on the huge amount of waste that we all unconsciously generate. We need to make this waste visible in order to make informed decisions when choosing which product to purchase, and take responsibility for our footprint. Producers, consumers, decision-makers, we all can take action to reduce the invisible waste. Extending the life of products by reuse and repair, buying second-hand, renting and sharing products rather than owning them, obtaining an eco-label and joining producer responsibility’s schemes… The list is long! On this page you can find tools to communicate about this year’s theme and ideas for actions. More tools will be uploaded soon, in the meanwhile you can get inspired by two national campaigns carried out by national EWWR Coordinators:
We are a local plastic recycling facility that turns PET, HDPE, LDPE, PP, PS, PLA, PC and ABS plastics into re-usable, plastic intensive, and re-recyclable products. We support plastic free packaging, end engage in citizen science to understand the impacts of plastic on our environment.
Amid growing concerns over global warming, plastic in our oceans and the problems of electronic waste, there are some developing solutions. In Finland Kierrätyskeskus (re-use centres) have been going since the early 1990s. Owned by the city council, but run independently, there are now eight shops in and around Helsinki offering second-hand, repaired and upcycled items. Everything is donated by the public, via drop off centres, or at the shops or via home collection. All profit is used to improve local environmental and waste services.
This incredible cooperative is having an impact in reshaping the society by including most marginalized persons and by fostering economical and environmental sustainability. All these aspects are visible in the video where members explained us how they manage to "raise awareness" and how they are building a more sustainable economic model. But all this started in a very specific moment: the Argentinian 2001 crisis.
Like a regular commercial bank, you open up an account with your local waste bank. Periodically, you make deposits with your non-organic solid waste, which are weighed and given a monetary value, based on rates set by waste collectors. This value is saved in your account from which, like a regular bank, you can withdraw. The basic principles of waste banks remain the same across provinces: collect, save, earn, change behavior, and enjoy a clean neighborhood.
Accelerate the transition towards a circular economy by providing machine learning tools to enable smarter characterisation, ubiquitous tracking and automated sorting of waste.
When I walk, I get inspired by the things that I find in the street. So I’m just walking and collecting. I don’t have high-class friends. Because people know me as the person who just collects things on the street. People feel ashamed when they are with me. When you collect in the street, you look like a street boy or madman.
The Brighton Waste House is the first permanent building in the UK to be constructed from waste, surplus material and discarded plastic gathered from the construction industry, other industries and our homes. The idea, developed with Cat Fletcher of FREEGLE UK, is to test the performance of these undervalued resources over the next few years; the Faculty of Science & Engineering have put sensors in the external walls to monitor their performance.
WRAP works with governments, businesses and communities to deliver practical solutions to improve resource efficiency.
Our mission is to accelerate the move to a sustainable, resource-efficient economy by:
re-inventing how we design, produce and sell products,
re-thinking how we use and consume products, and
re-defining what is possible through re-use and recycling
Our mission is to accelerate the move to a sustainable, resource-efficient economy by:
re-inventing how we design, produce and sell products,
re-thinking how we use and consume products, and
re-defining what is possible through re-use and recycling
The most efficient way to recycle electronics todays is actually the dirty way. Manually unplug the chips of the boards to be reused but they lead to the visual in the following like with mountains of PCB and blackwater stream. The components recycled this way take less energy and bigger reuse value and build the backbone of lowering the cost of electronics products for developing markets.
This equipment was then delivered to places where consumers are expected to take their waste – most often government-approved takeback stations. They found that 19 (6%) of the tracked scrap equipment was exported, including 11 very likely illegal shipments to the countries of Ghana, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tanzania, Thailand, and Ukraine, outside of the EU.
The E-Waste Curse: The deadly effect of dumping E-waste in Pakistan
Pakistan has become an illegal dumping ground for some of the 50 million tons of e-waste created each year. Karachi's poor earn a living from the toxic detritus, but the vicious cycle of consumption could prove fatal.
In Pakistan, the massive arrival of electronic waste has created an informal substance economy that feeds 150,000 people. The country's poor salvage what they can from the cast-offs of the electronic revolution: copper, steel, brass. Nassir is one who has cashed in on the opportunities found in old cables and hard-drives. "It’s a good business. I have more and more work", he says. Yet workers pay the price for a few grams of copper; 4 million people die every year because of electronic waste and recycling workers have the lowest life expectancy in Pakistan. In his recycling shop, Akhbar earns 2€ on a good day. It feeds his family of six, but his health has suffered. "This job is dangerous. It’s very toxic". And the toxic legacy is far-reaching - "It’s a catastrophe...especially for the children", warns Saba, an activist for the WWF. "They will continue to live here and be poisoned, it’s dangerous for them and it’s dangerous for the next generations". In our relentlessly consumerist world, can the global poor be saved from the toxic trade in e-waste?
Pakistan has become an illegal dumping ground for some of the 50 million tons of e-waste created each year. Karachi's poor earn a living from the toxic detritus, but the vicious cycle of consumption could prove fatal.
In Pakistan, the massive arrival of electronic waste has created an informal substance economy that feeds 150,000 people. The country's poor salvage what they can from the cast-offs of the electronic revolution: copper, steel, brass. Nassir is one who has cashed in on the opportunities found in old cables and hard-drives. "It’s a good business. I have more and more work", he says. Yet workers pay the price for a few grams of copper; 4 million people die every year because of electronic waste and recycling workers have the lowest life expectancy in Pakistan. In his recycling shop, Akhbar earns 2€ on a good day. It feeds his family of six, but his health has suffered. "This job is dangerous. It’s very toxic". And the toxic legacy is far-reaching - "It’s a catastrophe...especially for the children", warns Saba, an activist for the WWF. "They will continue to live here and be poisoned, it’s dangerous for them and it’s dangerous for the next generations". In our relentlessly consumerist world, can the global poor be saved from the toxic trade in e-waste?
Tens of thousands of people live in Zabbaleen, on the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt, they all make a living out of recycling the entire capital city’s refuse. Their whole town is practically a giant dump and it provides them with almost everything they need: from kids’ toys to fodder for livestock. Even their pigs play an important part in recycling food waste. Most important of all though, the dump provides livelihoods for the people of Zabbaleen.
Every one of the rubbish collectors plays their own part, gathering, transporting or sorting the rubbish. Collectively, everyone in the community performs a highly efficient job of recycling Cairo’s refuse. This allows the trash town to be self-sufficient and largely independent from the rest of the city. The place has its own rules, everyone is allocated their own patch of Cairo, no one would think of collecting from someone else’s area. Zabbaleen even has an unofficial mayor.
Trash town has its own shops, cafes and a local school for the children. Of course it’s every Zabbaleen parent’s dream for their child to get a good education so they can build a better life elsewhere. More commonly though, the kids start working on the dump at a young age and follow in their parents’ footsteps to become rubbish collectors as well. The people of Zabbaleen do wish their lives weren’t as hard but feel no shame in their occupation. They see their work as socially important and pride themselves in providing for their families. After all, it’s a dirty job but someone has to do it.
Every one of the rubbish collectors plays their own part, gathering, transporting or sorting the rubbish. Collectively, everyone in the community performs a highly efficient job of recycling Cairo’s refuse. This allows the trash town to be self-sufficient and largely independent from the rest of the city. The place has its own rules, everyone is allocated their own patch of Cairo, no one would think of collecting from someone else’s area. Zabbaleen even has an unofficial mayor.
Trash town has its own shops, cafes and a local school for the children. Of course it’s every Zabbaleen parent’s dream for their child to get a good education so they can build a better life elsewhere. More commonly though, the kids start working on the dump at a young age and follow in their parents’ footsteps to become rubbish collectors as well. The people of Zabbaleen do wish their lives weren’t as hard but feel no shame in their occupation. They see their work as socially important and pride themselves in providing for their families. After all, it’s a dirty job but someone has to do it.
New rules could spell the death of a "throwaway" culture in which products are bought, used briefly, then binned.
The regulations will apply to a range of everyday items such as mobile phones, textiles, electronics, batteries, construction and packaging.
They will ensure products are designed and manufactured so they last - and so they're repairable if they go wrong.
It should mean that your phone lasts longer and proves easier to fix.
That may be especially true if the display or the battery needs changing.
It's part of a worldwide movement called the Right to Repair, which has spawned citizens' repair workshops in several UK cities.
The plan is being presented by the European Commission. It's likely to create standards for the UK, too - even after Brexit.
The regulations will apply to a range of everyday items such as mobile phones, textiles, electronics, batteries, construction and packaging.
They will ensure products are designed and manufactured so they last - and so they're repairable if they go wrong.
It should mean that your phone lasts longer and proves easier to fix.
That may be especially true if the display or the battery needs changing.
It's part of a worldwide movement called the Right to Repair, which has spawned citizens' repair workshops in several UK cities.
The plan is being presented by the European Commission. It's likely to create standards for the UK, too - even after Brexit.
Recycling is a complicated system dictated by market demand, price determinations, local regulations, the success of which is contingent upon everyone, from the product-designer, to the trash-thrower, to the waste collector, to the recycling factory worker. We consumers play a much more critical role than we might imagine-- depending on how we use our products and in what shape we throw them away, determines their value and quality post-use....
Recycling is broken. There’s little clarity about what can and can’t be recycled, and the rules change from one city to the next, and sometimes even within the same city. According to the World Bank, we produce 1.4 billion tons of waste a year worldwide, a figure that’s expected to increase to 2.4 billion tons by 2025. Waste is an enormous problem that needs to be addressed if we’re going to prevent the worst effects of climate change. But recycling is the wrong solution.
Don Norman wrote the book on complex design systems. He’s as mystified by recycling as the rest of us.