In fiscal year 2016, the company generated 560 650 tonnes of waste via its operations worldwide, of which 88% was recycled or incinerated for energy recovery. It achieved an 80% recycling rate in retail, 81% in distribution centres and 80% in its furniture production division IKEA Industry.
Forum PET also notes that the amount of PET being reused in new bottles increased from 24% in 2013 to 26% in 2015. Such developments are described as ‘impressive’ given the tough market conditions for use of recycled PET over virgin material.
Germany’s success with bottle deposits contrasts with the collection systems in some US states. In California, for example, more than 300 bottle redemption centres have shut down in 2016.
The devices, retailing for US$ 159 and nicknamed AirPods, have miniscule lithium-ion batteries secured with ‘a waterfall of glue’ that make recycling ‘very difficult’, according to Wiens. In his teardown report, he jokingly writes: ‘Nurse, hand me the scalpel.’ The AirPods cannot simply be thrown into a shredder - unlike their wired counterparts - because they could catch fire during the process, it is argued.
Costing US$ 41 million, the facility reflects the Qatar National Vision 2030 of boosting sustainability and supporting green technology.
It has been financed by local banks, the government of Qatar as well as a handful of technology partners and suppliers, including Eldan Recycling of Denmark.
An estimated 1.3 billion black plastic food trays are purchased by UK consumers every year, resulting in what Viridor describes as a ‘waste mountain’. They mostly end up in landfill, mostly because the sorting of these plastics is ‘really, really difficult’ due to carbon black used being practically ‘invisible’ to existing sorting solutions.
People who join the scheme will receive vouchers which can be used to purchase items from associated companies, Hashem explains. The app can be downloaded from Google Play for free. The businessman previously set up the company Spear Ink to promote the recycling of printer cartridges.
In 2016, consumer products rated to have the ''best environmental performance'' accounted for 20% of total units sold and 28% of gross profit, according to Electrolux.
The company also claims that it has reduced its total carbon footprint by 27% since 2005 while using 42% less energy per product manufactured.
Some 7.5 billion plastic bags, 10 billion cardboard boxes and 17 billion metres of wrapping tape were used to ship China’s parcels in 2015. ‘In China, an average of 57 million packages were delivered each day in 2015 - compared to the US average of 35 million,’ reports the Cainiao Network.
Some of the equipment, including industrial controls and data destruction devices, will be developed by Converge. Other equipment will be purchased from outside suppliers with which SRS has worked over the years. According to the company’s managing director Rafael Reveles, solutions for destroying and securing data storage hardware need to be portable, scalable, flexible and effective.
Leung and Moucachen formed a partnership last summer to acquire the assets of Entropex including a 180 000-square foot recycling facility located in Sarnia, Ontario. ReVital Polymers Inc recovers post-consumer as well as post-industrial plastics and processes these materials into discrete resin types, tailoring them to specific customer end-use applications.
‘We need legislative muscle to move forward,’ Gerbrandy urged. ‘We are gathered here the day after Trump decided to destroy the climate plan set up by his predecessor Obama. Sustainability has never been a priority for the new US president – let’s just hope that he will be just as effective in his climate policy as in his healthcare policy,’ the MEP told delegates.
The anticipated upturn in earnings when compared to last year’s final quarter is based on ‘higher ferrous scrap demand and metal spread expansion from increased domestic steel mill utilisation’.
Earnings from the company’s steel operations are also expected to climb ‘meaningfully’ from last year’s fourth quarter as a result of higher shipments and metal spread expansion.
They can take up to 500 years to decompose and form one of the largest waste streams dumped in UK landfills, PHS Group says of waste hygiene products. For instance, no less than 3 billion diapers are thrown away every year.
The intense shredding, compressions, and chemical separation steps pioneered by PHS Group are helping to make a difference in the niche market that is often overlooked. Another materials issue that simply burning wet waste is expensive as it has to be heated prior to incineration.
Nyrstar's site will accept a wide range of electronic products such as photovoltaic cells from roof solar panels, alkaline batteries, printed computer circuit boards, cathode ray tubes, mobile phones and related devices.
'Featuring proven state-of-the-art technology available in Europe, Asia and North America, the site will be Australia's first e-waste treatment facility, helping to reduce landfill and recover valuable metal to reuse in consumer products,' says Bertus de Villiers, Nyrstar's vice president metals refining.
Royal Bel Leerdammer produces some 400 tonnes of packaged cheese per week, with more than 2.5 million units of plastic packaging finding their way to supermarkets at home and abroad.
All packages have a pre-printed, self-adhesive label with product information. The sheet on which these labels are stuck represent in total some 50 tonnes of waste per year; owing to a water-resistant silicone layer, the sheets cannot be recycled as a common waste paper.
At the ‘Eco Design - More than Recyclability’ forum scheduled to take place on May 5 at the Interpack trade show in the German city of Düsseldorf, experts will highlight and discuss various related challenges and trade-offs.
Aqua goes on to say: ‘Together, we believe that we have the potential to significantly advance the performance and cycle life of lead-acid battery chemistry in an easily-recycled product.’
One of the reasons for the formation of Aqua Metals was ‘a deep-seated belief that we haven’t seen the best of lead-acid batteries (LABs) yet and that there could be a market for advanced materials, equipment and processes to support a new wave of LABs’, states the company.
It’s a tall order to create all devices from 100% recycled materials, Apple acknowledges. To get a head start the company is dedicated to ‘inventing better ways to reuse and recycle’.
One example of their R&D efforts is Liam, a line of robots that disassembles the iPhone 6, and subsequently sorts the handheld’s components. Currently, there are two Liam lines up and running – they can process almost 2.5 million phones per year.
The innovative plasma furnace designed by Tetronics will allow Cohen’s multi-million dollar recycling plant to process an initial 20 million pounds of e-scrap annually. BlueOak says it will complete the ambitious project in the second quarter of the year.
The company notes that a large volume of circuit boards will be sent from Cohen’s e-scrap shredding operations in Ohio to the Oscola site so it can be transformed into precious metal-bearing copper shot.
‘Recycling plastics containing toxic flame retardant chemicals found in electronic waste results in contamination of new plastic children’s toys and related products,’ INEP insists.
It urges that recycling toxic materials not only risks human and environmental exposure, it also ‘undermines the credibility of recycling’. A batch of Rubic’s cubes was subjected to laboratory testing as the popular puzzle toy is often made from recycled plastics.
