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Waste Not

The latest in the growing number of efforts directed at reducing, repurposing and ultimately eliminating waste in all its forms.

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Driscoll’s Working to Scale Circular Plastics Economy, from Field to Clamshell

Cross-Posted from Chemistry, Materials & Packaging. Driscoll’s leads the produce industry in increasing the circularity of packaging and landfill diversion of agricultural plastics. It’s the first berry company to make public commitments and inject serious funding into innovation — with a goal to create economies of scale.

US Plastics Pact Unveils List of 11 ‘Problematic and Unnecessary’ Materials to Be Eliminated by 2025

Cross-Posted from Chemistry, Materials & Packaging. The US Pact’s brands, retailers and materials manufacturers are seek to develop immediate solutions to the 11 ubiquitous and unrecyclable materials — but the plastics industry is up in arms.

Lidl, Swiss Scientists Developing Circular Food-Preservation Solution

Cross-Posted from Chemistry, Materials & Packaging. New cellulosic bio-coating for fresh produce greatly reduces both packaging and food waste by coating the produce with, well, produce.

Timberland Gives Worn Items New Life Through Timberloop™ Take-Back Program

Timberloop enables Timberland and its community to work together to keep products and materials in circulation for as long as possible — critical to the company’s goal for 100% of its products to be designed for full circularity by 2030.

PCR & Ocean-Bound Plastic Both Have a Place in Sustainable Beauty

Cross-Posted from Chemistry, Materials & Packaging. Big Plastic (and Big Oil) have a five-decade lead and massive economies of scale that will take a little longer to match in terms of costs and simplicity. But working with the right partners and openness to shaking up the status quo is paying off for brands willing to put their principles and profits on equal footing.

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Water Wins: When Sustainability Becomes Part of the Company Culture

Cross-Posted from Organizational Change. “Sustainability is best played together. It's validating to see what we started and see it grow first across the other teams in our plant, and eventually across Lubrizol.” — Kalli Stull

Transforming Plastic Waste into Asphalt: Paving the Way for Sustainable Roads

Cross-Posted from From Purpose to Action: Building a Sustainable Future Together. In order for truly sustainable and circular systems to be realized, every facet of normal life must be re-considered — from the cars we drive to the roads we drive them on.

Biomimicry Institute Awarded €2.5M to Pilot, Scale Decomposition of Textile Waste

The Design for Decomposition initiative is the next step in the Institute’s effort to transform fashion, stopping millions of tonnes of textile waste escaping into the environment each year.

Full-Circle: AZEK Disrupts PVC Recycling by Revolutionizing Takeback

AZEK’s FULL-CIRCLE PVC Recycling program helped it collect approximately 400M pounds of recycled product for reuse in 2020 — with the hope that this entire value-chain approach can disrupt the plastic waste paradigm meaningfully, as AZEK continues to scale up collection and processing.

$1M Innovation Challenge to Fuel Upcycled Solutions to Pomegranate Waste

The Wonderful Company has chosen two winners to create value-added solutions from 50,000 annual tons of pomegranate husks, to reduce food waste and create a more circular supply chain.

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Meeting Your Corporate Circularity Commitments: Welcome to the Age of Advanced Recycling

Cross-Posted from From Purpose to Action: Building a Sustainable Future Together. We believe that the solution to stopping plastic waste is understanding that the material is too valuable to be lost in landfills. We can change what is traditionally considered waste and transform it into a valuable, sustainable resource through advanced recycling.

Scaling Reuse Must Include Consensus on Safety, Design, Considerations for Cities

Cross-Posted from The Next Economy. Cities are complex ecosystems that both exacerbate and suffer from the scale of packaging waste. Standards for key areas of design, safety and city programming minimize risk, drive collaboration and provide trustworthy information for stewarding game-changing reuse strategies.

Composting Consortium Aims to Advance Recovery of Compostable Packaging, Food Scraps

Cross-Posted from Chemistry, Materials & Packaging. The new Consortium — which includes Closed Loop Partners, PepsiCo, the NextGen Consortium, the US Plastics Pact and other value chain players — aims to pilot industry-wide solutions and map tech and infrastructure investment to advance the circularity of compostable packaging in the US.

Conquering E-Waste Will Take More Than Certifications

Companies that are truly invested in building proper circular processes shouldn’t just rely on recyclers’ certifications. There are steps companies can take to strengthen their processes, instead of assuming that recycling is being handled in the right way.

Dramatically Decarbonizing Our World: A Blueprint for Global Circularity

Cross-Posted from From Purpose to Action: Building a Sustainable Future Together. With specific investments, partnerships and innovations all directed at the various steps of the plastics system, Dow’s approach provides a blueprint for how industry can build a foundation for a circular economy and the reduction of emissions.

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How Companies Are Joining Forces, Closing Loops, Optimizing Outputs in Complex Supply Chains

Cross-Posted from Supply Chain. At SB’21 San Diego, innovators in the agriculture, electronics, food and plastics industries shared lessons learned from a variety of initiatives aimed at closing loops and optimizing value chains for a circular, regenerative future.

Starbucks, McDonald’s Direct $10M More to Accelerate Circularity of Food-Service Packaging

Cross-Posted from Chemistry, Materials & Packaging. The NextGen Consortium and its partner brands are expanding their work to advance reusable packaging systems, strengthen recycling and composting infrastructure, and scale foodservice packaging innovation.

Clearing the Way for Action: The Need for Coordination, Consistency to Close the Loop on Plastics

Cross-Posted from From Purpose to Action: Building a Sustainable Future Together. Dow aims to not only provide more sustainable products, but to share our expertise to support people and our planet’s wellbeing. For that expertise to reach its highest potential, it must be backed by international cooperation at every level.

OPLN: Experiential Learning for the Win (or, How to Really Turn the Tide on Global Plastic Pollution)

Cross-Posted from Collaboration. 2019’s Ocean Plastics Leadership Summit transformed not only its host organization and its 165 participants — it catalyzed action around plastic waste at an unprecedented scale. We caught up with Ocean Plastic Leadership Network founder Dave Ford to learn more.

Large-Scale Study from H&M, IKEA Shows Safer Path Forward for Recycled Textiles

Cross-Posted from Chemistry, Materials & Packaging. On completion of a two-year, collaborative industry study, the two companies will share the findings to understand potentials and challenges with recycled textiles from a chemical-contamination perspective and to impact circular economy legislation.

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