2010

Selasa, 28 Desember 2010

LAST MINUTE MARKET – a great tool of waste prevention

In the last post we dealt with the worrying amounts of food waste in Europe. In this post we want to present an european fantastic and succesful initiative to reduce the food waste; the Last Minute Market.Last Minute Market (LMM) links shops and producers...

Kamis, 23 Desember 2010

Towards Zero Food Waste in the EU

In Europe an estimated amount of 50% of the food produced is wasted. This changes from country to country and from sector to sector but in the best case not less than 20% of our food ends up as waste. At the same time more than 50 million of Europeans...

Jumat, 10 Desember 2010

Zero Waste to reduce EU dependency on materials

The clever thing about minimising waste and recycling stuff is that we recover the materials and we can use them again instead of having to import them from far at increasing prices.The resources in the world are not only limited; they are also becoming...

Selasa, 30 November 2010

Zero Waste is about minimising the residual waste

In the last post we have explained why a society that manages to recycle 100% of its waste would not necessarily be sustainable. Our goal should be not only to recycle more, but to waste less.Europe imports 5 times more energy and resources than it exports,...

Senin, 22 November 2010

Zero Food Waste

"Taste the Waste" - the trailer from tastethewaste.com on Vimeo.<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/15693148" width="400" height="225" frameborder="0"></iframe><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/15693148">"Taste the Waste" - the trailer</a> from <a...

Jumat, 19 November 2010

Zero Waste - when recycling is not enough

Recycling an aluminium can requires 5% of the energy & material flow than what is necessary to produce a can from virgin materials. Recycling is great! It keeps materials in use, reducing the demand for extracting and producing new materials and...

Rabu, 10 November 2010

The Story of Electronics

Tired of electronic devices that break some months after having bought them? This short film from Annie Leonard explains very well the problem with designing for the dump.The current design of electronic appliances that are hard to upgrade, easy to break and unpractical to repair...

Selasa, 26 Oktober 2010

Zero junk mail in Europe!

The best waste is the waste that doesn’t exist. Prevention of unsolicited mail is one of many ways to prevent waste and many European countries have local prevention measures in place to stop unsolicited mail.Sometimes placing a “STOP unsolicited mail”...

Jumat, 15 Oktober 2010

Florianopolis is hosting the 7th International Conference Zero waste

Florianopolis, October 14, 2010 - The state capital of Santa Catarina was the Brazilian city chosen to host the 7th International Conference on Zero Waste, Zero Waste by the Institute in partnership with Brazil's Zero Waste International Alliance and...

Kamis, 30 September 2010

Example of a Zero Waste company - Interface

Ray Anderson, CEO of the biggest carpet producing company in the world Interface, explains how shifiting a billion-dollar petroleum-based industry into sustainability is not only possible but it is economically and morally rewarding. Since the...

Jumat, 24 September 2010

Europe and organic waste - EU biowaste law needed!

Organic waste –the substance that come from living organisms- represents the biggest fraction of our municipal waste in Europe; between 30 and 50% depending on local conditions. As such, we would expect it to be taken good care of; the carbon present...

Kamis, 16 September 2010

Zero Waste and separate collection

No Zero Waste policy is possible without waste separation.Waste doesn’t exist “per-se”, we create it when mixing our discards. If our discards are separated they are not waste but a resource. This is why the second step in waste management (after having...

Selasa, 07 September 2010

Beverage packaging and Zero Waste

Throwing bottles and other beverage packaging in the bin? What a waste of resources and money! In a Zero Waste society all beverage container would be refilled many times before it would be recycled into a new container.Not many decades ago beverages...

Sabtu, 04 September 2010

New Zero Waste Group in Sicily

On August 31st it was constituted a new Zero Waste local group in Sicily.The Zero Waste Association in Sicily declared its commitment to work for a responsible waste management system in Sicily aiming at increasing waste reduction, reuse and recycling...

Kamis, 02 September 2010

Phasing out single-use plastic-bags

Plastic bags, especially the single-use ones, are slowly leaving us. The good news is that this is happening, the bad news is that the process is too slow and they continue to harm our economies, health and environment.Since their introduction in the...

Rabu, 18 Agustus 2010

Zero Waste practices to reduce waste in the milk and dairy market in Europe

“One litter of milk is produced somewhere, then it has to travel to be packed in often unsustainable packaging hundreds of km away then it needs to travel again to a supermarket so that the consumer can buy it. After short period of use the packaging...