This Week in Waste: Top Stories June 13-17

The world is rich in resources. Officials, business owners and municipalities are increasingly working to preserve those resources and turn waste into treasure. Circular strategies were a hot topic for Waste360 readers this week. Here are your top stories.

1. Episode 153: Turning Coffee Waste into Carbon Neutral Energy Drinks
Liz Bothwell

Listen to this NothingWasted! Podcast to hear from Paul Evers, CEO & co-founder of Riff, which is on a mission to “explore and celebrate 100% of the coffee plant’s agricultural value.” The company “loves coffee, and we love our planet. But we don’t love coffee’s impact on our planet, so we’re doing something about it by creating possibilities out of coffee beans and the whole dang coffee plant.”

Listen here.

2. These Cities Are Advancing a Circular Economy
Arlene Karidis

Urban centers span a relatively minute portion of the world, yet they eat into 75% of natural resources and generate over 50% of solid waste and up to 60% of greenhouse gases, according to an Ellen MacArthur Foundation report. But since many cities are rich in resources, and located in highly concentrated areas, they are uniquely positioned to turn this high-consumption and waste pattern around by building circular economy models.

Read the story here.

3. Recycling Itself Cannot Fix the Plastics Issue
Anne Germain

The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) in England announced in December 2018 that the winning International Statistic of the year was 90.5%. This number represents the proportion of plastic waste that had never been recycled based on a paper titled, “Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made.” RSS executive director Hetan Shah stated that the statistics captured the zeitgeist of 2018. If anything, the statistic on plastic appears to have captured an ever-increasing concern about plastic waste.

Read it here.

4. Investors Clamp Down on Corporate Greenwashing
Arlene Karidis

Consumers and environmental groups’ voices are getting louder in their protest of corporate greenwashing, and policy is beginning to make this practice harder. Still, reporting on sustainability practices has not caught up to ensure corporations and other companies with sustainability goals are delivering on those goals.

Read it here.

5. The Recycling Story of a Buenos Aires Village
Arlene Karidis

At a recycling rate of 12 percent Barrio Mugica, with its 40,000 people, is ahead in its region largely because of a three-waste stream collection service – the first such system in Buenos Aires. Named by the village as A Todo Reciclaje (ATR), or “Recycling for All,” the program is a collaboration between Delterra, who builds waste management and recycling systems, the local government, and resident waste workers.

Read it here.