Argentina - Zero Waste In Buenos Aires

BioCycle (May 2008) reports that in late 2005, the City Council in Buenos Aires, Argentina unanimously passed a law, “Integral Management Of Solid Urban Waste, ” a Zero Waste law. The law sets goals and milestones to reduce the volume of municipal solid waste going to landfill disposal. “The first milestone is 30% reduction of waste to landfill by 2010, ” says Cecilia Allen of Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives' (GAIA) Latin America office in Buenos Aires. “That is followed by a 50% reduction by 2012, and a 75% reduction by 2017.

The law bans landfilling of recyclable and compostable waste by 2020. ” The baseline used in the law is the tons of solid waste disposed in 2004 (1.5 million metric tons). Impending closure of two of the three landfills servicing the city and surrounding region helped build political support for the Zero Waste law. CEAMSE (Coordinación Ecológica Area Metropolitana Sociedad del Estado), a joint venture of the government of the Province of Buenos Aires and the government of the City of Buenos Aires, has been managing urban waste in the Greater Buenos Aires region for almost 30 years. It owns the landfills, which receive up to 5,000 metric tons/day of municipal solid waste from the city alone. Garbage collection in Buenos Aires is mostly privatized, with five of the six districts serviced by contractors to the city. Buenos Aires city government services the sixth.

Technorati Tags: Argentina waste prevention zero waste reducing rubbish compost Buenos Aires

USA- Climate report advocates zero waste concept

Stop Trashing the Climate - published by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives and Eco-Cycleprovides - claims that preventing waste and expanding reuse, recycling, and composting programs - that is, aiming for zero waste - is one of the fastest, cheapest, and most effective strategies available for combating climate change. This report offers a roadmap for how to significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within a short period.

Significantly decreasing waste disposed in landfills and incinerators will reduce greenhouse gas emissions the equivalent to closing 21% of U. S. coal-fired power plants. This is comparable to leading climate protection proposals such as improving national vehicle fuel efficiency. Indeed, preventing waste and expanding reuse, recycling, and composting are essential to put us on the path to climate stability.


The report advocates 12 measures:

1. Establish and implement national, statewide, and municipal zero waste targets and plans
2. Retire existing incinerators and halt construction of new incinerators and landfills
3. Levy a per-ton surcharge on landfilled and incinerated materials
4. Stop organic materials from being sent to landfills and incinerators
5. End state and federal "renewable energy" subsidies to landfills and incinerators
6. Provide policy incentives that create and sustain locally-based reuse, recycling, and composting jobs
7. Expand adoption of per-volume or per-weight fees for the collection of trash
8. Make manufacturers and brand owners responsible for the products and packaging they produce
9. Regulate single-use plastic products and packaging that have low or nonexistent recycling levels
10. Regulate paper packaging and junk mail and pass policies to significantly increase paper recycling
11. Decision-makers and environmental leaders should reject climate protection agreements and strategies that embrace landfill and incinerator disposal
12. Better assess the true climate implications of the wasting sector

http://www.stoptrashingtheclimate.org/

Technorati Tags: zero waste waste prevention Stop Trashing the Climate composting climate change recycling incinerator

USA- Heinz Looks to Reuse Potato Peels

PITTSBURGH, Pa. -- The H.J. Heinz Company has declared plans to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2015, and has identified a number of areas in its operations to improve to meet that goal.

Along with reducing energy consumption by 20 percent through efficiencies, Heinz plans to have 15 percent of its energy come from renewable sources.

The company aims to reduce transportation by 10 percent through improving distribution patterns, using fuller truckloads, more direct routes and sending shipments by rail.

Heinz also aims to reduce packaging by 15%, water use by 20% and solid waste by 20 percent. In its agricultural operations, it plans a 15% reduction in carbon emissions, 15 percent reduction in water and five percent improvement in yields by using hybrid tomato seeds that require less water, fertilizers and pesticides.

Various facilities are developing or have such sustainability programs in place. Heinz's Ontario, Ore., facility is working on a program to turn potato peels into biofuels as well as treat and reuse 90% of the water for potato production.

And while a Fremont, Ohio, facility is working on reducing solid waste by 10 %, the company's Dundalk, Ireland, facility recycles 95% of its plastic and 99% of its cardboard, wood and steel.

Technorati Tags: food waste waste prevention Heinz reuse peels climate change reduce packaging

UK - BBC programme about 'Food Waste'

We are a nation that's being force-fed a diet of healthy food messages, but it turns out we have a guilty secret.

Huge amounts of uneaten food are going straight into the household bin. And an awful lot of that is the fruit and veg we're all supposed to be eating more of.

New figures from the government waste agency WRAP lay it bare for the first time.

Householders chuck out 6.7m tonnes of unwanted food every year at a cost to us of £8bn. That's the equivalent of chucking out one bag of food for every three that we buy.

Around 40% of that is fresh fruit and veg - nearly 4.5m apples, and more than 5m potatoes and 1.5m bananas

Go to newsnight Food Waste cip

Technorati Tags: food waste waste prevention food prevention compost newsnight

Europe should stabilise waste production by 2012

Waste production should be stabilized by 2012, said the Environment Committee in a second reading report, adopted on April 8, on a proposal to revise the EU framework directive on waste. The committee voted to reinstate most of Parliament's first reading amendments that were not taken up by the Council, and reiterated Parliament's call for re-use and recycling targets.

Over 1.8 billion tonnes of waste are generated each year in Europe. This amount is growing faster than GDP and less than a third of it is recycled. Some Member States landfill 90% of their municipal waste, others only 10%. In September 2005, the European Commission proposed an overhaul of the 1975 directive, largely to lay down rules on recycling and to require Member States to draw up binding national programmes for cutting waste production.

Binding targets for waste stabilisation, re-use and recycling

In the second reading report by Caroline Jackson, MEPs call for total waste production to be stabilized by 2012, compared to the 2009 position. Member States are asked to establish waste prevention programmes not later than five years after the revised directive's entry into force and to determine appropriate specific targets to achieve the 2012 target and further significant reductions in waste generation by 2020. MEPs also call for targets for reuse and recycling.

By 2020, re-use and recycling rates should be increased to a minimum of 50% by weight for household waste and a minimum of 70% by weight for construction and demolition waste and manufacturing and industrial waste. Member States with less than 5% recycling in either category or no official figures would be given an additional 5 years to reach the targets.

Technorati Tags: Europe waste prevention reuse targets waste production stabilize+waste

USA - Reusable Envelopes approved by USPS

Reusing envelopes is almost impossible when they come stamped, marked, sealed and addressed. But this week, ecoenvelopes received the first ever approval from the USPS for their gainful little invention - an envelope that's engineered to be sent two times as opposed to once (not the most original of ideas, think Netflix, but we won't knock an eco-wise, effective product when we see one). Eliminating the need for reply envelopes is an eco feat all of its own, but these bearers of news are also constructed from post consumer waste material and paper from sustainably managed forests. We're still biding our time for the perpetually reusuable envelope to be developed, but in the meantime, let's send the right message in an ecoenvelope.

From http://ecofabulous.blogs.com/

Technorati Tags: reusable envelopes waste prevention USPS reuse

UK - London launches plastic bag free day for Londoners

The Mayor of London has called on Londoners to reuse their plastic bags and say 'no' to accepting new plastic bags. On average, Londoners use over 37 million new plastic bags each week - a weekly habit that adds to an annual total of 2.2 billion new plastic bags in the capital. To help Londoners on their way Recycle for London and thelondonpaper were handing out 10,000 free reusable cotton bags on Oxford and Regent Street, London's main shopping locations.At the campaign launch in Oxford Circus this morning the Deputy Mayor of London, Nicky Gavron, was joined by media partner thelondonpaper to encourage Londoners to use a reusable bag as well as reusing the plastic bags that they already have, instead of putting them in the bin where they will end up on landfill sites - this is a real waste of resources, causes harmful pollution and contributes to climate change. The Recycle for London campaign encourages Londoners to reduce, reuse and recycle their rubbish.

The campaign aims to remind Londoners that creating less rubbish must also be a long-term aim. The majority of the 2.2 billion new plastic bags received by Londoners each year end up in landfill and it is estimated that each bag can take up to 400 years to breakdown. If every Londoner cut out just one in every five of the new plastic bags they receive it would save almost 11,000 tonnes of carbon emissions - the equivalent of taking over 3,375 cars off the road for a year.

Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said: "I am giving my full support to this Recycle for London and thelondonpaper campaign, which will give away 10,000 free reusable cotton bags. Londoners don't have to reduce their quality of life to tackle climate change, but we do need to change our wasteful habits. Using fewer plastic bags and remembering to carry a reusable bag is a great way to brush-up your green credentials."

It is a shocking fact that Londoners use 2.2 billion plastic bags per year and of these only only one in 200 bags are being recycled. This is a real waste of resources and the needless use of so many plastic bags causes harmful pollution and contributes to climate change.

From LONDON
Technorati Tags: Recycle for London waste prevention plastic bags Ken Livingstone plastic bag free day London

USA, NY - Paperless houses VS Energy eating monster

The New York Times reports that families are going paperless far faster than businesses; they have to pay the price of ink jet cartridges. “Paper is no longer the master copy; the digital version is,” says Brewster Kahle, the founder and director of the Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library. “Paper has been dealt a complete deathblow. When was the last time you saw a telephone book?”

However while paper consumption is dropping, it is not necessarily a boon for the environment; "While these digital toys reduce dependence on one resource, they increase it on another: energy. Some devices are always plugged in, eating electricity even when not in use, and gobbling huge amounts of power when they are. Others, like digital cameras and laptop computers, use electricity while they are recharging."

From Treehugger

Technorati Tags: paperless waste prevention paper consumption The New York Times reduce paper paperless offices

UK - Milk bag uses 75% less plastic than bottles

Today's Evening Standard reports that the notion has spread to the UK, where supermarket Waitrose will expand sales Calon Wen's organic milk in Eco Paks (they started a trial last summer) that reduce packaging by 75% . Lloyd noted that his milk bags aren't recyclable -- the high-density polyethylene jugs they replace are -- and it is unclear if the Eco Paks will go to the recycler or the landfill.

For those who think milk in bags would be tough to handle, read The Steps to the Usage of the Milk Bag for tips on getting the milk from the bag to your glass or bowl of cereal; hit the jump for a useful video from our pals at Hippyshopper on the same subject. Seems that the bag of milk is gaining popularity; what are your experiences (if any) with the milk bag? ::Calon Wen Eco Pak via ::Evening Standard

From Treehugger

Technorati Tags: milk bags waste prevention Calon+Wen milk bottles less+packaging

UK - M&S and Oxfam Clothes Exchange

Donate an item of M&S-labelled clothing to Oxfam, and get £5 off your next M&S purchase of £35 or more*. Give your clothes a second life and help end poverty with Oxfam.

How it works?
When you bring a bag of donated clothes containing at least one item of M&S clothing to any of Oxfam’s 750 high street shops in the UK and 40 shops in Ireland, you’ll get a voucher for £5 (or €7 in Ireland) off your next purchase of £35 (or €50) or more of clothing, homeware or beauty products in M&S. Vouchers are valid during the calendar month in which they are received.

What's in it for you?
Well, the £5 voucher will do for starters. But this offer is about more than money.

Get a great feeling from recycling clothes you no longer need to raise funds to help people living in poverty. Reduce waste. 1 million tonnes of clothing is discarded every year in the UK alone, a lot of which is of good enough quality to be re-sold or recycled.
Rest assured that we extract the maximum value possible from every single piece of donated clothing.

Oxfam is the only major charity with its own textile sorting facility. So even if we can’t resell your item in the shop you donate it to, the chances are we can reuse it in another way to raise cash.

The M&S and Oxfam Clothes Exchange explained.

Technorati Tags: clothes waste prevention clothes reuse reuse M&S OXFAM

Britain - Clothes swap till you drop!

A perfect storm (as George Clooney fans will remember) is a situation where, by the confluence of specific factors, what might have been a minor issue ends up being magnified out of all proportion. Fashion forecasters are predicting that just such a phenomenon is about to hit consumer Britain. It brings together ethical shopping with bargain hunting, and fast fashion with vintage clothing, with a dash of MySpace-generation online networking added to whip up the waves a little more.

Fashion forecasters are predicting that just such a phenomenon is about to hit consumer Britain. It brings together ethical shopping with bargain hunting, and fast fashion with vintage clothing, with a dash of MySpace-generation online networking added to whip up the waves a little more.

Welcome to 2007's hottest fashion trend: swapping instead of shopping. Clothes swapping parties, which have been bubbling under for several years, are set to leap on to the radar with next month's launch of the first large-scale, user-friendly swapshop, Visa Swap. The credit card company Visa and TRAID (Textile Recycling for Aid and International Development) have honed the woolly notion of swapping clothes with friends into a high-fashion swapping event. The idea works like this: from May 31, swappers will be able to drop off clothes at a central-London location, where they will be assessed for value and the swapper given points on a "credit card" in return. Two weeks later, the doors to the swapshop will open, and swappers can return to spend their points on each other's clothes.

"There is a real feelgood factor to swapping" says Poppy Clark, 27, a fashion student and swap devotee, who has been holding swaps with her friends and sisters for five years. "When you're a poor student and you go shopping, even in Primark, there's always the guilt that you shouldn't be spending on clothes you don't really need and which won't last. Not to mention thinking about the conditions the clothes were made in. With swapping, you're free from all of that."


"Swishing" - the more aspirational name given to swap parties organised by Futerra. Futerra, says Shea, is full of women in their 20s and 30s who "are passionately committed to saving the planet, but don't want to do it in bad clothes".

The swapping craze has been gathering momentum in America for some time. Swapping is also burgeoning online. Fashion stylist Judy Berger founded the clothes swap and re-sale website WhatsMineIsYours.com in 2004; within three weeks it had 2,000 members.

Visa Swap aims to overturn the image of swapping as one step up from jumble sales. Celebrities such as Mischa Barton, Naomi Campbell, Peaches Geldof, Sadie Frost, Lily Cole and Kelly Osborne are donating clothes; style advisors will be on hand to help with alterations and customisation.

From Friday May 18, 2007, The Guardian

Technorati Tags: swishing waste prevention clothes swap reuse TRAID

USA - Tap water instead of plastic water

Traditionally, up to 25,000 plastic water bottles are given out during Olympus Fashion Week at Bryant Park. But this year, in an effort to "green" the show, participants will be given reusable liter-sized non-toxic aluminum water bottles which have been specially prepared backstage and hold nothing but the finest NYC tap water.

Let's just hope they use a filter on the tap (although it was not mentioned in the press release). Otherwise we may never know if the grimaces on the audiences faces are due to the garments on the runway or the

From Treehugger

Technorati Tags: Olympus Fashion Week waste prevention NYC bottled water tap water

Wales - Rocket composter for university waste

A new composting machine is turning students' leftovers at Aberystwyth University into food for plants.

BBC Online reports that the Rocket composter can cope with 1.2 tonnes (1,750 litres) per week and takes just 14 days to convert waste from cafes into garden food.

Leftovers from kitchens at the students' union and the nearby arts centre are being combined with waste wood to form the compost. The university said the food would normally have been sent to landfill.

The new machine was bought with a £25,000 grant from the Welsh Assembly Government, and the compost it is producing is being used to nourish plants and shrubs at the university.

Pro vice-chancellor John Harries said: "This is the latest in a series of developments that emphasise the university's commitment to enhancing its environmental performance." This is just one of a number of recycling projects the university is involved in.

For more about the rocket go to: http://www.quickcompost.co.uk/

Technorati Tags: London waste prevention Aberystwyth compost the+rocket

London - banning throw away shopping bags

London’s council leaders have today approved a Bill that will seek to ban the distribution of free, throw away shopping bags in the capital.

The decision follows a London-wide consultation organised by London Councils on its proposals to introduce either a levy or a ban on throw away shopping bags in the capital. Over 90 per cent of people responding to the consultation called for action on shopping bags; nearly 60 per cent felt strongly enough to call for an outright ban.

Leading environmental organisation Waste Watch, and global social change movement We Are What We Do, have also today announced their support for the proposals.

In the UK, over 13 billion bags are issued every year to shoppers – roughly 220 per person every year.

For London, a conservative figure based on population size would indicate Londoners use at least 1.6 billion bags per year – although the number of tourists in the capital suggests that this figure is probably much higher.

While some of these bags will be re-used once or twice, official figures reveal that only one in 200 of these are recycled, meaning that billions of shopping bags are sent to landfill every year. Many of these will be plastic bags that can take over 400 years to break down.

Photo from www.midamericanenergy.com

Technorati Tags: London waste prevention carrier bags reuse bag ban

London, Hackney - Real nappy support

Technorati Tags: nappies waste minimisation waste prevention diapers real nappies hackney cotton nappies

Tanzania - businessmen jailed for selling plastic bags

Resource Recycling reports that eight businessmen in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania were arrested and convicted to three-month jail sentences for selling plastic bags in the East African country, where bags thinner than 0.03-millimeters thick are outlawed.

The country's National Environmental Management Council's (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) deputy managing director, Bonaventure Baya, said that the sting was ''strategically designed to spot dishonest businesspeople and industries manufacturing the plastic bags in contravention of the government ban.'' Baya further appealed to the public to end the manufacture, circulation and use of the bags.

Technorati Tags: plastic ban waste prevention bag free Tanzania jail plastic bag ban

USA- Bring Your Own: Reusable Bags, Cups & More

From Treehugger

40,337,604,793 plastic bags have been consumed this year as I start writing this post, and 2007 is not even a full month old yet. At over 1 million bags per minute, using and chucking disposable cups and plastic bags can add up to nearly 700 pieces of plastic a year per person -- yikes! Bring Your Own urges you to consider this fact and take a few quick 'n easy steps to reduce the flood of plastic into the waste stream. At the top of the list: bring your own reusable bag for shopping. The idea was the big winner in our New Year's Resolution poll, so we know people are thinking about it, but it doesn't stop there; coffee cups are a big contributor to disposable waste as well, as a result of the scene above, which goes about like it looks: we buy, enjoy the contents and discard paper coffee cups with plastic lids in about the time it takes five million more plastic bags to get tossed (about five minutes). So check out Bring Your Own to learn more about reducing waste, avoiding disposables for everyday things, and kicking some serious plASStic. Now that this post is about to be published, the running total is up to 40,349,570,901 plastic bags that have been consumed this year. What are you going to do about it? ::Bring Your Own via ::Green Girls Global

Technorati Tags: USA waste prevention plastic mugs reuse bring+your+own

London, Hackney - Real Nappy Video

Here a video from the Hackney Real Nappy Network produced by Currentn UK Limited



More about Hackney Real Nappy Network here

Technorati Tags: Hackney waste prevention real nappies reuse cloth nappies

Canada - Compost action due to waste collection strike

We are into the end of the first week of the garbage strike in Vancouver and instead of the standard photo of smelly garbage mounting up and rats breeding, we have...people composting! It's a fact; all of the big hardware stores in town have almost sold out of composters. Amidst warnings that the strike could go on for weeks, City officials are encouraging residents to step up their recycling efforts and people seem to be getting the message. Since about half of household garbage is organic material, much of it can be composted in a backyard composter. For those in apartment buildings, of which there are many in Vancouver, things could be a bit more difficult. However condominium dwellers are being urged to get into the habit of rinsing out recycleable tins and jars as a start.


Tips issued by the City for ways to reduce garbage during the strike are an environmentalist's dream: separating wet garbage, crushing cans,adding grass clippings to the compost, letting grass grow longer, and put fruit and vegetable waste in the compost. Whilst no one wants to see a long and destructive strike, necessity is the mother of invention and this labour dispute may inspire more people to think about garbage and take some small steps towards reducing it on a long term basis

From Treehugger

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Scotland -The RoWAN Waste-Free Households

The RoWAN Waste-Free Households Project worked with 100 volunteer households who aimed to become as close to waste-free as possible. Over a 12-month period (March 2003 – March 2004). A structured volunteer support programme was put in place which was backed up by strong ongoing two-way communication between the project officer and each household. Support was informative, practical and motivating, and helped the households achieve:

• a reduction in the amount of waste sent to landfill by 58% (see graph);
• a reduction in total waste arisings by 22%;
• an increase in their recycling rate to 49%;
• an increase in their composting rate to 77% of all organic waste.

How much did people landfill each week?
(average per household)

The volunteer support programme consisted of:

• Waste guide – A-Z information on reduce, reuse and recycle in Ross-shire;
• Newsletter – regular bulletins on topical information and feedback on progress
to date;
• Subject-specific leaflets – e.g. on storage, reduction, materials;
• Project officer advice – available over the phone, in the office, by email, etc;
• Information feedback – on achievements to date – can be given for individual
household and also for the refuse collection vehicle (RCV) route as a whole;
• Incentives – e.g. competitions, certificates, targets, tokens.

The end of project Final Report and Best Practice Guide (which gives full details of the
methodology used for the project) are available by emailing
project.manager@rowanweb.org.uk

More from roWAN

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