Day: August 12, 2021

Zero-packaging stores – where rows of jars and refill stations sit full of food that is ready for consumers to fill up containers brought from home – have proliferated in recent years. Yet they tend to be more expensive than their supermarket equivalents and therefore a more aspirational offering – and they may not be as beneficial to the environment as they first seem. Damage to products is the prime concern – packaging protects goods on a journey, saving shoppers valuable pennies and keeps items fresher for longer, too.

UK-based Diem, a startup that aims to combine traditional banking with a service that allows users to sell their unwanted items to the company, has secured $5.5 million in capital via a seed round that was led by Fasanara Capital. Diem provides a user account, a Visa debit card, and financial management tools. However the Fintech firm says it’s differentiating itself from other service providers with its “cash out” feature that lets clients acquire instant credit for unwanted items. Clients may use the Diem app to get an estimate or valuation for their unwanted items such as books, clothing, electronics in “nanoseconds.” If clients decide to sell some goods, then Diem will purchase them directly and will provide instant credit (deposited quickly to their accounts).

The US Plastics Pact — a consortium launched in August by The Recycling Partnership and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), as part of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s global Plastics Pact Network — unveiled an aggressive national strategy to ensure all plastic packaging will be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025. Roadmap to 2025 is supported by nearly 100 corporations, startups, research entities, NGOs, universities, and state and local governments across the plastics packaging value chain; and includes mandatory reporting and specific timeframes for realizing meaningful and targeted outcomes for a truly circular plastics economy.

ESS France, an apex representing social and solidarity economy organisations in the country, has launched Carte Eco, an interactive eco map to promote the sector’s role in the circular economy. The map features over 1,500 circular economy actors across seven French regions: Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Corse, Guyane, Île-de-France, Mayotte, Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Loire. A circular economy is an economic system aimed at eliminating waste and the continual use of resources, prioritising renewable energy sources and ensuring that raw materials, components and products lose their value as little as possible.

Mars, Incorporated has today announced it will incorporate recycled polypropylene plastic into the primary packaging for some of its popular pet food brands. For Mars, this marks an important step in its efforts to reduce virgin plastics use across its packaging portfolio, to do its part to build a circular economy where no packaging becomes waste. Through its partnership with global packaging supplier Huhtamaki and petrochemical leader SABIC, Mars will use recycled plastic which has been manufactured using an advanced recycling process for its pet food packs. Thanks to this process, the packs will not feel or be different from those made with traditional virgin plastic but will have the added benefits that they include recycled material coming from previously used plastic products.

EIT Climate-KIC circular economy expert, Cliona Howie, will join 23 other experts at the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform Coordination Group and represent EIT Climate-KIC and the Circular Economy Cross-KIC Initiative. The transition from a linear to a circular economic model is an essential contribution to Europe’s efforts to develop a sustainable, low carbon, resource-efficient and resilient economy. In addition to the 2015 EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy, the European Commission and the European Economic and Social Committee created the European Circular Economy (ECES) Platform in March 2017 with the aim to accelerate the transition to a circular economy.