Day: August 18, 2021

A nationwide post-lockdown buying spree for electrical goods has seen the country’s largest recycling scheme record the biggest month in its 15-year history. WEEE Ireland recovered 3,763 tonnes of electrical waste in July – the equivalent of 12,800 fridges or 1.7 million small appliances – resulting in a new national monthly e-waste record. 58% (2,200 tonnes) of large and small items came back through free collection points at retailers, which saw an 18% annual increase on last year, attributed mainly to a rapid rise in sales of electrical goods.

Brian Reilly, founder and chief executive of Singapore-based container reuse startup Muuse, has passed away. The American circular economy entrepreneur was 41 years old. Reilly conceived the idea of a cup reuse system while on a plane from Bali to Shanghai in 2018, and the platform, with a mission to end single-use plastic containers has since established operations in Singapore, Hong Kong and Toronto. In a statement on Facebook, the company said it had “lost a star from our sky.”

Residents in Dhaka are quite familiar with informal buyers of obsolete computers, laptops, batteries of Instant Power Supply and other malfunctioned home appliances. These collectors buy obsolete or damaged electronic and electrical items from residents at nominal prices and sell those items to informal traders who are engaged in recycling. For all latest news, follow The Daily Star’s Google News channel.
And frequent visits by these collectors in the neighbourhoods to buy wasted devices indicate that recycling of obsolete electronics and electrical items is growing.

New chemical recycling process preserves material performance without downgrading. Sustainability is becoming more important to consumers. As a result, manufacturers and engineers are beginning to look for more ways to build sustainability into the life cycle of products. One concept gaining traction is the circular economy. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, an organization dedicated to promoting a circular economy is one that focuses on the principles of designing out waste and pollution, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems. For products made from commodity plastics, a transition toward a more circular economy could mean less packaging, a transition from nonrecyclable materials such as composites or multi-materials to more recyclable alternatives, and an increased use of recycled materials.

May 12th 2021 marked a special day in the global quest against pollution. It marked an important milestone that, if it is to become law, could bring us one small step closer towards the achievement of a zero waste society. The EU published its Zero Pollution Action Plan, aimed at decreasing air, water and soil pollution. This will hopefully lead the way for other global regions to follow suit. While this is certainly a long-awaited milestone, it is important to note that the achievement of zero pollution is strictly linked to the achievement of zero waste. There cannot be a zero pollution society without there being a zero waste society. This is why, to achieve its zero pollution objective, the EU has to adopt strong policy measures to drastically decrease waste at source, as well as our reliance on waste incineration, in order for the plan to have a real impact once it is put into practice.

Bio-based and Biodegradable Industries’ David Newman says he is a ‘circular economy sceptic’. Here, he looks at the 2021 Circularity Gap report, which he says suggests the world’s economy has become ‘more linear, not less’. I have long been a sceptic on the circular economy. The core of my argument has been that the continuously declining real value of raw materials, and in general of manufactured goods, has meant that repurposing them, reusing them, recycling them or even (in the case of food waste) composting them, has cost more than producing new products from virgin raw materials sources. It has been cheaper to throw them away. This is the Jevons Paradox of course; increased production efficiency and consumption of a product will cause its price to fall. Scarcity has rarely been at play in recent economic history.

The global economy currently follows a linear model, where raw materials are mined, processed into products, consumed and thereafter become waste. Consequently, global consumption of materials such as biomass, fossil fuels, metals and minerals, is expected to double in the next forty years, while annual waste generation is projected to increase by 70% by 2050. The circular economy offers an alternative to the take-make-waste model, by maintaining the value of products, materials and resources in the economy for as long as possible and minimizing the generation of waste. There are countless small startup companies in Iceland that are working within the idea of the circular economy. Our top five picks for circular economy solution startups are the following.

Financing will boost DIEM’s acceleration plans in expanding its consumer base both in UK and the pan-European region. The investment round is led by Fasanara Capital, a UK-based finance-focused specialist fund, and supported by Chris Adelsbach, founder of Outrun Ventures and additional investors include Andrea Molteni (early investor in Farfetch.com luxury marketplace), Ben Demiri (co-chairman at fashion tech PlatformE) and Nicholas Kirkwood (founder of the eponymous brand). DIEM powers a disruptive concept in fintech: merging solutions to address both personal finance and collective environmental needs. Its mission is to empower consumers to value, unlock, and enjoy wealth they never knew they had, best described by its founder, Geri Cupi as the “Bank of Things”. DIEM offers a highly unique service on top of regular debit card access, competitive international transfer rates and user-friendly valuation and spending analytics. In simple terms, DIEM enables consumers to receive instant payments for their things.