Day: April 18, 2022

Unilever is seeking novel methods to recover  and improve the recyclability of the plastic actuator.  This is the device at the top of a aerosol packaging that when depressed, allows the product to be sprayed.  It’s also commonly called a sprayer or button.  Actuators are designed to make them difficult to remove for safety reasons, but when actuators aren’t removed prior to recycling, they end up in the metal recycling process and may not be recovered.   They are also small and often made from multiple materials which further complicates recyclability.  At Unilever, we’re completely rethinking our approach to packaging and we’re working hard to use less, better or no plastic.  We’ve set ambitious goals to tackle plastic waste and halve the amount of virgin plastic we use in our packaging; collect and process more plastic packaging than we sell; ensure that 100% of our plastic packaging is designed to be fully reusable, recyclable or compostable; use 25% recycled plastic in our packaging.

“I get excited when someone says to me: ‘I have 17 trailer loads of excess product,’” says Claudia Freed.  Excess inventory may not be your everyday conversation starter, and it’s not every day that you find an individual who gets excited by the topic. But then Freed is the CEO and president of EALgreen, which is not your everyday philanthropic organization.  The EAL stands for Education Assistance Limited. The organization was founded some 40 years ago to provide a means for manufacturers and distributors to earn a tax credit by donating excess inventory to fund college scholarships. Freed, who joined EALgreen as executive director in 1995, was the recipient of the first scholarship in 1982. Back then, she was an immigrant student who had come to the states from Argentina as an 18-year-old with $36 in her pocket. “When I received the scholarship, I was a student at North Park University studying economics, and someone deemed that I had potential,” she recalls. Funding students with potential remains the social impact part of the mission today.

Last summer’s heat dome exacted a huge toll in the northeast Pacific. Hundreds of people died because of the extreme heat and its lingering effects. A perfect storm of high temperatures, low tides, and a noonday sun that scorched exposed tidal flats meant marine life suffered as well. The heatwave killed, by some accounts, one billion sea creatures. The marine toll was felt especially acutely by the US $107-million shellfish aquaculture industry in Washington State.  One of the people paying close attention was Tim Smith. An aquatic ecologist and aquaculture sustainability consultant turned science teacher, Smith recognized the scale of the problem. But just a few months later, when he began working at Pioneer Middle School in Shelton, Washington, a hotbed town for shellfish farming, he recognized an opportunity.

The year 2021 marks 10 years since the publication of the article “Collective Impact” in Stanford Social Innovation Review. Over the last decade, organizations working around the globe have applied the practice of collective impact to solving a broad range of social and environmental challenges, and the approach has been incorporated into the structure of national and local public programs in the United States and abroad.  We can attribute much of the growth, success, and sustained interest in collective impact to the learning and sharing of practitioners, funders, and many partners who have cultivated and worked to adapt the practice over time. Their experiences and feedback, as well as decades of collaborative work predating 2011, have contributed to the evolution of the approach, particularly around themes of equity, community ownership, power, data, and sustainability.

To mark Earth Day, Republic Services, Inc. is sharing myth-busting plastics recycling tips to help consumers be better recyclers. Demand is growing for recycled plastic to use in consumer packaging, so it’s especially important that plastic bottles, jugs and containers make their way into the recycling bin. “Republic Services is committed to helping our customers put sustainability in action. We know people want to recycle, but there are a lot of misconceptions around recycling plastics. This Earth Day we want to clear those up,” said Pete Keller, vice president of recycling and sustainability. “By recycling, you can help turn your plastic water bottle into another water bottle. Recycling helps preserve natural resources, reduces emissions and contributes to a more sustainable world.”

‘Art Making for Earthly Survival’ is a series of workshops and a resulting exhibition curated by Rachy McEwan and supported by GSA Sustainability, GSA Exhibitions and Box Hub.  The workshops aim to help participants question their own practice and ideas by offering future solutions and inspiration to create art in a more ethical, environmental and sustainable way. The workshops on offer range from book-making; to discussions of art practices in community settings; group drawing whilst travelling on the ‘Clockwork Orange’; to gaining inspiration from a guided walk in The Botanics, identifying trees and lichen.  The workshops are led by Vita Lerche, Emma Lawrance, Robert McCormack, and Rachy McEwan & Raya Gray. There will be an opportunity to see work made from the workshops in an exhibition in Reid Gallery, The Glasgow School of Art on 28 & 29 April.

Artist Konstantin Dimopoulos’ The Blue Trees is an outdoor art installation that uses the process of transformation to raise awareness about global deforestation and climate change. This week, on-site artist Wes Bruce and volunteers applied blue pigment to select trees on PEM’s campus using an environmentally safe colorant. This temporary, performative art piece in Salem marks the 27th installation of this internationally acclaimed project.

California’s “wet season” officially ended with a whimper on April 1st, the last snow survey of the season showed our snowpack was only 38% of average for this time of year. That means we are heading into what is likely to be another hot, dry summer with near record low water storage in California’s largest reservoirs and not much help in snow reserves to carry us through until it rains or snows again.  Thanks to efforts to improve water efficiency in urban communities, we’re in a better place than we would have been without actions to use water more wisely in our homes, landscapes, and some businesses. Pacific Institute’s recently released report, Untapped Potential, shows that our urban communities were using 32 percent less water in 2017-2019 than in 2007, even with a nine percent increase in population.

Sustainability is more than a buzzword — it’s taken center stage as companies commit to protect natural resources, reduce CO2 emissions and make a positive impact with eco-friendly measures. Managing a business travel program that supports sustainable travel is no exception.  If traveling sustainably is a priority, Egencia can help. You’ll have access to resources to help you build a sustainable travel program powered by business travel technology that gives your travelers the ability to lessen their carbon footprint.

Some businesses like a pay-as-you-go approach — a rotating solution that keeps businesses using the latest technology at a lower cost while contributing to a sustainable circular economy. Watch this video to see how solutions from Dell Financial Services turn consumption into a strategy that enables you to right-size your technology investment and break down barriers to digital transformation.

At least 99 low- and middle-income countries had used $104 billion of their emergency reserves since August, but $400 billion of the total went to advanced economies that did not need them, given the current IMF quota system, the groups said. To address continuing fiscal needs, the groups urged issuance of another $2.5 trillion in SDRs, as well as steps to decouple the allocation from existing quotas and ensure that developing countries received a bigger share of the reserves.  Sixteen civil society groups on Tuesday urged the International Monetary Fund to issue $2.5 trillion in additional emergency reserves to help developing countries still struggling to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impact.

It’s the go-to meal for a visit to the seaside, but cod and chips could soon be off the menu, according to a new study.  Researchers from Rutgers University have warned that rising sea temperatures will mean fewer popular fish species will be available to catch over the next 200 years.  ‘While the species we fish today will be there tomorrow, they will not be there in the same abundance,’ warned Dr Malin Pinsky, co-author of the study.  Experts from Aberdeen analysed 30 years of trawl survey data on cod, haddock, whiting and saith from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea.  They found that while juvenile fish in the North Sea and the West of Scotland have been getting bigger, the size of adults has been decreasing.

As negotiations before the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP-15) take place, international research has quantified the impact of human consumption on species extinction risk.  As negotiations before the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP-15) take place, international research has quantified the impact of human consumption on species extinction risk.  Around 1 million species already face extinction, many within decades, according to the recent Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) assessment report.
Read the full article at: bioengineer.org