EU Sustainability Guidelines: ‘It Will Require a lot of Thought & Investment’
Members of the Commission’s TEG say that data availability and flexibility will serve as the greatest challenges.
Source: www.waterstechnology.com
Members of the Commission’s TEG say that data availability and flexibility will serve as the greatest challenges.
Source: www.waterstechnology.com
Wisetek has called on Irish businesses to minimise waste and preserve natural resources by embracing the circular economy. The IT asset disposal, re-use and manufacturing service provider have processed 100,00 tonnes of materials to date.
As the world continues to transition into learning, working and operating remotely, the data center industry is growing to match company and customer demands for high-performing IT equipment. However, with this increased demand for IT comes pressure for data center managers to meet sustainability goals to reduce their carbon footprints, save energy and reduce operating costs. However, there is another critical factor that improves sustainability in a data center: minimizing water usage.
The ubiquitous use of plastics has been driven by their combination of low cost and properties, but these attributes directly challenge waste management schemes for plastic recycling. Some postconsumer recycling programs are now nearly 50 years old, but a significant fraction of plastics still finds landfills or other dumping strategies at their end of life. With the growing concern regarding plastic waste, especially ocean plastics, there is a need for innovation and alternative strategies for the economic translation of plastic waste to valued product(s) that will promote their efficient circular utilization. This review first describes the technical and economic hurdles associated with the recycling of postconsumer plastics, but then it focuses on providing an overview of emergent strategies to recover plastic waste through new polymer design, new recycling processes, and chemical transformations to value-added products. Specific challenges discussed include plastic waste sorting and separations, product variability including additives, and the high efficiency/low cost in which the existing petrochemical industry can produce virgin polymers, in particular polyolefins.
Switzerland must make its financial centre more sustainable and transparent, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Here, we present a roundup of some of the key players. WooDoo WooDoo is a cleantech player that has created ‘bionic wood’. Its patented tech follows over half a decade of research, and consists of a new wood material: waterproof, 300% more stiff, fire-retardant and translucent. Based on the circular economy principles, this material is “about to make a change in the construction industry, tackling tomorrow’s zero net carbon cities,” according to Climate KIC.
The impact of plant breeding and modern agricultural practices is reflected in soil health – and it isn’t looking good. In fact, scientists fear that an underground crisis threatens to undermine food production in the near future. Jos Raaijmakers, a microbiologist from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology suggests that the solution to this looming food and agricultural crisis can be gleaned from understanding ancient plant traits that had been lost through millennia of breeding.