Jaguar Land Rover Expands Circular Economy Programme

Situated in a rural forest, the new Torvbråten primary school has become Norway’s second school to achieve the highly-regarded Nordic Swan Eco-label. This accreditation is a voluntary license system demonstrating environmental excellence, introduced by the Nordic Council of Ministers in 1989. With a gross area of 6,700m², the school caters to 470 students and 46 permanent employees and consists of two wings and a multi-purpose hall. Large-scale glass windows create a flow of daylight inside and foster an important connection with the surrounding natural landscape forest, which provides a natural home for an array of outdoor activities, including a mountain bike track and a light trail for skiing and walking to benefit the pupils as well as the local community.

Fraunhofer Institute UMSICHT, SABIC and Procter & Gamble (P&G) announced their collaboration in an innovative circular economy pilot project which aimed to demonstrate the feasibility of closed-loop recycling of single-use facemasks. Due to COVID-19, use of billions of disposable facemasks is raising environmental concerns especially when they are thoughtlessly discarded in public spaces, including – parks, open-air venues and beaches. Apart from the challenge of dealing with such huge volumes of essential personal healthcare items in a sustainable way, simply throwing the used masks away for disposal on landfill sites or in incineration plants represents a loss of valuable feedstock for new material. “Recognizing the challenge, we set out to explore how used facemasks could potentially be returned into the value chain of new facemask production,” says Dr. Peter Dziezok, Director R&D Open Innovation at P&G. “But creating a true circular solution from both a sustainable and an economically feasible perspective takes partners. Therefore, we teamed up with Fraunhofer CCPE and Fraunhofer UMSICHT’s expert scientists and SABIC’s T&I specialists to investigate potential solutions.”

This summer, local youths ranging from ages five through 13 will have the opportunity to participate in summer day camps, which are focused on connecting children to nature. They will take place at the Lackawanna College Environmental Education Center in Covington Township, Lackawanna County.  Each weeklong camp takes place at LCEEC’s beautiful 211-acre property and LEED Gold Certified facility.
Read the full article at: paenvironmentdaily.blogspot.com