Europe sends part of its textile surplus to unregulated hubs, sometimes returning it to the same country of origin, tripling emissions in the process.
Tag: recycling
In 2022, 62 million tons of electronic devices ended up in the trash. This results in the loss of valuable resources, significant social and environmental impact, and the perpetuation of a linear production and consumption system based on waste.
Piles of Chinese-made plastics are now an inescapable part of Zimbabwe’s landscape, and corruption is making it impossible to clean up the mess.
Several Argentine fashion designers are among the pioneers of upcycling, turning used textiles from the home into unusual clothes with a focus on cultural regeneration and respect for the environment.
The smallest country in Africa, Gambia is a net importer of plastics. About 84% of this waste is not managed properly, with dire consequences for the people and the environment.
The adult toy industry generates hundreds of millions of tons of waste a year. To counter their environmental impact, brands are now producing more eco-friendly erotic accessories using biodegradable materials and green practices throughout the production chain.
Home to the unicorn Vinted, Lithuania’s capital is fostering its image as a Northern European tech hub and cultural capital, in an effort to attract new businesses and talents — despite its cold weather and two difficult neighbors: Russia and Belarus.
In the short term, a fall in consumption of material objects would be an economic and social catastrophe. In the long term, it is necessary.
Manufacturers of toys are now finally working to reduce the environmental impact of their products, using more eco-friendly materials and promoting recycling and repairs. But are parents ready to buy second-hand toys or pay more for an eco-designed product? And do kids actually care?
Shyamanand Singh crafts sculptures from discarded paper, bottle caps and other materials. He’s opened a free museum in his house to inspire others.
Architects in Mendoza, western Argentina, have used hundreds of tons of recycled building material, shipping containers and discarded decorations to create an otherwise high-tech winery.
As material costs skyrocket, an old practice is becoming popular again: reusing building materials. In Germany, the first projects are already underway – and so far, results are promising as a model for sustainable cities.
As demand soars for the traditional spirit, so does the mountain of waste created in producing it. Producers see creative, sustainable solutions.
The circular economy is a hot trend, being embraced by everything from fashion to home decor. But one industry has been upcycling for decades. And the benefits and potentials go far beyond the environment. Soon, your perfume might help you fight stress and even wrinkles.
Categories
The Dirty Truth Behind Electric Vehicles
The procurement of raw materials and the difficulties in recycling batteries show that electric vehicles are not as green and sustainable as we’re prone to believe.
A waste processing center in the Argentine capital turns almost half the city’s refuse into reusable materials such as compost, wood chips and plastic pellets.
CAIRO — Strolling through Lisbon’s hilltop alleys in 2008, I came across a shop selling uniquely designed “upcycled” products, things made by reusing material that would otherwise be discarded. The items there included a milk-carton wallet, a liquor-bottle lamp and a cereal-box notebook cover. In my young, hopeful state, I felt right at home. It […]
SEEMAPURI — In this neighborhood on the outskirts of Delhi, electronic scrap keeps growing. Piles and piles of electronic waste or “e-waste” litter the narrow alleys here from old computer circuit boards and cables to discarded keyboards and phone handsets. Mohammad Salman, 25, deals with such e-waste. “We collect it from all over the country, from waste pickers and other scrap dealers and then look for items that can be fixed,” he says. Salman says he sells the precious metals that can be found in e-waste. “We give it to bigger dealers and what they do with it is their […]
PARIS — Can we one day live in a world where there’s zero trash? A German chemist named Michael Braungart believes it is possible. He encourages companies to put a complete end to waste in The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability — Designing for Abundance, a book he co-wrote with U.S. architect and designer William McDonough. “The […]
BUENOS AIRES — An Argentine architect has won his country’s 2016 Sustainable Habitat Prize for his very first project, a self-sustaining country home inspired by Michael Reynolds’s emblematic “earthships.” The winning project, designed by architect Germán Spahr and built near Bariloche, in western Argentina, maximizes insulation, is self-powered, has a vegetable patch and even treats […]
COLÓN ISLAND — As the world continues to bury itself in plastic bottles, a few pioneers are coming up with clever ways to put all that refuse to good use. One of those people is Canadian innovator Robert Bezeau, who decided after a visit to Panama to build an entire plastic-bottle village — presumably the […]
LIMA — The Peruvian capital has no shortage of vultures flying overhead. For the past year they have also been enlisted to help find, and perhaps eventually clear, some of Lima’s worst illegal trash heaps. How is it done? The city and scientists have been using 10 vultures strapped with GPS and GoPro cameras to […]
Borrowing techniques developed by U.S. architect Michael Reynolds, a group of Uruguayan amateurs turned piles of trash into an innovative and one-of-a-kind education center.
A cooperative that’s giving formerly jobless Argentines a second chance has evolved from a recycling enterprise into a flourishing sustainable-design business. Many of its partners could never have seen this coming when they lost their jobs back i
On the Italian island of Sicily, young entrepreneurs have launched a project aimed at reducing waste of fresh produce by finding alternative four-legged consumers.
When the landfill servicing Beirut closed, so did the garbage collection. Now the suburbs have been left quite literally holding the bag, and government solutions aren’t coming.
TEL AVIV — From the beautiful beach of Palmachim, on the Israeli coast, it’s hard to picture what’s happening below your feet, where 624,000 cubic meters of sea water are being sucked up every day by two enormous pipes and transported more than two kilometers inland to be transformed into drinkable water. Welcome to Sorek, […]
KATHMANDU — It’s not yet 7 a.m., but already there are tens of thousands of people gathered along the banks of the Bagmati river that runs through Kathmandu. This is the 100th week of an informal campaign to clean up the vital waterway. “In the world, we are proud of Mount Everest, and we are just as ashamed of our Bagmati River,” Bhanu Sharma, one of the leaders of campaign, says over a loud speaker. “It’s our responsibility to save Bagmati and help rid the country of the shame of this polluted river.” 

The crowd joins hands. Participants include senior […]
The modern-day successors of ragmen, New York’s trash pickers (or “canners”) are credited with recycling 60% of the city’s glass and aluminum. Why don’t we notice this hidden economy?
BRAGANÇA PAULISTA — Brazilians are very serious about their Christmas trees. And the different fortunes of two unusual ones is proof of just how strict the standards of what is and isn’t acceptable as decoration can be in this festive Catholic country. A few weeks ago, the city of Rio de Janeiro started the holiday […]
Reducing the strain on the environment, and opting out of a “growth-at-all-costs” logic, may be the only path forward for the future. And it will require the smartest new ideas.
BEIJING — The world now produces over four billion tons of waste every year. China buys some of it — mainly scrap metal, plastic and paper — to feed demand from factories and construction companies. Here on Dongzhimenwai, a street in downtown Beijing, people gather to sell their waste. Old ladies line up with carts of plastic bottles, stacks of newspapers and even bits of toys and metal kitchenware they’ve collected. The plastic bottles are melted down to make everything from acrylic clothing to electronics. Buyer Liu Aiguo explains what happens to this so-called trash once it’s in his hands. […]
“It’s not easy being green.” — Kermit the Frog PARIS – For some of us, being green is a hard-to-quantify choice of using a reusable bag at the grocery storetaking or taking public transport. But for others, environmental friendliness is a hard calculation to reach carbon-neutral status. That means removing as much carbon dioxide from […]
BOGOTA — Colombia’s National University is working on recycling used banknotes, by processing them into an absorbent material that cleans water and air of pollutants, El Espectador reports. Some 169 million banknotes in Colombia are replaced every year. And the University’s chemical engineering department found that shredding them creates “activated carbon,” a crystalline substance able […]
Categories
Rwanda’s Tough Stance On Plastic Bags
KIGALI — In the courtyard of the Ecoplastic factory in the Rwandan capital, a group of men and women are hanging plastic bags on a line with clothes pins, like they would do to dry a load of wash. “People pick them here and there and bring them to us. We buy them and process […]
Categories
Will Plastic Bags Ever Disappear?
A technological marvel, the plastic bag has become a symbol of humankind’s ecological footprint. Laws and habits are decreasing their use, but the alternative is sometimes worse.
MOSCOW – At the beginning of November, Russian automaker executives testified in front of the Trade and Industry Ministry about a network of sites around the country they had set up to allow car owners to drop off unwanted cars for recycling. It was the first sign in a move towards the creation of a […]