Insights

Successful Granules

Successful Granules

In 1986, in Italy, the Italian Ministry of the Environment was created. At that time, environmental law was still extremely indefinite. Waste was collected and then sent mostly to landfills and word...

The Village of Materials

The Village of Materials

  If there is a place where designers’ attention and curiosity regularly threatens a collapse due to an excess of stimuli, this is at Milan Design Week, scheduled between April 12th an...

Why Degrowth Has Out-Grown  Its Own Name

Why Degrowth Has Out-Grown Its Own Name

  Here’s what troubles me about degrowth: I just can’t bring myself to use the word. Don’t get me wrong: I think the degrowth movement is addressing the most profound econo...

You're Wrong Kate. Degrowth is a Compelling Word

You're Wrong Kate. Degrowth is a Compelling Word

  My friend Kate Raworth “cannot bring herself to use the word” degrowth. Here are nine reasons why I use it. 1. Clear definition. “Degrowth” is as clear as it gets....

The Resilience renaissance

The Resilience renaissance

  Few have applied integrated thinking and cross-disciplinary approach to environmental studies as Carl Folke. Author of 12 books and over 200 scientific papers, including 15 in Science and ...

Little Men Grow up

Little Men Grow up

Tidyman, old and new version, ©Keep Britain Tidy   Tidyman was born in the 50s and, as far as we know, in the United States, popularized by a b...

Gardens and Barren Rocks

Gardens and Barren Rocks

  Is there a connection linking opposites? On the one hand, European aspiration to a government in flux, to a circular economy where matter and energy enter a virtuous circle through the cre...

When Repairing a Washing Machine Becomes a Crime

When Repairing a Washing Machine Becomes a Crime

For that Italy dreaming of the circular economy, life is not at all simple. Consumers, companies, recycling managers and consortia must meander through a jungle where the good will to anticipate and...

Dangerous Short-sightedness

Dangerous Short-sightedness

Whichever way you look at it, the very concept of biorefinery involves innovation: from the choice of production location – often in decommissioned industrial areas – to the type of raw ...

Circular Economy and Producer Responsibility: A Match that Can Work

Circular Economy and Producer Responsibility: A Match that Can Work

Over the years, managing end-of-life tyres has confirmed that, in order to achieve the objective of an effective total recycle thus creating a circular economy model by minimizing resorting to consu...

It Is Time to Pass from Words to Action

It Is Time to Pass from Words to Action

From words to action. In a nutshell, this is the challenge launched by the EU at the 4th Bioeconony Stakeholders’ Conference held in Utrecht (The Netherlands) on 12th and 13th April, in the st...

An Uphill Struggle

An Uphill Struggle

Covers illustrating this dossier are successful prototypes of an unprecedented and unique communication model the world over. Great trendsetter and conveyor of taste and style, the Uni...

United by a Desk

United by a Desk

In the beginning it was the loft, communicative yet impersonal. Then the digital revolution wave brought about home teleworking: working hours tailored to family needs, ecological elimination of the...

How to Preserve Value in Waste Management

How to Preserve Value in Waste Management

This article was published in Ecoscienza 5/2015; www.arpa.emr.it/ecoscienza/rivista.asp?id=49   Can we comprehend that waste management is a “wicked” problem: a really comple...

Aluminium letters

Aluminium letters

Cans and calligraphy: this sounds really like an odd combination. But if you search online for cola pen everything becomes clear and you discover a collection of tools which buffs and experts of thi...

Water Boundaries

Water Boundaries

Water is the best example of circularity in nature. Everybody remembers clearly the charts showing the water cycle on biology textbooks in high schools. Snow, rain, tributaries, lakes, seas, evapora...

Pulses are Circular

Pulses are Circular

It is a fact that the circular economy is in search of a clear definition. This process will hardly stop at the aspect, albeit crucial, of matter recovery, by restoring a role and function to materi...

Earthworms vs. Ecomafia

Earthworms vs. Ecomafia

In Rosarno, situated in the previously lush Gioia Tauro Plain, in the Reggio Calabria province, earthworms are about to start their titanic clash against ecomafia. David vs. Goliath. In this context...

Circulab, the Circular Economy Business Game

Circulab, the Circular Economy Business Game

Circular economy is not just about rethinking waste management, it is a whole new economical and philosophical approach to business. It is complex, diversified and therefore hard to grasp for the un...

Who Said Flies are Useless?

Who Said Flies are Useless?

Disposing of waste thanks to a fly and producing feeds out of it. This is the objective of the “Insect Bioconversion” project, a study on the use of a fly – Hermetia illucens &ndas...

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