Made in Food Waste
Expo 2015 has certainly brought to the international attention different aspects related to the safeguard of food resources. Among various issues, food waste is particularly important from many poin...
Water, Energy, Matter and Employment from End-of-life Tyres
It is all very well to talk about sustainability reports. But not all reports are equal. One thing is carefully choosing some data (perhaps overshadowing the less palatable ones) to use them skilful...
Agriculture's Second Green Life
Plastic Films in Agriculture: Lights and Shadows In 2013, demand for plastic films in agriculture at a global level amounted to about 4 million tons, mainly in Asia (roughly 70%) followed by Europe...
When Innovation and Recycling Go Hand in Hand
Let us have a look at exercise books, notepads and diaries made from recycled paper. It is a well-established niche market. But it is also an industry that over the years has both played the design ...
Still Too Many Landfills, and They Will Only Last Two More Years
In the last few years, in Italy the situation has improved thanks to a drop in waste production and an increase in separate collection. However, the objective of decoupling waste production ...
Glass Recycling Is km 0
Glass has a very ancient origin. It seems that the first people who produced it were the inhabitants of Mesopotamia, although the oldest fragments that we know of are from Egypt dating from 1500 b.C...
How the World's Economic Growth Is Actually Un-Economic
The focus of the recently concluded G20 summit was economic growth. The final communiqué begins: “Raising global growth to deliver better living standards and quality jobs for...
Over 50 Billion Tons of Matter Wasted Every Year: Resources to Preserve
The surface of the Earth has always been in slow but constant movement: excavated by waterways and glaciers, eroded by winds, upset by mountain formation and volcanic eruptions, subjected to changes...
The Doughnut Economy
Between Social Boundaries and Planetary Boundaries In 2009, a group of leading Earth-system scientists brought together by Johan Rockström of the Stockholm Resilience Centre put forw...
Rockström, 'Biomaterials: A Viable Alternative to Fossil Fuels'
Our ecological footprint surpasses the Earth’s absorption capacity. One of the less known elements of the planetary equation is the impact of the extraction of many raw materials.&nb...
Elemental Sustainability
The unique chemical and physical properties of metals mean that they are extensively utilised by industry in a huge variety of applications, including electronics, transport, materials, industrial c...
Is Europe Changing Its Policy on the Circular Economy?
New elections not only introduce new faces in the assemblies but they often change policies and targets in line with the new political views of the winning alignment. The European Parliament electi...
The War for Biomass
Nevertheless, are agricultural waste and refuse able to feed the whole bioeconomy? The global situation we are faced with at the moment is very complicated: on the one hand, the demand for biomass i...
In Italy the Bioeconomy Is Worth 241 Billion Euro
We now know that in Italy the bioeconomy is worth €241 billion and employs approximately 1.6 million people. Such figures are provided by Intesa Sanpaolo Think Tank based on a thorough ...
Waste Thieves
So, a substantial overall growth bolstered by many industries. In 2010, building sites recycled and used 51 million tons of inert waste and 22 million of scrap iron (equalling 77% of the iron and ...
Why China is Embracing the Circular Economy
One potential remedy to resource supply constraints and consequently high resource prices and volatility could be for China to further engage with the concepts and approaches of the circular economy...
Kickstarting the Circular Economy in China
The task is daunting considering the pressing need to provide a growing population of 1.3 billion with a greater standard of living, while income disparities have reached a thirty-year record peak.(...
The Bio Base Europe Pilot Plant
In 2009, in the middle of the financial and economic crisis, Europe was awakened by the fact that it was losing industrial significance to emerging economies. To counteract, the European Commission ...
Eco-Friendly Playing Fields
They can do so thanks to football pitches made with recycled rubber and synthetic turf. Such solutions guarantee playing performances equivalent to those of traditional fields and that, as illustrat...
Net Gain: Fighting Ocean Pollution
Then he got an idea. He and two friends had been talking for months about finding a way to address the issue of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans by starting a business making pr...