Reduce, reuse, recycle
REDUCING CONSUMPTION THROUGH HIRING AND SHARING
If more people hired or shared material goods, rather than owning them, it would significantly reduce our use of resources, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing. An increasing number of innovative business models and websites are encouraging this shift, facilitating schemes as diverse as car-sharing and clothes hire (i.e. Zilok). There are also platforms to lend, borrow and trade goods from TVs, power drills, skills to spaces for free (i.e Netcyler and Ecomodo).
For schemes like this to benefit the environment, overall material consumption per person needs to fall. There is also a danger that consumers who rent rather than own may then spend the money they save on other energy-intensive or polluting goods. This is known as the ‘rebound effect’.
Benefits: reduce, reuse, recycle
Innovators: Zilok, Netcycler, Ecomodo, ZipCar; Neighbourgoods
‘CRADLE TO CRADLE’ PRODUCT CERTIFICATION AND DESIGN FRAMEWORK
‘Cradle to cradle’ is a design philosophy for creating sustainable products. It uses materials that can either be reused or recycled, or that decompose safely and naturally.
The non-profit Green Products Innovation Institute is developing Cradle to Cradle Certification. This will include standards such as transparent and traceable use of chemicals, reuse of materials, use of renewable energy, water stewardship and social responsibility. It is also launching a free public database and framework to aid sustainable design, with information on alternative processes, materials and chemicals.
Benefits: reduce, reuse, recycle; water efficiency; energy efficiency
Innovators: McDonough Braunart Design Consultants, Green Products Innovation Institute
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FASHION EXCHANGE
Swapping unwanted clothes or other products with each other could lower our overall consumption of raw materials, without reducing our standard of living. Swapstyle is a web-platform where over 40,000 members freely exchange clothing, cosmetics, books and accessories. The environmental benefits of sharing or exchanging services depend on an overall reduction in material consumption per person, which has yet to be demonstrated. For example, people may spend the greenhouse gas savings made by exchanging clothes on other energy intensive or polluting goods.
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Benefits: reduce, reuse, recycle
Innovators: Swapstyle
INDUSTRIAL SYMBIOSIS – MUTUALLY PROFITABLE RESOURCE SHARING
One company’s waste can be another’s raw material. Instead of paying to send 500 tonnes of sand from its foundry to landfill, MJ Allen sent the sand to Hanson, which used it in asphalt manufacturing.
The businesses are both part of the National Industrial Symbiosis Partnership (NISP). Industrial Symbiosis programmes facilitate partnerships that generate mutual value where members exchange materials, energy, water and by-products and share assets, logistics and expertise. Since 2005, NISP members have saved £780m, used 47 million tonnes less water, and reduced CO2 emissions by 30 million tonnes.
Benefits: reduce, reuse, recycle; carbon reduction; water efficiency; energy efficiency
Innovators: National Industrial Symbiosis Programme
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ZERO-PACKAGING AND WASTE SHOP
Each person in the EU generates a massive 176kg of packaging waste a year . Many companies worldwide are taking action to minimise packaging. But food and drink shop In.gredients is taking things a step further: getting rid of it all together. In.gredients will soon open in Austin, Texas. It will only sell in season produce, by weight and without packaging. Customers will bring in their own containers or compostable containers will be available to buy. If consumers can adapt to the zero-packaging model, and retailers can innovate around potential obstacles such as hygiene, zero-packaging retail could be a significant step towards reducing waste and saving energy.
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Benefits: reduce, reuse, recycle, biodiversity and natural resources
Innovators: In.gredients; Beunpackaged
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OPEN SHARING OF PATENTS
The rubber used in Nike’s footwear uses 98% less toxins than traditional methods. Yet, it doesn’t have to be just Nike that benefits from this innovative approach. Its intellectual property can be shared to other markets where the rubber can be used for bicycle inner tubes for example, helping others to bring greener products and business models to market.
Greenxchange is a web-based marketplace where companies can collaborate and share intellectual property (IP) which can lead to new sustainability business models and encourage open innovation.
Benefits: reduce, reuse, recycle, energy efficiency, water efficiency, carbon reduction
Innovators: Greenxchange
INDUSTRIAL SYMBIOSIS WEB-PLATFORM
Industrial symbiosis involves different businesses and industries working together to turn waste into a resource. This avoids disposal costs, cuts spending on new raw materials and reduces CO2 emissions. International Synergies, a firm which specialises in designing industrial symbiosis systems and tools, has developed SYNERGie, a web-platform for sharing industrial symbiosis examples and innovation around the world. The project’s partnerships have diverted an estimated 500,000 tonnes of waste from landfill and cut CO2 emissions by 142,900 tonnes. Industrial symbiosis projects like this have huge untapped opportunity to cut waste and save energy around the world.
Benefits: reduce, reuse, recycle
Innovators: International Synergies
USING WASTE TO CREATE NEW PRODUCTS
Every product has a story to tell. A jacket that has been made from hot air balloons or a luxury handbag made out of old fire hoses - our waste is increasingly being used as raw material to create new products. This process is called upcycling which helps to reduce thousands of tonnes of waste going to landfill. Some organisations such as TerraCycle, are also educating communities on the environmental impact of our consumption and encourages concious buying.
Benefits: reduce,reuse, recycle
Innovators: Worn Again, TerraCycle
EXTENDED PRODUCER RESPONSIBILITY
The EU and countries including South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Mexico, Brazil and Australia have implemented regulation compelling manufacturers to recycle a proportion of their products’ waste and packaging materials. If they don’t do this, a fine is imposed which is more than the cost of recycling. Legislation like this has huge potential to reduce waste, greenhouse gas emissions and energy use. The Korean government estimates that 6,069,000 tons of waste were recycled thank to its ‘extended producer responsibility’ scheme from 2033-2007, leading to carbon emissions falling by an average of 412,000 tons year on year.
Benefits: reduce, reuse, recycle
Innovators: The Korean Ministry of Environment
INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY SYSTEM FOR CHINESE INDUSTRIAL ZONE
The Tianjin Economic Technological Development Area (TEDA) in China and the EU have collaborated to create an industrial symbiosis network and a training programme on environmental management systems. TEDA is one of China’s largest and most dynamic economic development zones and the project aims to significantly improve resource efficiency and reduce waste through encouraging mutually profitable partnerships.
China’s fast economic and technological development means there is potential for vast quantities of construction and manufacturing waste that can be turned into a resource. Industrial symbiosis programmes can facilitate partnerships where one's waste can be used as a resource by another. Due to the large scale of industries and outputs of TEDA, implementing environmental measures and industrial symbiosis can have a significant impact in reducing waste.
PRODUCTS DESIGNED TO BE REMADE
Innovative tools people can use to remake, repurpose or ‘hack’ products to create something new at the end of their life are being developed. For example, the ‘Open Hardware’ wiki site shares a list of open source technology and hackable products that (in theory) enable anyone to build products using second hand parts, from solar trackers and LED lighting to cooking stoves. This could equip people to repurpose unwanted material goods, rather than discarding them and buying new products – saving waste and energy. However, critics of this approach argue that there’s no proof it cuts material consumption overall.
Benefits: reduce, reuse, recycle
Innovators: Open Hardware
ROAD DRAINAGE MADE FROM 1.8m RECYCLED TYRES
When firms communicate about how they can best use each other’s waste it can lead to significant resource and cost savings across a whole national economy. Networks that make this possible, like the UK National Industrial Symbiosis Programme (UKNISP), have huge benefits. One unusual partnership the UKNISP has facilitated is between builders BAM Nuttall and tyre manufacturer the McGrath Group. BAM Nuttall used shred from 1.8 million McGrath tyres to create drainage for a bus lane it was building for Cambridge County Council.
Innovator: Cambridge County Council, BAM Nuttall
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TRANSFORMING STONE TO PAPER
TerraSkin is using construction waste to make paper. Instead of trees, the production uses calcium carbonate, found in marble and limestone scraps which are ground to a fine powder. The process considers sustainability at every stage of the product’s life-cycle, and the paper is cradle-to-cradle certified. It requires no trees, water or toxic bleach and uses less energy and causes fewer CO2 emissions to produce.
There are many other materials being used to produce tree-less paper – such as sugar cane, bamboo, hemp, kenaf (a fibre similar to jute) and even elephant dung!
Benefits: reduce, re-use, recycle
Innovators: TerraSkin, Smock, Mr Ellie Pooh, Vision Paper
WASTE PICKER ENTREPRENEURS
Social enterprise Waste Ventures helps informal waste pickers to form their own micro-enterprise ‘waste picker corporations’, supporting them with everything from techniques for large-scale composting to help to access capital to build composting and recycling plants. Indian cities generate up to 40 million tonnes of waste each year. Local government collects only about quarter of this, and there is little recycling. By composting organic waste, waste picker corporations avoid methane emissions from landfill and provide stable employment.
Innovators: Waste Ventures
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MINING OLD CONSUMER GOODS
In many countries, large quantities of plastic waste and electronics are not recycled. Innovative companies like California’s MBA Polymers and A7 from Brazil recycle or resell plastics and valuable electronic components from discarded consumer goods. Around 600,000 tonnes of electronics are discarded every year in Brazil, according to A7. The firm recycled 1.4% of this total in its first year, growing to 9.9% in its fifth year. Reusing plastic can help reduce waste problems and pollution. It could also be profitable if oil supply constraints drive up the price of materials to make new plastic.
Innovators: A7
TURNING TRASH TO CASH
People are encouraged to recycle by rewarding them with points that they can redeem at over 2,400 local and national stores. RecycleBank partners with local authorities and currently serves over one million people in the UK and US.
Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead has encouraged household recycling go up to 35% more weight per collection by taking part in this initiative. The approach has also received recognition from the World Economic Forum and UNEP, as a successful social innovation that encourages people to waste less.
Benefits: reduce, reuse, recycle
Innovators: Recyclebank
DESIGNING CONSUMER PRODUCTS FOR REMANUFACTURING
Remanufacturing products at the end of their life can be a transitional step towards the ideal of a closed-loop economy, in which products are designed to be returned for remanufacturing, or profitably repurposed in a continuous cycle – cutting waste and saving energy. Innovative manufacturers are leading the way. Ricoh, an office products firm based in Tokyo, offers a range of ‘Greenline’ copiers, printers and scanners that have been remanufactured from parts used before. Kingfisher, a UK DIY and home improvement retailer, announced in August 2011 that it was developing a drill with recyclable parts that could be returned to the store for remanufacturing.
Benefits: reduce, reuse, recycle
Innovators: Ricoh
WASTE AS A RESOURCE MODELS FOR DEVELOPING CITIES
Bangladeshi social enterprise Waste Concern has developed waste management techniques which avoid methane emissions by composting organic waste with forced aeration. They can be implemented in slum areas at small, medium or large scale. The techniques allow composting systems to create carbon offset credits which can be sold on voluntary carbon offset markets. This sustainable waste management model has been widely replicated across developing world cities. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given Waste Concern funding to develop its waste management models for African cities.
Innovators: Waste Concern
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SHARING YOUR CAR WITH OTHERS
Think about how often you use your car everyday? Despite from taking you to work, to the shops or to see your friends - in most cases they are left unused 90% of the time.
When you think of the materials and energy needed to produce a car, that’s a huge waste. With schemes like ZipCar, you can rent your car to other people when you’re not using it. Or you can choose not to own a car, but to rent one only when you need it.
Services like this have the potential to dematerialise the automotive sector, and encourage people to use cars more efficiently. To encourage take-up of these schemes, California passed a law that assures car owners that their insurer can’t drop them or hike their rates simply because they participate in a personal car-sharing programme.
Other examples include Car Share that connects people with similar journeys to take on passengers.
Benefits: carbon reduction; reduce, reuse, recycle
Innovators: Zip Car, Whip Car, Relay Rides, Car Share
POLYLOOM WOVEN PRODUCTS FROM WASTE PLASTIC
Repurposing plastic bags into useful products cuts landfill waste and can be a step towards a closed-loop economy – where waste is treated as a resource. The Indian Centre for Environment Education has created the ‘polyloom’, which allows small, local businesses to weave waste plastic into mats and handbags to sell. The polyloom helps deal with Indian cities’ waste management problems, while creating local employment.
Benefits: reduce, reuse, recycle
Innovators: Indian Centre for Environment Education
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