Gabriel Kay hopes his design can help tackle the problems caused by discarded electrical goods
Gabriel Kay really understands his target audience. As a student of industrial and product design at De Montfort University, he focused on the kettle.
“Everyone can relate to a kettle, right?” says the 22-year-old graduate. “It’s easy to understand and associated with comfort. It’s a friendly introduction to design.”
Continue reading...RMIT-led study recommends a national recycling scheme to reduce the 200,000 tonnes of textiles sent to landfill each year
Most Australians are confused about what to do with their unwanted clothes, leading about a third to throw their closet clutter in the rubbish, according to the first national survey of clothing use and disposal habits.
The RMIT-led survey of 3,080 Australians found 84% of people owned garments they hadn’t worn in the past year, including a third who hadn’t touched more than half of their wardrobe.
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Continue reading...Toymaker hopes to bring down oil-based plastic it uses by paying up to 70% more for certified renewable resin to encourage production
Lego plans to make half the plastic in its bricks from renewable or recycled material rather than fossil fuels by 2026, in its latest effort to ensure its toys are more environmentally friendly.
The Danish company last year ditched efforts to make bricks entirely from recycled bottles because of cost and production issues. At the moment, 22% of the material in its colourful bricks is not made from fossil fuels.
Continue reading...‘Pioneering’ facility will extract precious metal from up to 4,000 tonnes of scrap circuit boards a year
The Royal Mint has unveiled a “pioneering” factory that will recover gold from electronic waste, creating a more sustainable source of the precious metal for the coin manufacturer’s luxury jewellery line.
The factory in south Wales, which has been under construction since March 2022, is designed to extract gold from up to 4,000 tonnes a year of circuit boards sourced in the UK from electronics including phones, laptops and TVs.
Continue reading...Band say carbon emissions for vinyl production will be reduced by 85% thanks to new method, as they announce 10th studio album
Coldplay are aiming to make the most ecologically sustainable vinyl record yet, for their newly announced album Moon Music.
Each 140g vinyl copy of Moon Music, released 4 October, will be manufactured from nine plastic bottles recovered from consumer waste. For a special “notebook edition”, 70% of the plastic has been intercepted by the environmental nonprofit The Ocean Cleanup from Rio Las Vacas, Guatemala, preventing it from entering the Gulf of Honduras and the Atlantic Ocean.
Continue reading...Most Australians don’t know what to do with their dead pets, vapes and lightbulbs, a waste survey has found
While Australia may be a pet-loving nation, a majority seem perplexed at what to do when a beloved animal dies.
Survey results commissioned by the waste management company Veolia show 80% of Australians do not know how to dispose of dead pets, with 38% putting them in the bin and 42% not knowing what to do at all.
Continue reading...Fire chief says incorrect disposal of devices powered by lithium-ion batteries are ‘disaster waiting to happen’
Fires caused by batteries in waste have gone up by 71% in the UK since 2022, as the rise of disposable vapes and other portable battery-powered devices leads to more lithium-ion batteries ending up in the bin.
An increase in the number of these devices being thrown in household rubbish bins has led to more than 1,200 fires in the waste system in the past 12 months, compared with 700 in 2022, according to research conducted by the National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) and the campaign group Recycle Your Electricals.
Continue reading...Pilot scheme supplies 1,000 folding boxes to farms and wholesalers to reduce single-use cardboard, paper and plastic
A pilot scheme to replace cardboard produce boxes with reusable plastic crates has been launched in Victoria, with the aim to cut “invisible” cardboard waste.
The Victoria Unboxed project, led by the food charity Sustain with Sustainable Victoria, has supplied 1,000 reusable plastic crates to transport produce from farms to venues, wholesalers and homes across Melbourne. The trial aims to reduce the need for single-use packaging, including cardboard, plastic and paper waste.
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Continue reading...A 12-year industry roadmap has been unveiled to address the rising amount of solar panel waste headed for the tip
The solar industry is quickly approaching its tipping point, with unprecedented levels of waste headed for the tip.
Solar panel waste levels will reach a crisis point in the next two to three years instead of by 2030, as was previously forecast, according to a white paper released this week.
Continue reading...RMIT team develops method that could replace common lead-acid batteries, offering a safer and more recyclable alternative
An RMIT-led research team has come up with an innovative way to make greener, safer, recyclable “water batteries” that could replace common lead-acid batteries.
There are three key components that make up a battery: a cathode, an anode and an electrolyte. In common lithium-ion or lead-acid batteries, the electrolyte is a liquid chemical solution that, once inserted, cannot be easily recovered.
Continue reading...Households will be able to drop off cables and other electrical waste in-store or have home collections, says Defra
British households will benefit from improved routes for recycling electronic goods from 2026, under government plans to have producers and retailers pay for household and in-store collections.
Consumers would be able to have electrical waste (e-waste) – from cables to toasters and power tools – collected from their homes or drop items off during a weekly shop, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said in a consultation published on Thursday. The ambition is for retailers, rather than the taxpayer, to pick up the tab for these new ways of disposing of defunct, often toxic products safely. The measures are due to come into force in two years’ time.
Continue reading...Regulators approve rules to let agencies recycle wastewater into drinking water for homes, schools and businesses
When a toilet is flushed in California, the water can end up in a lot of places: an ice-skating rink in Ontario, ski slopes around Lake Tahoe, farmland in the central valley.
And – coming soon – kitchen faucets.
Continue reading...Consumers left angry and dismayed when they found out the truth about these terms, says Advertising Standards Authority study
Plastic bottles, takeaway cups and food packaging that could take an unlimited amount of time to break down are being advertised as “biodegradable”, with the advertising regulator calling for more clarity on such claims from businesses.
British consumers believe they are making green choices while disposing of waste when they are often not, according to a new report. The study, from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), based on extensive interviews with consumers, found widespread misunderstandings around common terms such as “biodegradable”, “compostable” and “recyclable”, leaving participants angry when they discovered what they meant.
Continue reading...Rules, still subject to formal approval, stop exports to non-OECD countries and limit them elsewhere
The EU has struck a deal to stop ships of waste plastic landing in ports of poor countries.
European lawmakers and member states agreed on Friday to ban exports of plastic rubbish to countries outside the OECD group of mostly rich countries from the middle of 2026. The deal comes as diplomats meet in Nairobi, Kenya, to hammer out a global treaty on plastic pollution.
Continue reading...Miles Roberts of packaging-maker DS Smith warns manufacturing will decline unless government provides clarity about decarbonisation
The UK risks seeing its manufacturing sector fall behind rival economies if the government does not offer certainty over policies on shifting to green energy, according to the head of FTSE 100 packaging maker DS Smith.
Miles Roberts, the company’s chief executive, said British government decarbonisation policy has lacked the clarity of European rivals, meaning DS Smith has moved ahead with a €90m (£78m) investment in a paper mill in Rouen, northern France, while waiting for more clarity from government before investing in upgrades in the UK.
Continue reading...A blanket ‘bring or buy’ reusable scheme has been introduced in the town, which was getting through 23,000 cups a week
Killarney used to accept it as a price of being a tourist town: ubiquitous disposable coffee cups spilling from bins, littering roads and blighting the area’s national park.
The County Kerry town went through about 23,000 cups a week – more than a million a year – adding up to 18.5 tonnes of waste.
Continue reading...Whitehall watchdog gives red rating to set of measures aimed to bring net-zero goals, amid backlash over retreat on climate policy
Rishi Sunak has been accused of showing disregard for the climate crisis after Whitehall officials warned that some of his key green pledges were already unachievable.
With the prime minister facing a backlash within his own party after appearing to row back from his commitment to green policies, an internal government audit found that a series of measures designed to help meet Britain’s net-zero goals had been allowed to run off course.
Continue reading...People will be able to claim back €6-€25 of cost of repairing clothes and shoes in latest environmental measure
A broken heel, a rip in trousers, buttons missing from a shirt? Don’t throw them away if you live in France, where the government will pay a “repair bonus” to have them mended in a new scheme aimed at cutting waste.
An estimated 700,000 tonnes of clothing is thrown away in France every year, two-thirds ending up in landfill.
Continue reading...Plastics consumed nationally in 2019-20 created 16m tonnes of greenhouse gases, report says
The plastics consumed yearly by Australians have a greenhouse emissions impact equivalent to 5.7m cars – more than a third of the cars on Australia’s roads, new analysis suggests.
A report commissioned by the Australian Marine Conservation Society and WWF Australia has found that the plastics consumed nationally in the 2019-20 financial year created 16m tonnes of greenhouse gases.
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Continue reading...New rules agreed at meeting of environment ministers welcomed as breakthrough by conservationists
Industry will be forced to do more to cut waste and boost recycling after Australia’s federal and state governments agreed for the first time to impose mandatory packaging rules on manufacturers and retailers.
The agreement, at a meeting of environment ministers in Sydney on Friday, was welcomed by conservationists as a major breakthrough after years of voluntary industry action has failed to reduce waste.
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