Sustainability

Monthly Archives: March 2016

Packaging Made From Mushrooms

mushroom-packagingBiomaterials company Ecovative is making packaging out of mushrooms. In the video above, watch the company’s co-founder Eben Bayer explain how it works and the positive impact it has on the environment.

 

U.S. demand for bioplastics to exceed 550M lb in 2016

How accurate was this article written in 2012?

bioplastics forecast 2012U.S. demand for bioplastics is forecast to climb at a 20% annual pace through 2016 to 550 million pounds, valued at $680 million. Although they have achieved a considerable degree of commercial success, bioplastics remain in an early stage of development, representing only a small niche within the overall plastics industry. Going forward, technical innovations that enhance the properties of bioplastics and lower their price will drive growth. These and other trends are presented in “Bioplastics,” a new study from The Freedonia Group, Inc.

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zero-waste-homeAtlanta (CNN)“Do you use toilet paper?”

That’s the question 26-year-old Anamarie Shreeves receives most often.

It’s not exactly a typical question, but Shreeves, who lives in Atlanta and is the site manager for the nonprofit Keep Atlanta Beautiful, lives what some may consider an atypical lifestyle: She creates almost no waste.

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CIRCULAR ECONOMY OFFERS “WEALTH OF OPPORTUNITY FOR U.S.”

circulateTrash to Treasure: Changing Waste Streams to Profit Streams, a new report launched by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, focuses on waste in American companies and industries, and argues that the circular economy represents an economic opportunity, as well as being a model that reduces waste. 

The largest 5589 publicly trading businesses in the U.S. sent 342 million metric tons of waste to landfills and incinerators in 2014, according to the report, an economic cost to those companies in terms of removal, and a reality that also has significant environmental and social impacts.

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Study reveals GMO corn to be highly toxic

cornThe study, the 2012 Corn Comparison Report by Profit Pro, was published recently on the website for Moms Across America March to Label GMOs, a group that says they wish to “raise awareness and support Moms with solutions to eat GMO Free as we demand GMO labeling locally and nationally simultaneously.” They are plotting nationwide protests scheduled for later this year.

The report, writes the website’s Zen Honeycutt, was provided by a representative for De Dell Seed Company, an Ontario-based farm that’s touted as being Canadian only non-GMO corn seed company.

“The claims that ‘There is no difference between GMO corn and NON Gmo corn’ are false,” says Honeycutt, who adds she was “floored” after reading the study.

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Corn Lobby’s GMO Labeling Study “Preposterous”

grocery-shoppingLabeling food that contains genetically engineered, or “GMO,” ingredients will not cost the preposterous $81.9 billion that the corn industry claims.

The new study – paid for by the Corn Refiners Association – greatly exaggerates the cost of labeling products that contain GMOs. It claims that a GMO labeling law set to go into effect in Vermont on July 1 would cost each American family more than $1,000 a year.

This study is riddled with flaws.

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Bioplastics Daily News – New funding from German government for CO2- based plastics

covestroMaterials manufacturer Covestro is working within the scope “Production Dreams” project, with RWTH Aachen University and the Technical University of Berlin, both in Germany, on a further process that will enable the greenhouse gas to be used as well in the environmentally friendly manufacture of elastomers on an industrial scale. Elastomers are plastics that hold their shape but are elastically formable.

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A Zero Emissions Manifesto for the Climate Justice Movement

Zero emissions is an ambitious but achievable goal.
wind_solar_1920po_shutterstock_145644622–UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Zero has become the most important number for humanity. Why?

Any chance of stabilizing the climate hinges on transitioning to zero greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as humanly possible. Simply slowing the rise of emissions will not work. For the first time, the world’s leading climate authority, theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has embraced a goal of near zero greenhouse gas emissions or below.

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The mercury doesn’t lie: We’ve hit a troubling climate change milestone

0305ice1Thursday, while the nation debated the relative size of Republican genitalia, something truly awful happened. Across the northern hemisphere, the temperature, if only for a few hours, apparently crossed a line: it was more than two degrees Celsius above “normal” for the first time in recorded history and likely for the first time in the course of human civilization.

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