Topic: Waste and Recycling

Sharps Compliance Turns Used Syringes Into Cement

Every year, 9 million people self-inject with syringes for medical conditions, producing 3 billion used syringes--and that doesn't include the needles used for illegal drugs. Instead of sending the syringes to landfills, Sharps ...READ MORE›

A History of Green Brands: 1990's

In this post, Landor Associate's Chief Strategy Officer, Russ Meyer's outlines the problems with waste, the need to recycle and early signs of global warming.Despite all the green gains made during the 1980s, throughout most of the ...READ MORE›

Recycling Centers Overflow, but Economics Still Solid

The prices once commanded by paper, metal, and plastic are collapsing along with the stock market. A main factor: China, factories idle, is no longer accepting so much of our old stuff as raw materials. Is recycling headed for the ...READ MORE›

Best Buy Wants to Collect 1 Billion Pounds of E-Waste Over the Next 5 Years

Walmart isn't the only big box retailer making inroads in the sustainability arena. Best Buy, which released its 2010 Sustainability Report this week, has an ambitious plan to collect one billion pounds of e-waste over the next five ...READ MORE›

San Jose Developing First U.S. Organics to Energy Waste Biogas Facility

San Jose, California announced yesterday a plan to develop the country's first organics-to-energy waste biogas facility on a 40 acre plot of land. The kinks of the plan are still being worked out, but if all goes well, the ...READ MORE›

Kimberly-Clark Wipes Away Its Eco Guilt With Recycled Toilet Paper

We've covered the destructive practices of tissue and toilet paper companies extensively--specifically, the destructive habits of bathroom tissue giant Kimberly-Clark. But now the company, often criticized for using virgin fiber ...READ MORE›

iFixit's Relaunch: A Wikipedia for Gadget Repair

Gadget makers can tout their superior recycling programs all they want, but let's be honest--replacing a dead iPod, cell phone, or laptop every couple years just isn't sustainable. So instead of ditching dead electronics or paying ...READ MORE›

HP Takes Stand Against E-Waste in Developing Countries

All too often, electronic waste from rich countries ends up in the landfills of less developed nations. Greenpeace estimates that a staggering 50% to 80% of all e-waste exported for recycling ends up being shipped to the Far East, ...READ MORE›

Bad Idea of the Week: Covering Up Landfill Stench With Deodorant Guns

We're all for alleviating the nasty stench of landfills, but this is just not the way to do it. The UK Guardian reports that Beijing is installing 100 high-pressure deodorant guns at the overflowing Asuwei dump site in the city.The ...READ MORE›

Recycling Bins Go Big Brother on Cleveland Residents

Cleveland residents, beware: Your recycling bins may be watching you. READ MORE›

Target Embraces Recycling in U.S. Stores

File this under "Better Late Than Never:" Target has launched recycling stations in all of its 1,740 stores as part of a month-long Earth Day celebration. Previously, the chain didn't have any recycling bins in its stores.But ...READ MORE›

Naked Juice Brings PET Bottles to the Mainstream

Mainstream beverage distributors haven't managed to muster up the energy to produce 100% post-consumer recycled plastic bottles--until now. Naked Juice became the first nationally distributed brand to use PET (polyethylene ...READ MORE›

A Better Recycling Plan for Boston?

Will you help me create a better recycling plan for Boston? I live in Cambridge and commute to Boston every morning. I subscribe to the print edition of the New York Times and read it every morning as I commute into work on the T. ...READ MORE›

Are Studios Making Flimsier DVD Cases to Save Money or the Planet?

Warner Home Video is releasing new DVDs in cases that contain 20% less plastic. As a result of the effort, the company will reduce carbon emissions from its home entertainment division by 31%--and slash materials and shipping ...READ MORE›

Never Say Never

Claim: "We never simply throw away." Reality: We sometimes do.READ MORE›

Best Buy Makes the Ultimate E-Cycling Billboard

Have you been to Times Square lately? You may have seen this Best Buy billboard. At first glance, it looks like just another billboard made out of funky bric-a-brac, but look a bit closer and you'll notice that it's made out of old ...READ MORE›

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition Releases Solar Company Scorecard

The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition is known for its e-waste advocacy work--for two decades, the group has advocated for electronics companies to eliminate toxic chemicals in products and increase end-of-life responsibility. And ...READ MORE›

Would You Feel Safe Driving Across a Recycled Plastic Bridge?

Bridge safety has been a hot topic lately, mainly because of the recent Bay Bridge nightmare that saw a cracked load-bearing beam come crashing down onto rush-hour traffic. But amidst all the news of unstable steel beams, the U.S. ...READ MORE›

How TerraCycle Plans to Takeover the Garbage Industry

Fast Interview: In this Q&A, TerraCycle founder Tom Szaky talks about why eco-friendly products don't have to be expensive, his quest to corner the trash market, and why his wife performed in Carnegie Hall in a dress made from recycled juice pouches.READ MORE›

• The Global Electronic Waste Problem

Walmart Turns Waste Into Pet Products

Walmart generates tons of recyclable waste. So instead of sending it all to recycling plants, the retail giant has decided to divert some of it Worldwise, a sustainable pet products company.READ MORE›

Looptworks Upcycles Textile Scraps Into Clothing

American Apparel is attracting attention (as usual) for selling its Bag-O-Scraps to consumers, but a new company called Looptworks is actually taking excess textile waste and turning it into limited edition clothing. In other words, ...READ MORE›

Sony Stores Expand GreenFill Electronics Recycling Effort

Electronics recycling is notoriously difficult--so difficult, in fact, that Greenpeace has an entire campaign devoted to improving it. But Sony took a giant leap forward yesterday in making recycling easier with its GreenFill ...READ MORE›

The Starbucks Cup Dilemma

"When I take people out here in the winter, sometimes we just lie down on it," says Susan Thoman. She's gesturing to a mound of rich black organic matter the length and height of a warehouse at the Cedar Grove composting plant, a sprawling complex an hour north of Seattle. Sealed under Gore-Tex fabric and "blimped" with fans, the giant piles reach a toasty internal temperature of 130 degrees thanks to beneficial bacteria. They steam in the foggy air, which is scented miraculously with bark mulch, not rot, like the floor of the thicket for which the place is named.READ MORE›

• Surprise Packages
• Goals Rush

Responsible Fast Food?

McDonald's today releases its second "corporate responsibility report" (the first appeared in 2002--and I guarantee you that nearly every word written about it will wryly point out the hypocrisy of such an effort from a company that ...READ MORE›

A Provocative History of the Canvas Bag Craze

Canvas tote bags are becoming de rigueur for both the eco-minded and the fashionable: Clever, name-brand designs abound, while the disastrous environmental impact of plastic bags is reaching mainstream awareness.  Design Observer ...READ MORE›