Businesses must preserve today's resources for tomorrow's industries

Good morning and thanks for joining us today. Working to improve resource use in the interests of future generations is core to Julie's values - as it is mine. FURTHER READING For me, these values are a direct result of my mother's influence. She's always been quick to consider the needs of others and pass something positive on to future generations. We both felt a need to bring these values directly to the work we do... me as a scientist, her as a teacher. We can all remember those teachers from our school days whose advice shaped us, and how we approach the world as adults today. Inspiring teachers and a good education are what we all want for our own young relatives. But what good is a flawless education in preparing today's children for their world of tomorrow, if tomorrow's world is flawed? A tomorrow that is full of uncertainties due to the certainties of today. Because today there are certainly more people on Earth than yesterday, And today more goods are consume…

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The benefit of more electronics recycling? Try $10bn

The IT industry's biggest computer hardware and gadget manufacturers have been pretty quiet about their commitments to accounting for natural capital - aka the environmental costs related to their business activities. That's not to say they aren't experimenting with recovery and reuse initiatives. Dell and Hewlett-Packard have been particularly innovative about creating closed-loop processes for putting recycled plastics back in service. It's just that with the exception of Dell, no one company is really talking about these programs from a global perspective. At least not publicly. It actually turns out the computer and electronics industry as a whole does pretty well when it comes to limiting its impact on natural resources, such as water and precious metals such as gold, silver and platinum. The cost is an estimated $39m per every billion dollars in revenue, according to a recent analysis by Trucost on behalf of the Greener Electronics Council, the organisation behind the …

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How Unilever achieved zero waste to landfill across Europe

Unilever this week announced it has achieved its goal of sending zero waste to landfill across its European operations, taking it a major step closer to reaching its global target. The achievement means no Unilever owned or operated premises, logistics operations or distribution centre is sending waste to landfill. However, the goal has yet to be achieved in its supply chain.  FURTHER READING BusinessGreen spoke to Pier Luigi Sigismondi, Unilever's chief supply chain officer, to find out more. BG: What are the environmental and economic benefits of achieving zero landfill? PLS: With climate change talks due to take place in Paris at the end of this year we need a step change in companies committing to environmental action. There are many reasons why achieving zero waste to landfill makes sense from an environmental and economic perspective. Every year an estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of solid waste is collected worldwide and this is expected to increase to 2.2 billion to…

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Scotland’s plastic bag charge slashes use by 80 per cent

The number of single use carrier bags taken home by shoppers in Scotland dropped by 650 million after a five pence levy was introduced last year. The data, which comes from major grocery retailers, indicates use fell by around 80 per cent since the charge was introduced a year ago this week. Morrisons, the Co-operative and Waitrose say they have seen an 80 per cent drop, while Asda reported a 90 per cent reduction. Sainsbury's saw a 100 per cent reduction of single use bags as they no longer offer them to shoppers. Announcing the figures in Aberdeen, Scotland's Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead said the charge has been a "major success". The results are similar to those in Wales, which saw a dramatic fall in carrier bag use after introducing a charge in 2011. "Previously statistics showed that people in Scotland used more than 800 million new single-use carrier bags every single year - more per head than anywhere else in the UK," he said. "I thank Scotland for embracing…

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TerraCycle launches UK-wide cigarette recycling program

The UK's first program to offer free cigarette waste recycling was launched this week in a bid to tackle the scourge of cigarette litter and reduce the amount of cigarette waste going to landfill. The Cigarette Waste Brigade, which is the result of a partnership between US-headquartered recycling company TerraCycle and tobacco manufacturer Japan Tobacco International (JTI), will allow people across the UK to send cigarette butts and associated waste to be recycled. FURTHER READING The free scheme will be offered to both groups and workplaces, as well as individuals over the age of 18. Anyone who wants to participate simply needs to collect their cigarette or cigar butts and other waste and send it to TerraCycle, with ash, used and unused cigarette filters, rolling paper, inner foil packaging, and outer plastic packaging all accepted. Much of the cigarette waste will then be recycled into a range of plastic products, such as delivery pallets, while any remaining tobacco …

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Send & Destroy launches 'first' postal service for greener e-waste disposal

A new data destruction service has been launched to allow households and SMEs to easily send their electronic waste by post to be safely disposed of. Send & Destroy says it is the first company to offer destruction of individual data devices such as hard drives, USB sticks and tablets via post. Devices are sent through normal post or tracker courier to the company's Hampshire-based facility to be asset listed, destroyed and recycled. FURTHER READING Send & Destroy then provides an official certificate of destruction as proof of secure disposal. Company director Sam Mountain told BusinessGreen he realised there was a gap in the market for small-scale data destruction while talking with a family member who worked in a bank. With five or six hard drives that needed to be destroyed, he said, there was no low-cost easy option. "What we've always found within the waste industry is it's very corporate in a way - you have to go through quite a large company to have acce…

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