waste sorting
Latest News

San Francisco Doubles Down on Recycling

SAN FRANCISCO, California, January 24, 2019 (ENS) – When faced with a challenge, the city of San Francisco rededicated itself to recycling. One year ago, when China announced it would no longer accept shipments of recycled materials from foreign countries, the world lost its biggest customer for bales of recycled paper and recycled plastic. […]

Ganges
Latest News

World Environment Day: Planet ‘Swamped’ With Plastic

NEW DELHI, India, June 5, 2018 (ENS) – World Environment Day, celebrated on June 5 each year since the United Nations established it in 1974, is not Earth Day, which started as a grassroots movement and environmental teach-in on April 22, 1970, but this year both special days have the same theme – eliminating plastic pollution. […]

e-waste
Latest News

E-waste Mountains Grow as Prices Fall, Incomes Rise

BONN, Germany, December 18, 2017 (ENS) – E-waste – everything from discarded end-of-life solar panels, phones, laptops, and sensors to fridges, air conditioners and televisions – amounted to 44.7 million metric tonnes (Mt) last year, equal in mass to about nine Great Pyramids of Giza. […]

gull
Latest News

UN Campaigns to ‘Turn the Tide’ on Ocean Plastics

BALI, Indonesia, February 26, 2017 (ENS) – An unprecedented global campaign to eliminate major sources of marine litter within five years was launched this week by UN Environment. The campaign is targeting microplastics in cosmetics and single-use plastics such as straws, bags and packaging materials. […]

garbage
Latest News

EU Plans to Halve Marine Litter, Food Waste by 2030

BRUSSELS, Belgium, January 25, 2017 (ENS) – The amount of marine litter polluting European waters would be halved by 2030 under new waste management proposals agreed Tuesday by the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, usually called the ENVI Committee. […]

plastic
Business

Unilever Pledges 100% Reusable, Recyclable Packaging

LONDON, UK, January 23, 2017 (ENS) – Anglo-Dutch multinational consumer goods giant Unilever has committed to ensuring that all of its plastic packaging is fully reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025, and the company called on the entire fast-moving consumer goods industry to accelerate progress towards the circular economy. […]

smartphone
Latest News

Greenpeace to Samsung: Recover Metals in Recalled Phones

SEOUL, South Korea, October 31, 2016 (ENS) – Samsung Electronics Co., faced with the discovery that the lithium ion batteries in its Galaxy Note 7 smartphone could ignite, has recalled 2.5 million of the devices from 10 countries. Greenpeace wants Samsung to retrieve tons of precious metals from the waste phones. […]

Maersk Wyoming
Business

Maersk Slammed for Sidestepping EU Ship Recycling Law

BRUSSELS, Belgium, June 11, 2016 (ENS) – Indian and international environmental groups are taking Danish container ship giant Maersk to task for considering flagging its end-of-life vessels out of Danish or any other European registry to circumvent the European Ship Recycling Regulation and break the ships in India. […]

Dooley
Energy

Australia: ‘Road-Ready’ Fuels Made From Waste Plastic

BERKELEY VALE, New South Wales, Australia, May 26, 2015 (ENS) – Australia’s first commercial-scale plant to convert waste plastics to “road-ready” fuel has produced its first batch. The facility will turn discarded non-recyclable household plastics into diesel and gasoline. […]

ash spill
Energy

Coal Ash Crimes Cost Duke Energy $102 Million

WASHINGTON, DC, May 19, 2015 (ENS) – Admitting guilt for a massive coal ash spill last year, three subsidiaries of Duke Energy, the largest utility in the United States, will pay a $68 million criminal fine and spend $34 million to benefit rivers and wetlands in North Carolina and Virginia. […]

trash
Latest News

Valuable But Toxic: World’s E-waste Goes to Waste

TOKYO, Japan, April 20, 2015 (ENS) – The United States and China produce the most e-waste overall – 32 percent of the world’s total. But the top per capita e-waste producers are the wealthy nations of northern and western Europe, the top five being Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. […]