Esegui ricerca
Recycling
Champions of Waste Reduction
Champions of Waste Reduction
Other regions in Europe are motivated by success stories like this one, and are now supported by a team of experts from ECOPOL to implement their new policies.
Edward Soméus – when animal waste provides greener fertilisers
Edward Soméus – when animal waste provides greener fertilisers
The Swedish environmental engineer Edward Soméus invented in the early ’80s a CO 2 free technology, abiding by the 3R principles: Recycle-Reduce-Reuse, to manufacture a natural fertiliser called biochar .
Bitumen roofing can be recycled… but isn’t
Bitumen roofing can be recycled… but isn’t
Bitumen, the sticky, gooey black stuff you sometimes see oozing out of hot road surfaces, is a valuable binding agent. Not only in road building. But also in construction and in the production of roofing materials.
Tweaking Mother Nature’s chemistry box
Tweaking Mother Nature’s chemistry box
Natural enzymes are very clever molecular machines. They are the catalyst for many of nature’s chemical transformations. And the conditions they need to perform their task are rather precisely defined.
Buildings rising from the ashes
Buildings rising from the ashes
Urban mining is increasingly being taken seriously by industry because it gives access to materials—such as expensive metals used in electronics—that are buried in waste tips and landfills.
When recycling equates with quality raw materials
When recycling equates with quality raw materials
Twenty five years ago, the German chemist Michael Braungart developed a new approach to recycling, now called "Cradle to Cradle" or "C2C" after the book, Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, which he and the American architect William McDonough published in 2002.
Closing the water cycle
Closing the water cycle
Clean freshwater faces various threats such as increasing demand by population growth, pollution and changes in the hydrological cycle due to climate change.
Screening eco-innovation level
Screening eco-innovation level
Going green is one of the fastest growing trends, particularly in industry. But smaller size companies are often left wondering how best to become more environmentally friendly .
Cleaning up behind the fashion industry
Cleaning up behind the fashion industry
The European fashion industry is a huge consumer of fresh water. Estimates point to 600 million cubic meter of fresh water being consumed yearly in Europe by the textile and clothing industry ; not a negligible amount.
Ralf Otterpohl: a second life for unsuspected nutrient-rich waste
Ralf Otterpohl: a second life for unsuspected nutrient-rich waste
Every day cities in Europe discard a useful nutrient-rich resource that could be used to grow crops. Ironically, we treat and process human wastes while we mine non-renewable phosphate and potassium and we consume fossil fuel to make nitrogen fertiliser.
Jorge Marx Gómez: Putting environmental performance into practice
Jorge Marx Gómez: Putting environmental performance into practice
Jorge Marx Gómez is professor and chair of business information systems at the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg , Germany. He was the scientific manager of the EU-funded project OEPI , completed in 2012.
Sorting plastic waste: a magnetic game
Sorting plastic waste: a magnetic game
More than one third of the total plastic production in Europe—about 14 million tonnes per year—are polyolefins, also known as polyalkenes.
Can enamels’ environmental impact truly be reduced?
Can enamels’ environmental impact truly be reduced?
Enamel cookware is ubiquitous. The trouble is that enamels —like other vitreous substances, or frits, used in making porcelain or ceramic glazes— are produced through a process generating highly toxic chemicals .
How soon could car seats enter the 3D comfort zone?
How soon could car seats enter the 3D comfort zone?
Vehicles seats are normally made of polyurethane foam, a thick material that is expensive to recycle and ends up in dumping sites or being incinerated.
Strong resistance to making people think green
Strong resistance to making people think green
How can policymakers change the way people think? This is what the InContext project, funded by the EU, hopes to answer. Leading European research institutions in the fields of transition, behaviour and sustainable development are trying to create a manual for change.
Funky food from fruit by-products
Funky food from fruit by-products
Food processing of cereal and fruits creates a rather voluminous amount of by-products . The London, UK-based Institution of Mechanical Engineers recently estimated that anywhere between 35% and 50%--or 1.
Forever recyclable novel plastic thanks to old tyres
Forever recyclable novel plastic thanks to old tyres
Tyres are well suited for recycling. They are easy to collect and do not require any costly sorting process.  However, in Europe, still only about 50% of the tyres are recycled .
Gara Villalba: Tracking mobile phone recycling rate to improve them
Gara Villalba: Tracking mobile phone recycling rate to improve them
Gara Villalba, who is a chemical engineer and a professor at the institute of environmental science and technology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona , has tracked the flows of materials to see how recycling rates could be improved.
Turning tyres into gas for energy and new, valuable materials
Turning tyres into gas for energy and new, valuable materials
Europe's tyre waste production is 3 million tonnes per year. Currently 65% to 70% of used tyres end up in landfills. Not only are they causing environmental damage, but a loss of added value in the form of new products that recycling can generate .
Daniel Ribera: turning food-soiled packaging into safe compost
Daniel Ribera: turning food-soiled packaging into safe compost
Designing environment-friendly compostable food packaging is the challenge that Daniel Ribera, the coordinator of the EC-funded Ecopack , tells youris.com about.
Page: 1 2 3