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Recycling & Waste Mgmt.

Who Are the Top 10 Most ‘Sustainable’ CEOs?

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TriplePundit recently held a poll inviting readers to vote for the Top 10 Most “Sustainable” CEOs. The blog’s founder and publisher Nick Aster explains the results:

Before we get too excited about the ranking, I want to emphasize that there was nothing scientific about this process and its real purpose was as much to provoke conversation as it was to give recognition to some of our most enlightened business leaders.

It was also about challenging readers and leaders alike to ask themselves what the definition of “sustainable leadership” really is. In some cases these leaders have helped create products and services with positive environmental or social impact, in others they have helped build a corporate culture that rewards and nourishes employees and stakeholders in new ways. Some are well known, others more humble. As you think about the “winners” keep in mind the very loose and changing definition of the word “sustainable” and leave some comments as to what it means to you.

Without further ado, the folks with the most votes were as follows:

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01/27/2010 0 comment

Recycling & Waste Mgmt.

Recycle Match Turns Waste Into Sought-After Materials

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Waste. Every company creates it, in some form or another. For some materials, the path to recycling is clear – paper, plastics, and industry specific waste that has a known reuse within your sector or a related one.

But what about the less obvious materials, the ones for which you have no feasible reuse, and therefore pay disposal fess, month after month? Is that the end of story, a “necessary evil” you must resign yourself to?

Not if Recycle Match can help it.

Much like eBay has created a global market on the consumer items that previously sat in people’s homes or were thrown away, Recycle Match seeks to match up those who generate either one-time or regular streams of hard-to-recycle materials, with those seeking that material for their own use.

01/11/2010 0 comment

Recycling & Waste Mgmt.

Middle East Opens First Carbon Dioxide Recovery Plant

written by Environmental News Network

The Middle East’s first carbon dioxide recovery plant has been opened at the Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company. This is also one of the first in the world to successfully recycle carbon dioxide air emissions. The $55 million facility at the company’s Sitra facility was formally inaugurated by Gulf chairman and adviser to the Prime Minister for oil and industrial affairs Shaikh Isa bin Ali Al Khalifa, in the presence of board members, company officials and guests.

Carbon dioxide is useful for many industrial operations. It can be used as a feedstock if compressed and transported and it can be used in carbonation of beverages. These are useful and productive recycling efforts but the industry using the carbon dioxide must be close by.

01/05/2010 0 comment

Recycling & Waste Mgmt.

Innovative Thai Architect Singh Intrachooto: “Focus on process, not products.”

written by Chris Tobias

Like many countries, Thailand has an issue with waste. From buildings, to manufacturing and agriculture, to consumer goods and tourism leftovers, mountains of garbage go to landfill each year. Agriculture alone in Thailand churns out 58,190,000 tons of refuse annually (Land Development Department, Government of Thailand). Think about that the next time you frolic on a Thai beach.

Throughput of industrial system today, from source to end consumer, ends up in landfills or incinerator. For every truckload of product with lasting value, 32 truckloads of waste are produced. On a finite planet, it doesn’t take a genius to realize this sort of system is totally unsustainable.

01/03/2010 1 comment

Clean Transportation Energy Efficiency Recycling & Waste Mgmt.

Is Ford Green? A Look at Fuel Economy, Renewable Materials and Climate Change Initiatives

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CleanTechies sits down with John Viera, director of sustainable business strategies for Ford Motor Company, for three questions.

CleanTechies: What are your day to day duties and the big picture of your job?

John Viera: Basically, my responsibilities are two-fold. My organization is responsible for our sustainability strategies and also responsible for environmental policy for the company. So, when you think about those two pockets – the sustainability strategy, you can think about it in a couple of different buckets. Everything we do from a sustainability strategy standpoint has to have economic goodness to it. I say that because when we talk about doing things that are environmentally friendly and whatnot, we say that it does need to have a good business case. We’re not the philanthropic arm of Ford. There is a philanthropic arm. It’s called the Ford Fund. And what we do is we set up strategies that make business sense.

12/15/2009 1 comment

Clean Transportation Recycling & Waste Mgmt.Renewable Energy

Researchers Develop Machine To Recycle Carbon Dioxide Into Fuel

written by Yale Environment 360

U.S. researchers have demonstrated a technology that uses the sun’s heat to convert carbon dioxide and water into the building blocks of traditional fuels, a reverse combustion process that may emerge as a practical alternative to sequestration of CO2 emissions from power plants.

The prototype “Sunshine to Petrol” system, developed by Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, uses concentrated solar energy to trigger a thermo-chemical reaction in an iron-rich composite located inside a two-sided cylindrical chamber.

The iron oxide is designed to lose an oxygen molecule when exposed to 1,500 degree C heat, and then retrieve an oxygen molecule when it is cooled down, essentially converting an incoming supply of CO2 into an outgoing stream of carbon monoxide.

11/24/2009 2 comments

Recycling & Waste Mgmt.Renewable Energy

Using Enzymes from Termites To Make Biofuel from Agricultural Waste

written by Yale Environment 360

A U.S. company has come up with a new way of producing biofuels from cellulosic feedstocks, such as agricultural waste: Using enzymes from the guts of termites to more efficiently produce ethanol.

The startup company, ZeaChem, says using the enzymes from the wood-eating insects has achieved ethanol yields in the laboratory 35 percent higher than other producers of cellulosic ethanol, according to MIT Technology Review.

11/23/2009 1 comment

Recycling & Waste Mgmt.

Food Recycling Program A Major Success in San Francisco

written by Yale Environment 360

San Francisco’s new food recycling program — the first in the U.S. that requires all food waste from homes, apartments, businesses, and restaurants to be recycled and composted — has been enthusiastically embraced by city residents, officials say.

Although the program was officially launched on Wednesday, city officials say that residents have been recycling food for weeks and are already setting aside about half of the city’s 500 tons of daily food waste.

10/22/2009 7 comments

Green Building Recycling & Waste Mgmt.

EcoDorm Offers ‘Green’ College Living

written by Elsa Wenzel

A dorm outfitted with composting toilets and kitchen cabinets made from recycled fence-posts is bringing new meaning to the concept of living “green” at college.

The EcoDorm, home to 36 undergraduates at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, N.C., was designed to be sustainable from top to bottom, or in this case, from its rainwater-collection system to a permaculture garden.

10/15/2009 0 comment

Green Building Recycling & Waste Mgmt.Renewable Energy

Masdar’s Green City Built by Clean Technology Experts in High Demand

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Abu Dhabi is going far beyond its borders to build a zero carbon footprint city in Masdar. Clean technology leaders from across the global are helping to build Masdar City, which is being designed to use only renewable power and convert its waste to energy.

The innovative city of 40,000 will have no cars and recycle all of its waste, and is scheduled for completion in 2016.

An Australian firm, LAVA architects, recently won the bid to design the city center of Masdar with a European-style plaza.

America’s General Electric has a prominent role in Masdar, partnering with the Mubadala Development Company on financing programs and clean energy research. GE is also establishing an “ecoimagination” research center in Masdar.

09/22/2009 1 comment

Recycling & Waste Mgmt.Renewable Energy

Waste-to-energy Incineration Fly Ash Reborn As Semakau Landfill Island

written by Chris Tobias

Singapore is a bustling city state at the southern tip of peninsular Malaysia. Independent from Malaysia since 1965, it has a dense population of 4.7 million people crammed into 269 sq. miles (697 sq. km)— that’s roughly 3.5x the size of Washington D.C.

In spite of its lacking land mass, the tiny country is a major economic hub in Southeast Asia and boasts one of the best standards of living of any Asian city, and even rivals many metropolis overseas.

It’s a city that is well planned, tightly regulated, visually attractive, and thankfully lacking the woeful pollution that afflict other centers like Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Waste and the City

All the economic activity and large population of course is not without its downside: waste. In 2008 the total volume of solid waste had reached 5.97 million tons. Luckily, according to government figures, roughly 2.24 million tons (approx. 56%) of this was recycled. That still left a lot left to deal with.

08/18/2009 4 comments

Clean Transportation Recycling & Waste Mgmt.

Cash for Clunkers Omits Ethanol Option & Downside of Recycling

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The cash for clunkers program is already proving too good to be true. The $1 billion in funds allocated for the program is almost gone after less than a week, and now congress is scrambling to get an additional $2 billion to extend the program.

With sales up at Ford and at dealerships, the program can be viewed as an unabashed success for the auto industry. And the environment is also winning, as the vehicles being purchased are estimated to be 69 percent more fuel efficient than the vehicles being dumped, according to the website CashForClunkersInformation.org.

07/31/2009 4 comments

Recycling & Waste Mgmt.

Australians Start Banning Water Bottles – Is the G8 Next..?!

written by Ceylan Thomson

Concerned by the environmental impact of water bottles, the 2,500 villagers of Bundanoon have now banned the sale of bottled water. This might make them the first community in the world to do so. More than 350 residents went to the polls, with only two people voting against the ban – including a representative from the bottled water industry, BBC reports citing ABC news. Even the local stores supported the vote. Visitors won’t get punished for breaking the ban, but they will be “encouraged to fill a reusable container from water fountains in the main street.” Neat!

07/10/2009 2 comments

Recycling & Waste Mgmt.

Recycling gets trashed, stimulus has cash

written by Jeff Kart

The recession is hitting recycling hard.

Markets for metals and other recyclable goods are in the toilet. Some haulers are even stockpiling stuff in hopes of better days ahead.

The downturn has put the future of National Recycling Coalition in jeopardy, according to a letter sent recently to members. Among the ideas being floated are consolidating the group with another similar organization.

In what is becoming a familiar refrain, the federal stimulus bill holds some promise. The bill includes a provision from the NRC and its members that authorizes $3.2 billion for the Energy Efficiency Block Grant program, for communities to use for energy-related actions including projects related to source reduction and recycling, the coalition says.

04/07/2009 2 comments

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