By Sunny Lewis for Maximpact CAMPINAS, Sao Paulo, Brazil, February 17, 2023 (Maximpact.com Sustainability News) – Brazilian scientists have successfully produced biogas from the pulpy waste remaining after apples have been crushed to extract their juice. The biofuel produced from this waste, called apple pomace, could help reduce the use of climate-warming fossil fuels, the scientists say in research published this week. At a village cider mill in southern New York state; apple pomace is pumped onto a coarse cloth set in a cider rack. October 31, 2015, Endicott, New York, USA (Photo by Pa ..read more

By Sunny Lewis for Maximpact Kuwait tire fire on October 15, 2020 (Photo courtesy Interesting Engineering) October 17, 2022 – Wherever we live on Earth, tires, or tyres, keep our world moving. Tires have a vital role to play in creating a future of mobility for everyone – a future that is environmentally friendly, efficient, safe, and accessible. Yet, tires don’t last forever, and when they reach the end of their usefulness, they become an environmental problem that takes advanced technology and much human effort to solve. A billion end-of-life tires are generated every year and there are cu ..read more

Agbogbloshie e-waste dump in Ghana’s capital city of Accra, March 12, 2019 (Photo by Axel Drainville) Creative Commons license via Flickr By Sunny Lewis GENEVA, Switzerland, November 7, 2019 (Maximpact.com News) – Since becoming Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in 2014, Houlin Zhao has upgraded his mobile phone three times, and, he says, every time, the old mobile was recycled or donated to charity for further use. But this is not the case for all mobile phones around the world, says the leader of ITU, the United Nations’ specialized agency for information ..read more

Trash, including many plastic bottles, washed up on Samana beach, Domincan Republic in the Caribbean Sea. April 3, 2018 (Photo by Rey Perezoso) By Sunny Lewis NEW YORK, New York, October 22, 2019 (Maximpact.com News) – Around the world, almost one million plastic bottles are purchased every minute. As the environmental impact of that plastic tide swells into a political issue, packaged goods sellers and retailers, pressured to stem the flow of single-use bottles and containers, are coming up with new ideas and technologies to solve the problem. Plastic production has surged in the past 50 ye ..read more

Wasted fruits and vegetables, October 28, 2012 (Photo by Carl Campbell) Creative Commons license via Flickr. By Sunny Lewis BRUSSELS, Belgium, May 9, 2019 (Maximpact.com News) – Every year about 20 percent of the food produced in the European Union is lost or wasted, while 43 million EU residents cannot afford a quality meal every second day. Now, based on a new methodology, EU Member States will be expected to fight food waste by collecting and sharing information to provide the first new hard data on food waste levels to the European Commission by mid-2022. Households generate more than ha ..read more

Burmese workers try to protect themselves from the fumes and smoke from the cooking of circuit boards in a primitive site in Thailand receiving e-waste from North America and Europe. May 22, 2018 (Photo courtesy Basel Action Network) Creative Commons license via Flickr SEATTLE, Washington, February 7, 2019 (Maximpact.com News) – The global environmental watchdog organization Basel Action Network (BAN), based in Seattle, today released the findings of a two-year study in 10 EU countries that followed 314 old computers, printers, and monitors in which GPS Trackers had been secretly installed ..read more

Productive fields in Altenhasungen, Hesse, Germany, June 18, 2008 (Photo by Evelyn Berg) Creative Commons license via Flickr By Sunny Lewis BRUSSELS, Belgium, December 13, 2018 (Maximpact.com News) – Negotiators from the European Parliament, Council and Commission have just reached political agreement on new EU rules for fertilizers proposed by the Commission in 2016 as a key deliverable of the Circular Economy Package. The Package consists of a 2015 EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy that establishes a concrete and ambitious program of action, with measures covering the whole cycl ..read more

Tagged wheelie bins in London, England, July 16, 2017. (Photo by Tee Cee) Creative Commons license via Flickr By Sunny Lewis STRASBOURG, France, May 1, 2018 (Maximpact.com News) – The European Parliament has formally approved higher recycling targets and new measures to reduce waste across Europe. Environment ministers from all 28 EU countries are expected to approve the agreement in the coming weeks. Their approval must be secured before the new laws can officially be transposed into national legislation within 24 months from that moment. The Parliament’s vote comes four months after the sa ..read more

Graphic image by Wee Viraporn, Thailand. HELSINKI, Finland, June 15, 2017 (Maximpact.com News ) – “Circular material use and smart products design hold a promise of substantially reducing the environmental burden of production and consumption, but it requires fundamental shifts in our resource use patterns,” finds a new report launched at the World Circular Economy Forum 2017 (WCEF2017) last week in Helsinki. The European Environment Agency (EEA) report published June 6 stresses that circular business models cannot rely on smarter product design alone, but also will require the development o ..read more

Armacell foam component of the KAFD World Trade Center in the King Abdullah Financial District, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, is lifted into place. The façade cladding is built out of advanced composite materials and covers a surface area of more than 40.000 m². (Photos courtesy Armacell) By Sunny Lewis LONDON, UK, May 12, 2017 (Maximpact.com News) – Companies looking for innovative ways to give the circular economy a spin can check out insulation foams producer Armacell, which is giving PET plastic bottles a second life in wind turbine rotor blades. Polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, is the most c ..read more