NERC Blog

This guest blog is courtesy of GreenBiz, and was written by Lauren Phipps, Director & Senior Analyst, Circular Economy.

You probably already know that around a third of all food produced — roughly 1 billion tons per year — is never eaten. And while you may be thinking about far-off farms and factories as the source of that waste, nearly 85 percent of food in the United States is wasted and lost at consumer-facing businesses and homes, according to ReFED’s analysis. 

Looking at one slice of the challenge, the U.S. restaurant sector generates (PDF) 11.4 million tons of food waste annually. That’s just 1.1 percent of the global total, but it still carries a hefty price tag: more than $25 billion, when taking into account…

In a new report, The Recycling Partnership explores strategies for expanding plastics recycling commitments to include all recycled materials.

In 2018, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation established the New Plastics Economy Global Commitment, securing promises from over 400 major businesses—representing 20% of all plastic packaging produced globally—to work toward a circular economy in which all plastic packaging is 100% reusable, recyclable, or compostable. Given the troubling current state of global plastics pollution, the vision inscribed in the Commitment seems ambitious; but as the June 2019 report of the Commitment states, “all business and government signatories to the Global Commitment are committing to a set of ambitious 2025 targets. They will work to eliminate the plastic items we don’t need; innovate so all…

TerraCycle expands its business model with Loop, bringing the program of reusable containers for household products to additional states.

Unresolved yet pressing sustainability issues—the belated scramble to develop recycling markets in the wake of China’s National Sword, the growing prevalence of plastics pollution—have propelled recycling back to the status of major topic for societies. Industry, government, non-governmental organizations, and even individuals dragging their bins to the curbside are seeking solutions that will significantly reduce waste and increase the amount of post-consumer recycled content in manufacturing.

Those of us of a certain age still remember purchasing milk in reusable glass containers, to cite but one example of recycling and reuse. Seemingly overnight, that practice disappeared from sight, as reusable containers were replaced by single-use plastic. Are those days of sustainable reuse really gone for good, or might they be recaptured in a twenty-first century context?

For one New Jersey-based company, the answer to the question is yes: we can replace wasteful single-use plastics with containers that are reused.

This guest blog is courtesy of the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI).

Recycling continues to power the American economy based on a new study conducted by John Dunham and Associates and released by the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI). In addition to its positive environmental benefits, the recycling industry is responsible for more than 531,500 jobs and an overall economic impact of nearly $110 billion.

“The recycling industry continues to power America’s manufacturing base, creating jobs, generating tax revenue, and proving valuable feedstock for new products,” said Joe Pickard, chief economist for ISRI. “In the U.S., we continue to process more material into valuable commodities,…

This guest blog is provided by Recycling Today, and written by Megan Smalley, Managing Editor.

This year has brought about a flurry of legislative activity related to sustainability and packaging, with many states announcing plastic bag bans; plastic straw and foam bans; and extended producer responsibility (EPR) bills.

The following are just some regulations that occurred in 2019:

• In April, New York banned plastic bags and put a fee on paper bags.
• In May, Maine became the first state to ban polystyrene foam containers; Maryland followed suit, also banning polystyrene (PS) foam containers. 
• In June, Maine and Vermont banned plastic bags. Also, Vermont banned plastic straws, stirrers and expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam. 
• In July, Oregon and Delaware banned plastic bags; Connecticut put a fee on plastic bags with eventual plans of banning plastic bags.

Additionally,…

This guest blog was originally published on the U.S. Green Chamber of Commerce website, and was written by Darwin Daniel, Managing Director, Inversa Consulting LLC.

In my 20 years of work experience, I have never felt so passionate and committed to promoting sustainable development. I started my professional career under the premise of making things more sustainable and more profitable. As a businessman, this business model has allowed me to understand that doing the right thing generates even more profitability for a company. And as a citizen, contributing to the benefit of society and the environment creates far greater personal satisfaction.

As the economy expands, the demand for more raw materials required for the production of goods has increased. Economies are growing so rapidly that we have to examine how wise it is to increase the rate at which we extract more raw materials and generate waste. This current unsustainable model that consists of “take-make-use-dispose”…

This guest blog is provided by Michael Alexander, Recycle Away Systems & Solutions.

Markets, markets, markets," the recycling buzzword for the 1990s, has become all too familiar to those responsible for moving materials through the recycling process. Why are markets so vital to the success of recycling? How do they behave under the current recycling fervor? What forces lie behind their development?

Traditionally, a market is created when the available supply of a product is matched by a corresponding demand. Usually, supply and demand follow each other closely, as markets evolve over time. In the rush to recycle, however, the demand for recyclable material has not always kept pace with burgeoning supplies. While state and local governments have proved effective in implementing programs to recover materials, they have had less success in finding markets for them.

Several factors contribute to this problem. The lag time between the availability of large quantities…

This guest blog is courtesy of Scrap Tire News.

Long-awaited research study differentiates between what is present in the recycled tire crumb from what people may actually be exposed to from recycled tire crumb.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the Synthetic Turf Field Recycled Tire Crumb Rubber Characterization Research Final Report: Part 1 -Tire Crumb Rubber Characterization, July 25, 2019.

The report is part of the Federal Research Action Plan (FRAP) on Recycled Tire Crumb Used on Playing Fields and Playgrounds, a multi-agency effort that includes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (CDC/ASTDR), and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)performing research that seeks to improve the understanding of potential health effects of recreational exposures to recycled tires. The EPA and CDC are studying the chemical characteristics of recycled tire materials and the exposures on athletic fields. The CPSC…

This guest blog is provided by the Environmental Defense Fund,

EDF & Business blogs, written by Tom Neltner and Michelle Mauthe Harvey

Recently, we recommended a series of steps that companies can take to address EDF’s top-ten list of chemicals of concern in the food supply, including setting new packaging specifications, verifying compliance, and tracking progress. Perhaps surprisingly, one action you haven’t seen us recommend – until now – is one of the key tenets of EDF’s Five Pillars of Safer Food Leadership: supply chain transparency, in this case into chemical additives to both raw material and final paper and plastic packaging.

The reason why is simple—the packaging supply chain can be especially opaque, and we strive to minimize frustrations when we make suggestions. People may make commitments about what’s not in their packaging, but they often seem unwilling or unable to share what is being used. As companies react to concerns about sustainability and recyclability of packaging, the opaqueness is a framework that can lead to unnecessary scrambling when questions…

This guest blog is by Nina Goodrich, Director of The Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) & Executive Director of GreenBlue.

Single use plastics have become the focal point for our frustration with plastic waste. Doug Woodring from the Ocean Recovery Alliance wrote in a recent article, “Switching to alternatives might not save the world but the use of single-use plastics sends a distinct message to customers that the brand and its management is not on top of an issue of growing global importance.” Straws are emblematic of our single-use addiction because they are rarely necessary and tossed in a matter of minutes. Recent moves by Starbucks, McDonald’s and others to eliminate straws provides momentum to address the single use challenge. I believe we should embrace this momentum and leverage it to tackle the larger problem of developing system-based solutions for design and recovery of all packaging material types. It’s important that we not get distracted by single substrate solutions. All…