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Adriana Trujillo

The great garbage fire debate: Should we be burning our trash into energy? - Salon.com - 0 views

www.salon.com/...-burning-our-trash-into-energy

WTE trash add environmental news

shared by Adriana Trujillo on 24 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Adriana Trujillo on 24 Jan 17
     
    Waste-to-energy technology has shown some success, but adoption has been slow, particularly in the US. This column looks at some of the challenges.
Del Birmingham

Incineration Versus Recycling: In Europe, A Debate Over Trash by Nate Seltenrich: Yale ... - 0 views

e360.yale.edu/...2686

incineration recycling europe debate trash yale

shared by Del Birmingham on 29 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • recycling most materials from municipal solid waste saves on average three to five times more energy than does burning them for electricity.
  • As it turns out, countries with the highest rates of garbage incineration — Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, for example, all incinerate at least 50 percent of their waste — also tend to have high rates of recycling and composting of organic materials and food waste. But zero-wasters argue that were it not for large-scale incineration, these environmentally Zero-waste advocates say a major problem is the long-term contracts that waste-to-energy plants are locked into.conscious countries would have even higher rates of recycling. Germany, for example, incinerates 37 percent of its waste and recycles 45 percent — a considerably better recycling rate than the 30-plus percent of Scandinavian countries.
  • (In the United States, more than half of all waste is dumped in landfills, and about 12 percent burned, of which only a portion is used to produce energy.)
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • In Flanders, Belgium, an effort to keep a lid on incinerator contracts has led nearer to zero waste, said Joan Marc Simon, executive director of Zero Waste Europe and European regional coordinator for GAIA. Since the early 1990s, when recycling rates were relatively low, the local waste authority in Flanders has decided not to increase incineration beyond roughly 25 percent, Simon said. As a result, combined recycling and composting rates now exceed 75 percent, GAIA says. "They stabilized and even reduced waste generation when they capped incineration," Simon said.
  • Without incineration, he believes, most European countries could improve current recycling rates of 20 or 30 percent to 80 percent within six months. Hogg agreed, saying that rates of 70 percent should be “easy” to attain. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which calculates recycling and composting together, puts the current U.S. rate at 35 percent, compared to a combined European Union figure of 40 percent.
  • Del Birmingham on 29 Aug 13
     
    Increasingly common in Europe, municipal "waste-to-energy" incinerators are being touted as a green trash-disposal alternative. But critics contend that these large-scale incinerators tend to discourage recycling and lead to greater waste.
Adriana Trujillo

Fur Is Back in Fashion and Debate - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ack-in-fashion-and-debate.html

fashion clothing fur PEETA environmental news add

shared by Adriana Trujillo on 16 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • Adriana Trujillo on 16 Jul 15
     
    Fashion houses and animal-rights campaigners are squaring off again over the ethical status of fur, which some designers and trade groups are seeking to reposition as an environmentally sustainable material. "There will be fur long after the last oil wells are empty," said Alan Herscovici of the Fur Council of Canada
Del Birmingham

SustainAbility's 10 trends for 2015 - 2 views

www.mylanderpages.com/...ten-trends-2015

environmental news sustainability trends 2015

shared by Del Birmingham on 29 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Del Birmingham on 29 Dec 14
     
    From historic climate change marches and bold advocacy by companies on the price of carbon to global economic volatility and heated debates on inequality, 2014 was a year of accelerated awareness and action for sustainable development. Our Ten Trends for 2015 distills SustainAbility's thinking over the past year and forecasts the issues that will shape the sustainable development agenda in 2015.  
Del Birmingham

Humanity may be nearing the point of no return for climate action, according to new study - 0 views

newatlas.com/...56153

New Atlas University in the Netherlands Earth System Dynamics climate action study environmental news emissions

shared by Del Birmingham on 31 Aug 18 - No Cached
  • Del Birmingham on 31 Aug 18
     
    An international team of scientists has proposed a series of deadlines by which humanity must take serious action to combat climate change if it is to meet the ambitious goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement, and stave off potential disaster. The team behind the study hopes that these points of no return will help inform debate, and spur leaders to take action to mitigate the threat of climate change while there is still time.
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