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General Motors has turned trash into cash - to the tune of $1 billion in new revenue streams from recycling and reuse. Read more: http://www.environmentalleader.com/2016/05/12/how-gm-generates-1-billion-from-recycling-reusing-waste-streams/#ixzz49Wo7d1VD

The Portland, Oregon, city council yesterday passed a law banning the demolition of homes build on or before 1916. The law requires old homes to instead be deconstructed, allowing builders to salvage and reuse lumber and other materials. The city expects the new deconstruction policy will divert 8 million pounds (4,000 tons) of materials for reuse annually.

A new PepsiCo ad encouraging people to recycle is the latest in the company's ongoing efforts to increase national recycling rates. PepsiCo has gathered more than 125.7 million beverage containers since 2010, reusing the materials for packaging.

A zero-waste food retailer is readying to open up in Brooklyn, N.Y., that will allow shoppers to fill their own reusable containers and offer milk in glass bottles that shoppers can reuse on future trips. The concept of retailers like the Fillery are popular in Europe, but they have yet to catch on in the US market.

The European Commission's newly released Roadmap for the EU Strategy on Plastics in a Circular Economy outlines the problems Europe is facing with plastics and four areas on which the Plastics Strategy will focus later this year, including improving the economics, quality and uptake of plastic recycling and reuse. But the Break Free From Plastic Movement says the Commission's plan fails to get to the root of the plastics problem.

Bear Republic is taking things a step farther: In January, it was the first brewery to buy Cambrian's EcoVolt system, which uses electrically active organisms to clean wastewater for reuse while creating a high-quality biogas that helps offset the heat and electricity needed for Bear's production process

In response to water scarcity, municipalities are figuring out ways to treat sewage less like waste and more like a resource.

Businesses in Boulder should be required to recycle - and food-related businesses to compost - to help the city meet its zero-waste goals, according to a report. Boulder is updating its Zero Waste Strategic Plan and has set a goal to reuse, recycle or compost at least 85 percent of its waste, rather than sending it to the landfill. As of 2013, Boulder businesses divert 28 percent of their waste, the city says.

Skanska has turned its Elizabeth River Tunnels project in Virginia into an example of how civil construction can improve its environmental impact while augmenting modern infrastructure. The company has a recycling/reuse rate of 99% for the project, and its creative ways to benefit the surrounding environment include using concrete waste to create oyster habitats. 

IBM recycled, reused or resold almost 97 percent of the end-of-life products it collected for processing last year, according to the tech giant's 25th annual corporate sustainability report.

Nestlé implemented technology at its Jalisco, Mexico dairy plant that will enable the facility save over 422,000 gallons of water per day by capturing water from milk and reusing it in operations. The company calls the plant is its first "zero water" manufacturing site.

Canada's CarbonCure Technologies uses carbon dioxide produced during the cement-making process to fill tiny voids in concrete blocks. As a result, the block absorbs less water, is 20% stronger and more sustainable, according to this article. Builders can use the product to help set them apart from competitors and can "reduce the cost of their production by harnessing the material benefits of CO2, such as high early strength, lower water absorption, and other secondary benefits," says Robert Niven, the company's founder

Consumers often are left unaware of the use and destination of their recyclables. Although many are donated, much of the material is sold to for-profit companies for resale around the globe. The lack of transparency has led to misunderstanding among consumers, communities and retailers. This push toward greater transparency is yet another reason to embrace The Reuse Movement.

Toyota saved more than 54 million gallons of water in North America during fiscal year 2015 through reduce, reuse and recycle efforts, according to its latest North American Environmental Report.

Increasing the recycling rate to 100 percent industry-wide could generate an estimated $10 billion in cost savings and natural capital benefits, according to Trucost. For example, creating better closed-loop processes for reusing gold would have a bottom-line benefit of almost $100 million compared with $14.6 million at current recovery levels, according to the Trucost data.

It's back-to-school time, which means the advertisements are everywhere: Buy! Buy! Buy! Pencils and gadgets. Backpacks and sneakers. And, yes, heaps and piles of brand-new clothes. But this year, those ads are running up against another powerful message, resounding from such big brands as Eileen Fisher and Patagonia, along with a growing cadre of smaller thrift and resale shops: Let's make do, reuse, recycle.

Five fashion companies -- Eileen Fisher, H&M, Kering, Zero + Maria Cornejo and Loomstate -- now belong to the Fashion Positive PLUS initiative and will help develop "circular solutions" for clothing materials that can be used and reused. The goal of the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute's initiative is to improve commonly used materials, including dyes and yarns, so they have positive health impacts while also promoting change in the industry.

The fashion and textile industries continue to make strides towards circular models with the emergence of new resources and technologies that make a sustainable shift easier than ever before. The Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute's Fashion Positive Initiative has unveiled a set of online resources designed to rapidly increase environmental and social outcomes in the fashion industry, while the H&M Foundation and The Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel have uncovered a new hydrothermal process that fully separates and recycles fabric blends that can then be reused directly without any quality loss.

Asian cities are struggling to accommodate rapid urban migration and development is encroaching on flood-prone areas. Recent flooding in Mumbai was blamed in part on the unregulated development of wetlands, while hastily built urban areas are being affected by flooding across India, Nepal and Bangladesh.