By Richard Heinberg, Resilience.org
Why not make the economy circular, with waste from one process feeding into other production processes, thus dramatically reducing the need both for resource extraction and for the dumping of rubbish? We should mimic nature: it’s a central ideal of the ecology movement, with roots in indigenous wisdom worldwide.
By Nate Berg, Ensia
But the solar panels generating that power don’t last forever. The industry standard life span is about 25 to 30 years, and that means that some of the panels installed at the early end of the current boom aren’t long from being retired.
By Manisha SG, Vikalp Sangam
What does it take to upcycle any waste material into a product that is beautiful, serves a basic function and will prevent that material from ending up in a landfill for a few more years?
By Barnabé Binctin, Future Perfect
In Montreuil, the Collecterie resource center is fighting waste by recycling trash—and generating jobs.
By Bill Sheehan, Upstream
Individualized recycling is a start but it is not doing nearly enough.
By Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights
In Germany only about 1 percent of all municipal waste goes into landfills. This compares with about 68 percent in the United States. The U.S. could recycle more and turn much more of the residual waste into energy.
By Cheryl Katz, Yale Environment 360
San Francisco, the first urban area in the nation to mandate recycling and composting and begin outlawing items like Styrofoam food containers, aims to completely eliminate the trash it sends to landfills by 2020.
By Martin Medina, OurWorld
While technological innovation is often seen as the answer to modern waste problems, what can we learn from the historical methods used by great ancient societies such as the Aztecs of Mexico?
By Ugo Bardi, Shay Totten, Resilience.org
A Q&A with Ugo Bardi, author of Extracted: How the Quest for Mineral Wealth is Plundering the Planet
By Stuart Jeanne Bramhall, Dissident Voice
The Zero Waste Solution: Untrashing the Planet One Community at a Time by Paul Connett (Chelsea Green 2013) is about 100% waste recovery and reuse, the new gold standard in recycling.
By Kimberly Bryant, Ignite Me
When you hear the words “do it yourself,” what comes to mind?
By Nicola Jones, Yale Environment 360
A shortage of "rare earth" metals, used in everything from electric car batteries to solar panels to wind turbines, is hampering the growth of renewable energy technologies.