Here’s the Waste Robotics Market News including the 10 key news of this week in waste and recycling industries. This week, municipalities, cities, population and companies get involved in recycling and reducing waste.
ISRI raises alarm over tariff policies with U.S. administration
August 17th, 2018 – As tensions escalate amid an ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China that is having a damaging effect on the recycling industry, the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) this week requested the U.S. government make every effort to negotiate a path forward with China. Serving as the Voice of the Recycling IndustryTM, ISRI sent a letter to U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer detailing the impact the current tariff policy is having on the industry in combination with the import restrictions already imposed by China. This is part of ISRI’s ongoing efforts to promote free and fair trade of scrap commodities across the globe.
Read more on Recycling Products News
EU families waste over 17bn kilos of fresh fruit & vegetables each year, reveals study
August 14th, 2018 – A recently published Joint Research Centre (JRC) article has revealed that EU households generate roughly 35.3kg of fresh fruit and vegetable waste per person per year, 14.2 kg of which, is avoidable. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that about one-third of the food produced globally for human consumption is lost or wasted. According to national studies, fresh fruit and vegetables contribute to almost 50 percent of the food waste generated by EU households. This is to be expected given that they account for about one-third of total food purchases, some of their mass is inedible, such as peels and skin and they are highly perishable and relatively cheap.
Read more on Food Ingredients First
Household recycling in the Central Okanagan? You’re probably doing it all wrong
August 15th 2018 – Do you throw cartons of sour milk or half-filled tins of tuna right into your recycling bin? You’re doing it wrong. How about that old plastic lawn chair and camping tarp? Wrong. If you’ve run out of room, do you throw that last bag of garbage into recycling? Definitely wrong. However waste reduction facilitator Cynthia Coates says all that and more can and does end up in the recycling bins of Central Okanagan residents, driving up costs by making sorting much more expensive and adding to the growing problem of load contamination. “We are at a contamination level of 15 per cent (in residential recycling) and Recycle B.C. wants it at three per cent,” Coates says.
Read more on Info News
Full Harvest Closes on Investment to Tackle Food Waste Problem
August 17th, 2018 – The company said it will use the investment to eradicate food waste at the farm level by further scaling its technology platform. While the food industry struggles to meet increasing global production demands, more food reaches U.S. landfills and incinerators than any other waste, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In an effort to help solve this problem, Full Harvest, a marketplace for excess produce that would otherwise go to waste, announced it has closed an $8.5 million Series A round of financing led by Spark Capital. New investors Cultivian Sandbox Ventures, Rent the Runway Founder Jenny Fleiss, Jon Scherr (CircleUp) and Adam Zeplain of Mark.vc, as well as previous investors, including Seed lead Wireframe Ventures, also joined the round.
Read more on Waste 360
Douglas County suspends cardboard recycling due to recycle bin contamination
August 16th, 2018 – Douglas County’s Solid Waste Division has been forced to suspend cardboard recycling due to contamination of recycling bins, the county said this week. “It is unfortunate, but the Roseburg Transfer Station, a division of Douglas County Solid Waste, has to suspend its corrugated cardboard recycling program effective Sunday, August 19, 2018, at the end of the day,” the county said in a news release. “The suspension is a result of an excessive amount of contaminates being placed in the cardboard recycling bin by citizens.”Up until now, Douglas County was able to keep corrugated cardboard recycling at the Roseburg Transfer Station, as long as the cardboard brought to the facility was clean, flattened and free of debris.
Read more on KCBY News
Acquisition Leads to New, Fresh Food Waste Solution
August 15th, 2018 – AgroFresh Solutions’ acquisition of IoT company Verigo sparked the development of a new technology platform to help prevent food waste. A Philadelphia-based food preservation and waste reduction company has launched a new data-backed, insights-driven solution for monitoring produce quality through the supply chain. This new platform was made possible through a recent acquisition by the company. AgroFresh Solutions Inc., a food preservation and waste reduction solutions company for fresh produce, recently acquired Verigo, an Internet of Things (IoT) company offering end-to-end visibility and management of cold-chain logistics.
Read more on Waste 360
DEC to Launch Effort to Improve Recycling in New York
August 15th, 2018 – Gov. Andrew Cuomo directed DEC to hold stakeholder meetings to identify new actions in response to changes in global recycling markets. New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo directed the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to identify new actions to improve recycling in New York in response to changes in global recycling markets. To address changes in recycling markets head on, DEC announced it is convening stakeholder meetings to identify new actions and initiatives that can be taken to improve conditions. The state said it continues to partner with municipalities to help meet specific recycling goals as part of solid waste management plans.
Read more on Waste 360
Virginia Recycling Association reminds residents to get back to the basics
August 16th, 2018 – In July 2017, China, the largest international importer of recyclables from the United States, notified the World Trade Organization (WTO) that it would impose a ban on the import of 24 categories of solid waste, including plastic, mixed paper and textiles, as of the start of 2018. March 1, 2018, the Chinese government implemented stricter thresholds for allowable contaminants in imported recyclables. Despite these changes, Teresa Sweeney, chair of the Virginia Recycling Association (VRA) does not think this means recycling as we know it is dead.
Read more on Waste Today Magazine
France discounts bottles made from recycled plastic packaging
August 16th, 2018 – Bottles made in France from recycled plastic will soon be cheaper than their virgin plastic alternative, reports Reuters. Government minister Poirson said France will introduce a discount-premium system worth up to 10% of the product price to incentivise consumers to recycle.
Beginning in 2019, the French government will introduce a series of actions to improve recycling rates including increasing landfill taxes and reducing tax on recycling operations. A deposit return scheme (DRS) for plastic bottles will also be introduced. Actions are in line with the country’s Circular Economy Roadmap launched in April which suggests 50 goals including using 100% recycled plastics across the country by 2025, reducing resource consumption 50% by 2025 and increasing extended producer responsibility (EPR).
Read more on Recycling Waste World
Boulder, Colo., Increases Commercial Waste Diversion Rate
August 14th, 2018 – About 43 percent of commercial waste is now being diverted from landfill. The city of Boulder, Colo., passed its Universal Zero Waste Ordinance that requires businesses to recycle and compost in 2016 and began enforcing the ordinance in 2017. Since then, the city has seen an uptick in commercial waste reduction. In 2017, 2,485 fewer tons of trash were collected in the city and an additional 1,791 tons and 2,081 tons of materials were composted and recycled. Now, the city’s commercial waste diversion rate hovers around 43 percent. With this waste reduction effort, Boulder is on track to achieve its goal of 85 percent diversion by 2025.
Read more on Waste 360
