Download or read book Economies of Recycling written by Catherine Alexander and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2012-08-09 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For some, recycling is a big business; for others a moralised way of engaging with the world. But, for many, this is a dangerous way of earning a living. With scrap now being the largest export category from the US to China, the sheer scale of this global trade has not yet been clearly identified or analysed. Combining fine-grained ethnographic analysis with overviews of international material flows, Economies of Recycling radically changes the way we understand global and local economies as well as the new social relations and identities created by recycling processes. Following global material chains, this groundbreaking book reveals astonishing connections between persons, households, cities and global regions as objects are reworked, taken to pieces and traded. With case studies from Africa, Latin America, South Asia, China, the former Soviet Union, North America and Europe, this timely collection debunks common linear understandings of production, exchange and consumption and argues for a complete re-evaluation of North-South economic relationships.

Download or read book An Introduction to Circular Economy written by Lerwen Liu and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-12-18 with total page 631 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is purposefully styled as an introductory textbook on circular economy (CE) for the benefit of educators and students of universities. It provides comprehensive knowledge exemplified by practices from policy, education, R&D, innovation, design, production, waste management, business and financing around the world. The book covers sectors such as agriculture/food, packaging materials, build environment, textile, energy, and mobility to inspire the growth of circular business transformation. It aims to stimulate action among different stakeholders to drive CE transformation. It elaborates critical driving forces of CE including digital technologies; restorative innovations; business opportunities & sustainable business model; financing instruments, regulation & assessment and experiential education programs. It connects a CE transformation for reaching the SDGs2030 and highlights youth leadership and entrepreneurship at all levels in driving the sustainability transformation.

Download or read book Global Plastics Outlook Economic Drivers Environmental Impacts and Policy Options written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While plastics are extremely useful materials for modern society, plastics production and waste generation continue to increase with worsening environmental impacts despite international, national and local policy responses, as well as industry commitments. The first of two reports, this Outlook intends to inform and support policy efforts to combat plastic leakage.

Download or read book Urban Recycling and the Search for Sustainable Community Development written by Adam S. Weinberg and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2000-07-24 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More Americans recycle than vote. And most do so to improve their communities and the environment. But do recycling programs advance social, economic, and environmental goals? To answer this, three sociologists with expertise in urban and environmental planning have conducted the first major study of urban recycling. They compare four types of programs in the Chicago metropolitan area: a community-based drop-off center, a municipal curbside program, a recycling industrial park, and a linkage program. Their conclusion, admirably elaborated, is that recycling can realize sustainable community development, but that current programs achieve few benefits for the communities in which they are located. The authors discover that the history of recycling mirrors many other urban reforms. What began in the 1960s as a sustainable community enterprise has become a commodity-based, profit-driven industry. Large private firms, using public dollars, have chased out smaller nonprofit and family-owned efforts. Perhaps most troubling is that this process was not born of economic necessity. Rather, as the authors show, socially oriented programs are actually more viable than profit-focused systems. This finding raises unsettling questions about the prospects for any sort of sustainable local development in the globalizing economy. Based on a decade of research, this is the first book to fully explore the range of impacts that recycling generates in our communities. It presents recycling as a tantalizing case study of the promises and pitfalls of community development. It also serves as a rich account of how the state and private interests linked to the global economy alter the terrain of local neighborhoods.

Download or read book The Recycling Myth written by Jack Buffington and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-12-14 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book states the harsh truth: that despite best intentions, our current environmental practices are doing more harm than good, and that the solution lies in creating supply chains of the future that design, produce, consume, and reuse materials in a manner that is balanced economically and environmentally. One billion beverage containers are used on a daily basis in the United States, with at least 600 million of them ending up in landfills. Even the 400 million that are recycled—at a great cost—are not accomplishing the task of helping the environment. This economic and environmental catastrophe cannot be solved by recycling programs. From his experience as a leader in the American consumer beverage industry and a researcher in Sweden, author Jack Buffington has developed a transformational solution that seeks to not just mitigate the environmental damage but jumpstart the economy while actually achieving zero waste. The Recycling Myth tells the story of how our current environmental practices are unintentionally doing more harm than good and how we need to create a radically different supply chain of the future that must, as best as possible, copy the natural system of growth, decay, and regrowth, and discontinue a disastrous pattern of material design and use. Backed by irrefutable evidence, the book destroys our comfortable notions of the recycling status quo; explains why recycling will never work in the United States, despite decades of attempts; and introduces a new system that will actually work—without asking consumers to consume less.

Download or read book Recycling International Trade and the Environment written by P.J. van Beukering and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-03-09 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the last century international trade has become indispensable for many economies. This is not only the case for trade in primary raw materials and consumer products but also for secondary (recyclable) materials. With the rapid growth of the recycling sector worldwide, trade in recyclables increased tremendously. It is striking that most of this trade flows from developed to developing countries. This book addresses the main causes of this typical trade pattern and investigates its economic and environmental effects by carrying out case studies on waste paper imports in India, waste plastics imports in China, and used-tyre trade in Europe. The book concludes by recommending policies that are aimed at preventing negative economic and environmental effects potentially resulting from trade in recyclables. The book offers new ideas to researchers who are involved in international trade, material flows, and waste management, and provides new insights for decision-makers who are interested in WTO and the Basel Convention.

Download or read book Why Do We Recycle written by Frank Ackerman and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The earnest warnings of an impending "solid waste crisis" that permeated the 1980s provided the impetus for the widespread adoption of municipal recycling programs. Since that time America has witnessed a remarkable rise in public participation in recycling activities, including curbside collection, drop-off centers, and commercial and office programs. Recently, however, a backlash against these programs has developed. A vocal group of "anti-recyclers" has appeared, arguing that recycling is not an economically efficient strategy for addressing waste management problems. In Why Do We Recycle? Frank Ackerman examines the arguments for and against recycling, focusing on the debate surrounding the use of economic mechanisms to determine the value of recycling. Based on previously unpublished research conducted by the Tellus Institute, a nonprofit environmental research group in Boston, Massachusetts, Ackerman presents an alternative view of the theory of market incentives, challenging the notion that setting appropriate prices and allowing unfettered competition will result in the most efficient level of recycling. Among the topics he considers are: externality issues -- unit pricing for waste disposal, effluent taxes, virgin materials subsidies, advance disposal fees the landfill crisis and disposal facility siting container deposit ("bottle bill") legislation environmental issues that fall outside of market theory calculating costs and benefits of municipal recycling programs life-cycle analysis and packaging policy -- Germany's "Green Dot" packaging system and producer responsibility the impacts of production in extractive and manufacturing industries composting and organic waste management economics of conservation, and material use and long-term sustainability Ackerman explains why purely economic approaches to recycling are incomplete and argues for a different kind of decisionmaking, one that addresses social issues, future as well as present resource needs, and non-economic values that cannot be translated into dollars and cents. Backed by empirical data and replete with specific examples, the book offers valuable guidance for municipal planners, environmental managers, and policymakers responsible for establishing and implementing recycling programs. It is also an accessible introduction to the subject for faculty, students, and concerned citizens interested in the social, economic, and ethical underpinnings of recycling efforts.

Download or read book Earnings Jobs and Innovation written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Economics of Waste written by Richard C. Porter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this concise, engaging, and provocative work, Richard Porter introduces readers to the economic tools that can be applied to problems involved in handling a diverse range of waste products from business and households. Emphasizing the impossibility of achieving a zero-risk environment, Porter focuses on the choices that apply in real world decisions about waste. Acknowledging that effective waste policy integrates knowledge from several disciplines, Porter focuses on the use of economic analysis to reveal the costs of different policies and therefore how much can be done to meet goals to protect human health and the environment. With abundant examples, he considers subjects such as landfills, incineration, and illegal disposal. He discusses the international trade in waste, the costs and benefits of recycling, and special topics such as hazardous materials, Superfund, and nuclear waste. While making clear his belief that not every form of waste presents the same amount of risk, Porter stresses the need for open-minded approaches to developing new policies. For students, policymakers, and general readers, he provides insight and accessibility to a subject that others might leave out-of-sight, out-of-mind, or buried under an impenetrable prose of statistics and jargon.

Download or read book The Circular Economy written by Walter R Stahel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-03 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Circular Economy seeks to rebuild capital, whether this is financial, manufactured, human, social or natural, and offers opportunities and solutions for all organisations. This book, written by Walter Stahel, who is widely recognised as one of the key people who formulated the concept of the Circular Economy, is the perfect introduction for anyone wanting to quickly get up to speed with this vitally important topic for ensuring sustainable development. It sets out a new framework that refines the concept of a Circular Economy and how it can be applied at industrial levels. This concise book presents the key themes for busy managers and policymakers and some of the newest thinking on the topic of the Circular Economy from one of the leading thinkers in the field. Practical examples and case studies with real-life data are used to elucidate the ideas presented within the book.

Download or read book Handbook of Recycling written by Ernst Worrell and published by Newnes. This book was released on 2014-04-28 with total page 595 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the International Solid Waste Association's 2014 Publication Award, Handbook of Recycling is an authoritative review of the current state-of-the-art of recycling, reuse and reclamation processes commonly implemented today and how they interact with one another. The book addresses several material flows, including iron, steel, aluminum and other metals, pulp and paper, plastics, glass, construction materials, industrial by-products, and more. It also details various recycling technologies as well as recovery and collection techniques. To completely round out the picture of recycling, the book considers policy and economic implications, including the impact of recycling on energy use, sustainable development, and the environment. With contemporary recycling literature scattered across disparate, unconnected articles, this book is a crucial aid to students and researchers in a range of disciplines, from materials and environmental science to public policy studies. - Portrays recent and emerging technologies in metal recycling, by-product utilization and management of post-consumer waste - Uses life cycle analysis to show how to reclaim valuable resources from mineral and metallurgical wastes - Uses examples from current professional and industrial practice, with policy and economic implications

Download or read book Waste Management and the Green Economy written by Katharina Kummer Peiry and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2016-12-30 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can waste become a profitable business rather than a costly problem, creating green business opportunities and green jobs while protecting the environment? Might this reduce illegal trade and improper recycling of hazardous wastes by making the legitimate alternatives more attractive? Addressing these questions, this book examines environmentally sound waste management as a driver in the transition to a green economy, and discusses how this transition is challenged by technical limitations, weak regulatory environments and lack of financial incentives.

Download or read book The Waste Free World written by Ron Gonen and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 2024-05-14 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The next revolution in business will provide for a sustainable future, from founder, CEO and circular economy expert Ron Gonen Our take-make-waste economy has cost consumers and taxpayers billions while cheating us out of a habitable planet. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The Waste-Free World makes a persuasive, forward-looking case for a circular economic model, a “closed-loop” system that wastes no natural resources. Entrepreneur, CEO and sustainability expert Ron Gonen argues that circularity is not only crucial for the planet but holds immense business opportunity. As the founder of an investment firm focused on the circular economy, Gonen reveals brilliant innovations emerging worldwide— “smart” packaging, robotics that optimize recycling, nutrient rich fabrics, technologies that convert food waste into energy for your home, and many more. Drawing on his experience in technology, business, and city government and interviews with leading entrepreneurs and top companies, he introduces a vital and growing movement. The Waste-Free World invites us all to take part in a sustainable and prosperous future where companies foster innovation, investors recognize long term value creation, and consumers can align their values with the products they buy.

Download or read book Waste Management as Economic Industry Towards Circular Economy written by Sadhan Kumar Ghosh and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-03-13 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book highlights the latest advances in waste management, resource recovery and resource circulation in various countries, with a special emphasis on India. It leads the way towards a sustainable circular economy developing local economy and enhances the sustainability of the energy sector as a whole by holistically addressing waste management. Waste management is a major problem around the globe; effective waste disposal is one of the most plaguing issues faced by municipalities. Yet waste can also serve as a major source of energy rather than a disposable material. The book discusses various upstream and downstream aspects of waste management systems, e.g. conversion processes and collection methods, that are needed in order to make waste management systems into an effective industry and move closer to a circular economy. It also provides information on management tools for analysis and decision support. All chapters included here are based on high-quality research papers presented at the conference IconSWM 2018.

Download or read book Waste to Wealth written by Peter Lacy and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-30 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Waste to Wealth proves that 'green' and 'growth' need not be binary alternatives. The book examines five new business models that provide circular growth from deploying sustainable resources to the sharing economy before setting out what business leaders need to do to implement the models successfully.

Download or read book Regeneration of the Built Environment from a Circular Economy Perspective written by Stefano Della Torre and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-01-01 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book explores the strategic importance and advantages of adopting multidisciplinary and multiscalar approaches of inquiry and intervention with respect to the built environment, based on principles of sustainability and circular economy strategies. A series of key challenges are considered in depth from a multidisciplinary perspective, spanning engineering, architecture, and regional and urban economics. These challenges include strategies to relaunch socioeconomic development through regenerative processes, the regeneration of urban spaces from the perspective of resilience, the development and deployment of innovative products and processes in the construction sector in order to comply more fully with the principles of sustainability and circularity, and the development of multiscale approaches to enhance the performance of both the existing building stock and new buildings. The book offers a rich selection of conceptual, empirical, methodological, technical, and case study/project-based research. It will be of value for all who have an interest in regeneration of the built environment from a circular economy perspective.

Download or read book Adopting Circular Economy Current Practices and Future Perspectives written by Idiano D’Adamo and published by MDPI. This book was released on 2020-02-21 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The development of a closed-loop cycle is a necessary condition so as to develop a circular economy model as an alternative to the linear model, in order to maintain the value of products and materials for as long as possible. For this motive, the definition of the value must be demonstrated for both the environment and the economy. The presence of these analyses should be associated with the social dimension and the human component. A strong cooperation between social and technical profiles is a new challenge for all researchers. End of life of products attract a lot of attention, and the final output could be the production of technologies suitable for managing this waste.