Its waste product should be the next big thing in bioenergy, scientists say. Palm oil is the wonderstuff of fats. It makes our cookies crunchier, shampoo bubblier and lipstick smoother, all for a fraction of the price of other oils. However, a recent media storm has cast a shadow on the industry. Headlines have exposed the mass deforestation at the hands of palm oil production, … Continue reading Can Palm Oil Enter the Circular Economy?
WASHINGTON – Republican and Democratic senators have agreed to pump billions of dollars in federal funding into building electric car charging stations and other infrastructure for low-emission vehicles. Under an appropriations bill released by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Monday, the Transportation Department would distribute $3.5 billion over the next five years for projects that reduce carbon emissions from transportation. It would also … Continue reading Senators To Spend Billions on Electric Car Infrastructure
BRUSSELS/PARIS/JAKARTA, July 24 (Reuters) – The European Commission has proposed duties ranging from 8% to 18% on imports of biodiesel from Indonesia to counter what it says are unfair subsidies, the latest twist in a case that has lasted seven years. The subsidies would be a double blow for Indonesian biodiesel after the European Union decided in March that palm oil should no longer be … Continue reading EU To Impose Import Duties on Indonesia Biodiesel
UK oil giant British Petroleum has plans to make charging an electric car as close as possible to refuelling a regular fossil-fuelled vehicle. In a recent interview, BP’s head of technology David Eyton said that it wants to provide batteries for electric cars by 2021 that can charge to 100% within just five minutes. BP, like fellow oil and petrol majors Shell and Caltex, know … Continue reading BP Aims to Fully Charge Electric Cars in 5 minutes by 2021
Zara has announced that it will commit to making collections from 100% sustainable fabrics by 2025 in a list of green initiatives outlined by the high street label today. Speaking with its shareholders, Zara stated that its portfolio of 7,500 stores will be eco-efficient by the end of 2019, and that it has committed to zero waste in landfills from Zara facilities. Today, only 20% … Continue reading Zara Announces 100% Sustainable Fabrics and Eco-Efficient Stores
How are your green credentials? Unless they’re whiter than white, you may encounter a new phenomenon: ‘eco-shaming’. With environmental activism on the rise this year as the consequences of climate change become all too clear, there’s a new trend to call out people who pollute the planet. Take the use of plastic, for example. Single-use plastic bags are now recognized as a huge problem for … Continue reading ‘Eco-shaming’ is on the rise, but does it work?
Oil giant BP has announced its “major expansion” into the renewable energy marketplace with a new partnership in the biopower sector. The firm has formed a 50/50 joint venture with US-headquartered agricultural commodities company Bunge to form new venture, BP Bunge Bioenergia. Under the agreement, BP will combine it’s Brazilian biopower and biofuels business with Bunge to create a business that produces sugarcane ethanol in … Continue reading BP Forces its Way Into Renewables with New Bioenergy Firm
Following a recent policy change by the Japanese Government, the country has received its first shipment of ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE) made from US corn-based ethanol. According to the US Grains Council (USGC), this first shipment to Japan marks the country’s new demand for US ethanol-based products, as well as a milestone in efforts to develop the US ethanol market internationally. The policy change recognises … Continue reading Japan Receives First Shipment of ETBE from US Corn-Based Ethanol
After several years of timid growth, carmakers in the European Union will be offering 214 electric car models in 2021 – up from the 60 available today, according to data from industry source IHS Markit. The analysis, published by Brussels-based environmental NGO Transport & Environment, concludes that the number of car models will triple in just three years because of intense recent work work by … Continue reading Electric Cars In Europe Will Triple By 2021
Death threats, child labour and other human rights abuses by renewable energy companies …. Are these practices threatening the transition to a low-carbon economy? Read the report …. Renewable Energy Investor Briefing Continue reading Abuses in the Renewable Sector
Models suggest large areas of land are needed for forests and biofuel crops to halt climate change, but this risks worsening hunger, draft tells policymakers. Blanketing the globe with monocultures of forests and bioenergy crops is no dream fix to the climate crisis, a leaked draft report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns. Models suggest large areas of land are needed to … Continue reading UN Report Warns of Clash Between Bioenergy and Food
Worldwide electric car sales hit 1.98 million in 2018, according to the International Energy Agency. Renault says the venture will look to “further promote the development” of China’s electric vehicle industry. Auto maker Renault and the Jiangling Motors Corporation Group (JMCG) have officially set up a joint venture for electric vehicles in China. In an announcement Wednesday, Renault said that the venture would look to … Continue reading Renault Invests In China Electric Vehicle Sector
Third sustainability report documents ALPLA’s commitment to sustainable development The third sustainability report released by ALPLA, the global specialists in packaging solutions, provides detailed insights into the company’s development strategy. The report describes the progress of sustainable development from 2016 to 2018, which has then been used as a basis for formulating ambitious objectives for 2019 to 2022. ALPLA’s sustainability record for the past three … Continue reading ALPLA Wants to Reduce its Carbon Footprint by 10 per cent by 2022
Australian packaging company Pact Group has received a $3 million Government grant to set up the first 100 per cent recycled plastic food packaging plant in New Zealand. Environment Associate Minister Eugenie Sage said while recycled plastic was available in New Zealand, about 20 per cent was made with new plastic to comply with the food packaging safety standards. The recycled plastic packaging from the … Continue reading Australians Convince New Zealand To Build First Recycled Plastic Plant
Tesla was the electric-vehicle sales leader in the US by a wide margin during the first half of 2019, according to estimates from the electric-vehicle website InsideEVs. It sold around 83,875 vehicles in the US between January and June, InsideEVs estimated, over 10 times the number of vehicles sold by General Motors, which came in second in the rankings. While Tesla sells three fully-electric models, … Continue reading TOP 10 Electric vehicles in the US
As the Australasian Recycling Label celebrates its first anniversary, APCO CEO Brooke Donnelly reflects on the success of the recycling education program to date and shares what to expect next for the campaign. Australia is a country of proud and passionate recyclers. Yet research consistently demonstrates that Australians want more information about how to recycle correctly. A Global Recycling Day report developed by Nestle and … Continue reading Australasian Recycling Label Celebrates First Anniversary
Plymouth, CA…Advanced Materials Processing, Inc. (AMPI) announced the award of their patent for cleaning mine waste and using the resulting deep-core earth as a source for natural fertilizer. Effective July 19, the patent covers the company’s unique, non-toxic process that will extract mercury from mine waste. The process also extracts precious metals like arsenic, gold, silver, lead and cadmium, leaving behind earth that is rich … Continue reading Turning Mine Waste Into Bio-Mineral Fertilizer
Federal officials in California fined a San Joaquin biodiesel manufacturing company $401,000 for violating Clean Water Act violations after the firm admitted to tampering with monitoring equipment and dumping wastewater into a city sewer system in Stockton. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California announced July 11 the fines against American Biodiesel Inc., saying employees tampered with flow meters and acidity recordings … Continue reading US Biodiesel Company Commits Environmental Fraud
PARIS (Reuters) – Nestle’s (NESN.S) bottled water division Nestle Waters, owner of Perrier and Vittel, said it would team up with Canada’s Ocean Legacy Foundation to help to clean up plastic pollution. Consumer goods companies, such as Nestle, are under pressure to do more to reduce the waste their business generates as consumers become increasingly aware of the damaging impact of plastic that ends up … Continue reading Nestle Waters Teams up with Ocean Legacy for Plastic Waste Cleanup
Over past few years, efforts to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in our oceans have skyrocketed. Everyone is seemingly doing their bit to limit their impact on the environment, but it takes governments and companies to make the big changes that creates the biggest avenue to change. The South Australian government has announced it will ban single-use plastic straws and cutlery from … Continue reading South Australia Ban on Single Use Plastic Cutlery And Straws
Australians are diligent when it comes to recycling — but there’s a big problem with our current scheme, and its environmental impact is huge. Now our recycling is being knocked back by China and Indonesia, is it time to face the truth about recycling? I recycle. Of course I do. I’m not an environmental vandal. That’s what I always told myself anyway. But recent news … Continue reading Hidden Problem with Australia’s Recycling Plan
BASF’s partners in the ChemCycling project: Jaguar Land Rover, Storopack, Südpack and Schneider Electric Promising pilot phase, but continued technological and economic challenges as well as need for regulatory development. More and more companies from the plastics industry are working on improving the recyclability of plastics and thus helping to create a circular economy. One way that BASF is contributing is the ChemCycling project: At … Continue reading BASF Chemcycling Products
What’s not to like about this concept: high-efficiency solar cells gifting electric cars with mileage. Bertel Schmitt, The Drive, said, “The solar roof could morph from mostly a marketing-device to a helpful feature.” He noted that, referring to plug-ins, “On a fair-weather day, the juice would be provided by the sun, a big improvement especially for people who don’t have their own garage.” Toyota has … Continue reading Toyota To Test Solar Panels for Electric Cars
German engineering group Robert Bosch GmbH is in advanced talks to sell its packaging-technology division to global buyout firm CVC Capital Partners in a deal that could value the business at up to €850 million ($959.3 million), including debt, according to people familiar with the matter. REFS This article was published on wsj.com Germany’s Bosch Nears Deal to Sell Packaging Unit to CVC Capital Partners … Continue reading Bosch Found Buyer For Packaging Unit
Neste Corporation has signed an agreement to sell its fuel retail business consisting of 75 fuel stations and a terminal in St. Petersburg region to PJSC Tatneft, one of the leading integrated oil and gas companies in Russia. The divestment has no impact on Neste’s Marketing & Services’ operations in Finland and the Baltic countries. “Neste targets to become a global leader in renewable and … Continue reading Neste to Sell its Fuel Retail to Russian PJSC Tatneft
Faced with sooner than anticipated peak demand from transportation, industry, buildings and the power sector, BP Plc, Total SA and Exxon Mobil, amongst others, are investing in factories and refineries that convert fossil fuels into plastics and chemical feedstocks–a sector that is, according to the BP Energy Outlook 2019 “the single-largest projected source of oil demand growth in the next twenty years.” Indeed, the EIA … Continue reading The Plastics Backlash has Some Oil Giants Worried
A team of researchers from South Korea has developed a new strategy to efficiently produce fatty acids and biofuels from glucose. In a study published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, researchers from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have shown how glucose and oleaginous microorganisms can be transformed into microbial diesel fuel, through direct fermentative production. Developed by Professor Sang Yup Lee and … Continue reading New Way to Produce Biodiesel from Glucose
Joint construction of a recycling plant in Thailand to be considered. Hard, 2 July 2019 – ALPLA and PTT Global Chemical (GC) will collaborate on a feasibility study for the construction of a recycling plant in Thailand. The companies announced the plan at the Circular Living Symposium 2019 – Upcycling Our Planet in Bangkok at the end of June. ALPLA develops and produces innovative plastic packaging solutions worldwide and … Continue reading Owner of NatureWorks Goes Into Recycling
Malaysia isn’t the only country pushing harder for biodiesel. Thailand’s energy ministry has plans to move B10 biodiesel into the mainstream to replace the current B7 biodiesel used. Availability of B10 as the primary diesel blend will be made from November, and B7 will be phased out at petrol stations before usage is stopped completely from November 2020, the Bangkok Post reports. The reasons for … Continue reading B10 Biodiesel To Go Mainstream in Thailand and B7 out
President Donald Trump followed through on his promise to break down regulatory barriers at the Environmental Protection Agency and allow year-round E15 sales. Iowa’s farmers and ethanol producers are grateful. But the E15 rule will not make up for the damage that EPA is doing with its small refinery exemptions — particularly not for small biodiesel producers. Over the past year, the biodiesel and renewable … Continue reading Will EPA Kill The Small Biofuel Farmers?
New electric vehicles will have to feature a noise-emitting device, under an EU rule coming into force on Monday. It follows concerns that low-emission cars and vans are too quiet, putting pedestrians at risk because they cannot be heard as they approach. All new types of four-wheel electric vehicle must be fitted with the device, which sounds like a traditional engine. A car’s acoustic vehicle … Continue reading New Electric cars Will Emit Noise to aid safety
Plastics Recycling Charity, RECOUP, have been leading a cross-industry forum to address the barriers and improve the recycling of black plastic packaging. A new published report provides the latest position and the progress which has been made since the forum was set up at the end of 2017. It represents genuine and open collaboration from RECOUP members across the plastic packaging supply and recycling chain. … Continue reading Collaboration is key to Solving Black Plastic Recycling Challenge
Imagine a technology that could soon make Timor-Leste the first plastic neutral economy in the world. A breakthrough technology that turns plastics back into oil is now commercially viable, with the potential for 80 plants throughout Australia and work under way in the UK and Canada. According to the chief executive officer of Licella, Dr Len Humphreys, the tools for a “truly circular economy” are … Continue reading Chemical Recycling Will Make Australia Plastic Neutral
lectric cars are better for the environment than fossil fuel-burning vehicles, but they still rely on the grid, which can be variously dirty or clean depending on what sources it uses for its energy. The new Lightyear One is a prototype vehicle that would improve that by collecting the power it needs to run from the sun. Lightyear, a startup from the Netherlands born as … Continue reading Lightyear One debuts as the first long-range solar-powered electric car
Consumers are looking for both convenience and sustainability, and companies are responding with containers, bottles and bags designed for many uses. Packaging is one of the largest causes of waste in the United States. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 29.7% of total waste could be attributed to containers and packaging in 2015, which weighed in at 77.9 million tons. While some may point … Continue reading Why Reusable Food Packaging Has a Promising Future
Glennmont Partners has started commercial operations at its Margam Green Energy Plant near Port Talbot in south Wales. The £160m biomass energy plant directly employs 25 people and is fuelled by waste wood that will generate power for up to 75,000 homes. A consortium of Babcock and Wilcox Volund and Interserve Construction developed and built Margam and has now formally handed the project over to … Continue reading Glennmont Starts Welsh Bio Operations
Kia motors is thinking of launching low cost electric vehicles in India next year as Indian automobile market is gearing up for the launch of a slew of EVs this year. Electric vehicles are set to change the Indian automobile market in 2019-2020. These vehicles are fuel free, clean and environment friendly as compared to petrol and diesel ones. Indian automobile industry has been reeling … Continue reading Indian Automobile Market Set to Go Green with Electric Vehicles
The public has “woken up” and is ready to do more to cut plastic pollution, MPs have been told. They were debating a petition, signed by almost 250,000 people, urging the government to ban all non-recyclable food packaging. Opening, Daniel Zeichner, MP for Cambridge, said mishandling of plastic waste was leading to a “public health emergency” in poorer countries. The environment minister said he wanted … Continue reading MPs Debate Call for Ban on Non-Recyclable Packaging
IEA Bioenergy is an organisation set up in 1978 by the International Energy Agency (IEA) with the aim of improving cooperation and information exchange between countries that have national programmes in bioenergy research, development and deployment. Several systems to define and monitor performance and progress towards sustainability of bioenergy have been developed for implementation at different scales, including operations, landscapes or jurisdictions. Some are formalised … Continue reading IEA Bioenergy Report on Bioenergy Supply Chains
Trains travelling through Melbourne will run on railway sleepers made from recycled plastic as part of an 18-month trial. The “Duratrack” sleepers are made from a mix of polystyrene and agricultural waste, including cotton bale wrap and vineyard covers from across Australia. The 200 recycled sleepers, installed near Richmond station on Monday, have a potential lifespan of 50 years, are half the cost of traditional … Continue reading Australian Trains Will Use Rail Sleepers Made From Plastic Waste
