Sweden: Large-Scale Automated Textile Sorting Facility

The plant represents the third phase of the Swedish Innovation Platform for Textile Sorting (SIPTex) project; the start of operation is intended to begin in summer this year. In July last year, the IVL Swedish Environmental Institute has been given green light for a collaborative initiative to establish this industrial-scale automated textile sorting plant. Vinnova, […]

Textile Recycling in Finland

In October last year, the company Lounais-Suomen Jätehuolto Oy (LSJH) has launched a refinement plant pilot in Turku, focusing on the recycling of post-consumer textiles. The objective is to ensure a recycling solution for all the end-of-life textiles generated in Finland. The refinement plant project has been prepared in cooperation with other Finnish municipal waste […]

The Fibersort Project

In March this year, the partners of the European Fibersort project reported that their machine is ready to start “valorizing global textile waste”. According to the information, this technology can automatically sort large volumes of garments and finished products by fiber composition. The accelerating consumption and disposal practices in fashion cause textiles entering the market […]

Waste Management in Vietnam: The Race Is on

In 2015, Vietnam was number four out of five countries that dump more plastic into the oceans than the rest of the world combined. To attribute the country “drowning in waste” was not witty, but accurate. Progress in the waste treatment technology during the last years delivers what a study called “a proof for hope […]

Brazil: Challenges for the Future

Brazil, the biggest country in Latin America, generates nearly 80 million tons of solid waste every year. Concerning selective waste collection and recycling, there is still plenty of room for improvement. In 2018, 79 million tons of urban solid waste were produced in the country, Empresa Brasil de Comunicação (EBC), a Brazilian public company to […]

SCIP – The New ECHA-Database for Substances of Concern

SCIP stands for “substances of concern in products” and is a new database that will be set up by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and will be accessible in all Member States of the European Union (EU). It is planned to feed it with information on “substances of concern” in products. This information will be […]

Kenya: Collaboration to Manage Plastic Waste

After the launch of the Kenya Plastic Action Plan, which aims at enabling a circular economy for environmentally sustainable use and recycling of plastics in the country, the Kenya Association of Manufacturers (KAM) has partnered with Clever Green Kenya (CGK). The goal is to manage post-consumer plastic waste in the country through the formation and […]

Substantial Investments in New Projects Spur Growth

The South African waste management industry is depicting continual growth, the market research store Research and Markets (www.researchandmarkets.com) informed as it introduced its new report “Middle East And Africa Waste-To-Energy (WTE) Market 2019-2027”. According to the information, the industry in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region would grow with a CAGR (compound annual growth […]

“Circulytics”: A New Circularity Measurement Tool

Since January the Ellen MacArthur Foundation offers “Circulytics”, the “digital measuring tool which gives companies a fully comprehensive picture of their circularity across all operations”. The new tool permits companies to track their progress. “Developed and tested by more than 30 companies from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s network, ‘Circulytics’ informs strategy, allows users to see […]

Ghost Nets: What Happens to the Spirits the Fishery Invoked?

The number of abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) left in the oceans is unknown. The most mentioned figure is 640.000 tons each year, deriving from a joint report by FAO (United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation) and UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme). Other estimations indicate that 46 to 70 percent of microplastic […]