Electronic thermoset components, such as those found in mobile phones, are destined for landfill – but new research points to a way to make them recyclable.
David Goehring/Flickr
Plastics comprise around 10% of solid waste in Australia. And while we can recycle certain types, there is a group of particularly stable plastics called thermosets, common in electronic devices, which…
Products that were once new and expensive are quickly treated with disdain.
Gareth Fuller/PA
Reducing waste should be uncontroversial. While the government’s newly published waste prevention programme represents an improvement on previous strategies, it could have been – should have been – far…
The disposal of computers and other electronic and electrical goods, e-waste, is a growing global problem. In 2011, the world threw away 41.5m tonnes of electrical equipment, and this is expected to rise…
It was a ball of grease so enormous, so destructive and so repugnant that not just London, but the whole world, recoiled in horror. The city’s biggest-ever fatberg lurked under Kingston-upon-Thames for…
Mindless littering, or mindful rebellion?
Anthony Devlin/PA
What propels us to notice when a place is badly littered or surprisingly clean? When abroad, why do we often make comparisons between well-swept cities and badly kept ones? Of course, there is the banal…
Tiny fragments of plastic, upon each of which balances a miniature world of microbial life.
Marilou Maglione/SEA
The amount of plastic debris accumulating in the open ocean has doubled in 40 years. This has been is a topic of increasing public concern and scientific interest since it was first reported in the 1970s…
“Burgerisation” has made waste as common in the food system as take-away wrappers on streets.
Niall Carson/PA
Foundation essay: This article on food waste by Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University London, is part of a series marking the launch of The Conversation in the UK. Our foundation essays…
Despite the popularity, a national container deposit scheme isn’t the right way to clean up our litter.
Flickr/nist6ss
The old-fashioned approach to recycling in which consumers pay a redeemable deposit on drink containers is popular among all kinds of people, from Greenpeace members to traditional Coalition voters. But…
Social conventions stemming from the marketing of washing product companies means we wash our clothes more than we need to.
Jackson Boyle
If you’re worried about dressing ethically, chances are you think about sweatshop conditions in developing countries, unsustainable farming practices, convoluted global supply chains that ring up a huge…
In the hold, but for how long? Wasting millions of tonnes of seafood is a tragedy.
Maurice McDonald/PA Archive
In European waters controlled by the EU Common Fisheries Policy, the discarding of fish overboard has long been condemned by environmentalists and regretted by fishers. According to the UN Food and Agriculture…
From the plate to the power station.
Flickr/tomylees
The amount of scrap food thrown away worldwide is staggering. WRAP, a government-funded non-profit set up to encourage recycling and clamp down on waste, reports that in the UK we discard more than 7.2m…
An estimated 30-50% of food produced worldwide is wasted, and ends up only fit for the birds.
Owen Humphreys/PA Wire
The food system is perhaps the most vital component of our modern industrialised world. Without food in shops, it’s fair to say society would unravel in a matter of days. The food industry is in many ways…
Is Coca-Cola Amatil’s opposition to the Northern Territory’s container deposit scheme out of concern for household budgets or simply decreased profit margins?
Flickr/Julian Stallabrass
A reported 10 billion drink containers are thrown away in Australia every year. Many of these are recycled, but many end up in landfill, on roadsides and in waterways. The danger posed to wildlife by plastic…
Recycling is all very well, but how do we stop producing waste in the first place?
Yoav Lerman
The current state of worldwide urban development is depressing. We are not moving towards environmentally sustainable design and reduced consumption quickly enough. There have been dire warnings about…
Is our distaste for toilet talk halting sanitation improvements in the developing world?
Alan Porritt/AAP
Bodily waste can be an embarrassing subject, but one that most of us can avoid thanks to efficient toilets and sewers. Nevertheless, this embarrassment may be holding back improvements in sanitation where…
Plastic bottles often end up on the beach where the plastic can remain for decades, harming sea life and the fish we eat.
senderweb/Flickr
For the past 30 years, South Australians have lived in a state with a “container deposit scheme”. This means on small bottles or cans of water, soft drink, juice or alcohol, consumers pay a 10c deposit…
Anything tastes good when it’s cooked in a pie. Even kidneys.
Jo Carter
I invited some friends to dinner recently for a little heart to heart. Little did they know, that I was being literal. For my guests that night, I served lamb heart stew. Offal. The word is enough to turn…
Take the offer: sharing cuts waste and builds communities but we have our reasons for not always being comfortable with it.
Flickr/Zervas
Sharing is a good thing right? We are told it is good for the environment by cutting waste and needless consumption; we encourage it in our children for their moral growth; we see it used in advertising…
Recycling seems like a bright idea, but is its shine coming off?
Kilgub/Flickr
The initial impressions most people have of waste-reduction campaigns and calls for greater recycling are that they must be good. After all, most of us are taught from a very early age that waste is a…
We have to rethink the way we construct buildings, to make them easier to reuse after demolition.
sssteve.one/Flickr
Given our rapid depletion of resources, especially raw materials, and Australia’s ever-increasing waste creation, it’s time to ask: what are the best ways to encourage resource recovery and recycling to…