Renewable Matter #20

RENEWABLE MATTER INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE ON THE BIOECONOMY AND THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY 20 | February-March 2018 Bimonthly Publication Edizioni Ambiente

Kęstutis Sadauskas: Circular Europe

Euro 16.00 – www.renewablematter.eu – Poste Italiane S.P.A. – Postal Subscription – 70% LOM/MI/00670__Tax Paid/International Postmail

•• Tilman Santarius: The Dark Side of Digitalisation •• Photoreport: Tehuacán, the Blue-Jeans Rio

Focus Planned Obsolescence •• Enquiry: Use-by Date Product •• Leyla Acaroglu: Disruptive Design •• When a Party Extends Your Life •• C’mon, people, Let’s Repair!

Dossier Bioeconomy/Brazil: The Bioethanol Country •• Patagonia, the Second Life of Clothes •• Upcycling Buildings •• Barcelona, Fab City •• The Indian Way towards Zero Waste

Stora Enso, a Textbook Case •• Tomra Sorting Recycling: The Need for a Perspective Change

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Editorial

A New RENEWABLE MATTER

by Emanuele Bompan

Looking at the circular economy, the bioeconomy and in general at a development model that is future-proof and respectful of worldly and societal constraints, requires a global vision that is trained in complexity, careful of difference and necessarily acute.

Renewable Matter holds this objective as part of its essence: providing a unique point of view on the economy and how man can manage his natural home: planet Earth.

In fact, “economy” derives from oikosnomos (οἶκοςνόμος), meaning the management of a household, its resources (which are limited), and in synergy with all actors on the global and holistic level; without stopping at the borders of nation states or the pernicious divisions imposed by territorialisation. It implies analysing each of its components, never separately, but always as one organism. It means analysing all its actors and understanding how they interact and cross-fertilise. Being careful of difference means understanding the cultural development of different economies, highlighting their peculiarities without ever creating classes.

It means being present on the territory, to learn and touch with one’s own hands.

It means being prepared, researching and investigating, plurality and diversity. Basically, it is about performing journalism in a truly circular manner.

The mission of Renewable Matter is beautiful and complex. It requires accuracy and honesty on behalf of its staff and contributors, so as to relay a clear and precise image of that which is occurring in the transformation of the linear and classic economy, one that is founded on fossil fuels. Understanding what the obstacles will be, identifying the virtuous actors, scrutinising the policies, and telling the stories of those corners of the planet that are at times forgotten by journalism. This is a truly international magazine, that could just as well hold its headquarters in New York, or Kuala Lumpur, Lagos, Dubai or Lima (for the time being we will remain in Milan). Gathering information from every corner of the planet, engaging in discussions with all actors involved, bringing knowledge to events

and meetings wherever possible, and finally also to be available in a digital version on an app. It is a unifier and a node in the web of companies, research bodies, universities, public administration, international organisations and governments that work on the themes of the circular economy, bioeconomics and a future-proof economy. We don’t want to generate one-way information: beginning with this edition, we will have a community manager that will interact through social media, events and direct contact so as to enable a constant, reticular and multi-scale exchange of information.

The journey has just begun: in the next editions we will see this new editorial approach grow, together with all you readers, sponsors and networking partners. We believe it is the right moment to expand into North America, Asia and the Middle East, strengthening our presence in Europe, and working towards complete coverage in the near future.

The amount of global journalists will expand.

We aim to be present at all the main events on the theme, from the conference on The Circular Economy in Washington DC, to the World Circular Economy Forum in Tokyo, passing through Ecomondo in Italy, the Stakeholder Conference in Brussels and the World Bioeconomy Summit. We will publish new infographics and reports, giving aesthetic quality a special space (something that has always been a Renewable Matter trademark) so as to inform you better and with more style.

Above all, it will be a job that has to be done with you and for you. With your support, Renewable Matter, and all the topics that it champions, will go the distance.

Thank you to all the team that up until now have made Renewable Matter a standard of excellence in the editorial landscape.

The World is ONLY 9% CIRCULAR

by Harald Friedl

Harald Friedl, CEO of Circle Economy.

With over 90% of the raw materials used globally not cycled back into the economy, our planet is left with a massive strain on its natural resources and climate that needs to be urgently relieved. What has got us where we are today, in every sense, is the linear economy. Over decades, even centuries, since the boom of the Industrial Revolution, it has delivered tremendous living standards, wealth and comfortable lives to some people, in some parts of the world, at certain times. It has done so, though, at a high cost. That cost continues to be extracted from the planet and many of the people on it, with neither the gain nor pain distributed equally. Embedded deep within the “Take-MakeWaste,” tradition of the linear economy lies a toxic cocktail of negative consequences, ranging from social inequality, to depletion of natural resources, environmental pollution and worsening of the risks and effects of climate change.

Our world economy is only 9.1% circular, leaving a massive “Circularity Gap”

Circle Economy, www.circle-economy.com “Circularity Gap Report,” www.circularity-gap.world

This alarming statistic was the main output of the first Circularity Gap Report, in which we, at Circle Economy, launch a metric for the circular state of the planet. The Circularity Gap Report provides a fact-based framework to measure and monitor progress in bridging the gap, year after year.

Being able to track and target performance via the Global Circularity Metric will help us engage in uniform goal-setting and guide future action in the most impactful way. The report presents a detailed metabolism visual showing how main resource groups satisfy key societal needs, such as housing, mobility and nutrition. It also presents the leaks in the system with an overview of what happens to resources after use in the economy.

In truth, momentum is already building towards adoption of circular economic models.

We are witnessing circular economy strategies being embedded within businesses and adopted into government policies. On the global level, two recent examples of international collaboration, in particular, have accelerated the mainstream political and business agenda: The Paris Agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

To measure economic sustainability only from an environmental perspective, is to miss the point and misunderstand the purpose.

By definition, managing an economy is the art and science of “how we run our global household.”

An economy should be designed and run to the needs of the participants of the household, provide stability, keep societies together and the household going for future generations.

In short, any successful economic model must meet the needs of the society it serves, not merely manage responsibly the natural resources it uses – it is a matter of people and planet, together.

The circular economy is therefore an action agenda with measurable impact framework that extends beyond the remit of mere resource efficiency. As a multi-stakeholder model, its systemic approach boosts capacity and capability to serve societal needs, by embracing and endorsing the best humankind has to offer: the power of entrepreneurship, innovation and collaboration.

Today’s Take-Make-Waste economic model is not fit for purpose. Embedded in this tradition of the linear economy lies a toxic cocktail of negative consequences. We now call upon businesses and governments to take leadership to develop an action agenda and contribute to the global targets set in the SDGs and the Paris Agreement.

We have identified 4 steps to take action in bridging the circularity gap through leadership and action: 1) Build a global coalition for action; 2) Develop a global target and action agenda; 3) Translate global targets into local pathways for circular change; 4) Improve our understanding of how different levers for circular change affect aspects such as material saving, value retention and climate mitigation.

Closing the circularity gap will reduce income inequality and improve access to basic needs and opportunities. In other words, pursuit of the circular economy is a way to create an economy that works for everybody.

The circular economy is a positive, dynamic and interconnected solutions-based framework: it builds on key human qualities, such as creativity, collaboration and entrepreneurship; and is a roadmap towards achieving the SDGs and a powerful tool in the fight against humanmade climate change.

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20|February-March 2018 Contents

RENEWABLE MATTER INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE ON THE BIOECONOMY AND THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY www.renewablematter.eu ISSN 2385-2240 Reg. Tribunale di Milano n. 351 del 31/10/2014 Editor-in-chief Emanuele Bompan Editorial Director Marco Moro Contributors Leyla Acaroglu, Diana Bagnoli, Mario Bonaccorso, Rudi Bressa, Sergio Ferraris, Laura Filios, Harald Friedl, Roberto Giovannini, Federico Pedrocchi, Francesco Petrucci, Antonella Ilaria Totaro, Veronica Ulivieri, Silvia Zamboni Managing Editor Maria Pia Terrosi Editorial Coordinator Paola Cristina Fraschini Editing Paola Cristina Fraschini, Diego Tavazzi Design & Art Direction Mauro Panzeri Layout & Infographics Michela Lazzaroni

Emanuele Bompan

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A New Renewable Matter

Harald Friedl

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The World is only 9% Circular

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NEWS

Emanuele Bompan

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Circular Europe Interview with Kęstutis Sadauskas

Silvia Zamboni

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The Dark Side of Digitalisation Interview with Tilman Santarius

by the editorial staff

Think Thank

Policy Sergio Ferraris

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Focus Planned Obsolescence Use-by Date Product

Veronica Ulivieri

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Focus Planned Obsolescence When a Party Extends Your Life

Silvia Zamboni

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Focus Planned Obsolescence C’mon People, Let’s Repair!

Leyla Acaroglu

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Focus Planned Obsolescence Disruptive Design

Mario Bonaccorso

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Dossier Brazil A Bioethanol-Fuelled Bioeconomy

Rudi Bressa

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Barcelona, Fab City

Emanuele Bompan

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Amsterdam, the Circular City Interview with Eveline Jonkhoff

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Pollution as Blue as Our Jeans

Community manager Antonella Ilaria Totaro Translations Francesco Bassetti, Erminio Cella, Laura Coppo, Franco Lombini, Mario Tadiello

In Depth Laura Filios, Diana Bagnoli

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Executive Coordinator Anna Re

Michela Lazzaroni, Antonella Ilaria Totaro

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Life Expectancy (of Stuff)

External Relations Manager (Italy) Anna Re

World

Press and Media Relations press@renewablematter.eu

Sergio Ferraris

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A Textbook Case

Emanuele Bompan

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The Lazarus’ Effect: The Second Life of Patagonia Clothes Interview with Mihela Hladin Wolfe

Rudi Bressa

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The Need for a Perspective Change

Rudi Bressa

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The Landfill, a Model for Economic Participation

Antonella Ilaria Totaro

External Relations Manager (International) Federico Manca

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The Indian Way towards Zero Waste

Contact redazione@materiarinnovabile.it Edizioni Ambiente Via Natale Battaglia 10 20127 Milano, Italia t. +39 02 45487277 f. +39 02 45487333 Advertising marketing@materiarinnovabile.it Annual subscription, 6 paper issues Subscribe on-line at www.materiarinnovabile.it/moduloabbonamento This magazine is made in Dejavu Pro by Ko Sliggers Published and printed in Italy at GECA S.r.l., San Giuliano Milanese (Mi) Copyright ©Edizioni Ambiente 2018 All rights reserved

Antonella Ilaria Totaro

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Upcycling our Buildings

72 73 74 75

Stuffstr, an App to put Unused Things into Circulation Vegea: Leather from Wine RiceHouse: Architecture from Rice Waste Circular Headphones with Gerrard Street

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Circular by Law Emissions, Energy and Circularity: Good News from the EU

Startup Antonella Ilaria Totaro

Columns Francesco Petrucci

Roberto Giovannini

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The Media Circle If Nature is Poised Between Enigma and Dream

Federico Pedrocchi

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Innovation Pills Today’s Mistakes, Yesterday’s Horrors

Cover Illustration by Rafael Fernandez, WikiMedia Commons CC0, graphic design by Panma Bolec

renewablematter 20. 2018

NEWS

by the editorial staff

Supermarket without plastic

Helsinki Fashion Week/Jere Viinikainen

The organic supermarket Ekoplaza in Amsterdam has opened the first totally plastic-free department, with 680 products on offer.

This experiment will be extended to the other 7 supermarkets that are part of this Dutch chain. Meat, rice, sauces, dairy products, fruit and vegetables are packaged in biodegradable packaging, in glass, metal or paper, and at no extra cost for consumers.

Circular Fashion Week From 20 to 25 July, Finland will host the Helsinki Fashion Week, the first fashion week to be 100% circular and sustainable, from the ecovillage concept to the fashion events. According to its founder Evelyn Mora “there will be 30 brands on stage, obviously all green, that will introduce their articles entirely made of recycled The bioeconomic car Lina is a new car with an electric engine, whose body is obtained by sugar beet and is covered by cultivated flax sheets. The prototype comes directly from Holland, and is the result of an experiment called TU-Ecomotive, who has been carried out by the

materials, or reusable natural fibre.” And there’s more: besides becoming a global platform for ecofashion trendsetters, the event will take place in an area where everything will be fully sustainable, thanks to a “zero waste approach,” the use of renewable energies and to the most advanced green technologies.

New materials for the building industry

Eindhoven University of Tecnology labs.

This is actually the first car with biodegradable elements, powered entirely by an electric power train, that can reach speeds of up to 80 km/h. It weights 310 kilograms. Needless to say, the objective is bioeconomic car-sharing.

tuecomotive.nl

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Permeable concrete?

It’s the achievement of a group of researchers from the Washington State University in Seattle, who have improved the mechanical properties of draining concrete – used for example for outdoor paving – by strengthening it through a composite material made of recycled carbon fibre. The new material will last longer, and will be more resistant compared to the products that are now on the market.

Thanks to the development of carbon recycling technologies, it’s likely that this new material will be soon produced on a large scale.

Walter Stahel at the Design Week The design world discovers the circular economy.

During the next Design Week in Milano, on the coming April 18, Walter Stahel will meet the international public.

The Swiss architect, one of the main circular economy theorists, will address the topic of Product as a Service.

The event will be part of one of the meetings taking place in Super Studio, one of the temples of Italian design, in the context of the event and exhibition “Smart City: Materials, Technologies & People,” organized by Material ConneXion.

News The shape of water Gruppo CAP, the water service provider of Città Metropolitana of Milano, has introduced PerFORM WATER 2030, the first “diffused” platform dedicated to research, development and implementation of technologies and decisionmaking tools with the

Megatyres: here comes the tyre-grinder

www.gruppocap.it

Otto Wilhelm Thomé, Flora von Deutschland, 1885/commons.wikimedia

Malta: aiming at 60% recycling Malta speeds up it waste recycling process: thanks to a new draft law, recycling organic waste, plastic and paper will become compulsory.

Last February the Minister of the Environment Jose Herrera has announced that before 2023 the first big scale incinerator will be built in Maghtab, but this plant will manage only 40% of the island waste, and therefore 60% will have to be recycled.

Citizens breaking the new law will have to pay heavy fines.

Fill the tank with grass How about biofuels produced from grass? A new research by the Colorado State University has proved that it’s possible to obtain unleaded petrol from an easy-growing plant that is not edible and is very common in the American prairies, the Panicum virgatum. According to this study, the use of the fuel produced through this plant would produce 11 grams of CO2 per megajoule, compared to the almost 80 grams per megajoule produced with a normal fuel. Moreover, Panicum virgatum contributes to storing CO2 through its roots when these are left in the ground.

objective of guaranteeing an increasingly efficient management of the integrated water system. The objective is the creation of a network of industrial companies and research centres that trough a circular approach, could make water management “circular,” saving water and recovering energy and material resources.

now launching MT-REX technology, with the first robot designed to work on megatyres directly on the spot, to make their transfer to recycling plants easier and cheaper. In the past these tyres were abandoned in the open air or were burned in situ.

Finally a way to recover mining trucks tyres: giants that measure 4 meters in diameter, are 1,80 meters wide and weigh 5,7 tonnes.

The Italian company Salvadori di Rovereto is

The Dragon turns green China is going to announce a new legal framework to protect the environment, writes the China Daily.

The government is going to introduce six new draft laws on environmental protection, air pollution, water pollution, waste and wildlife protection,

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as well as a new environmental tax.

Particular attention is paid to soil regeneration: “Before 2020 China will regenerate almost 90% of its contaminated agricultural land,” claims Mr Zhang Yesui, spokesman for the National People’s Congress (NPC).

Think Tank

Circular Europe The Circular Economy Package, a long term European strategy Interview with Kęstutis Sadauskas

by Emanuele Bompan, from Brussels

Kęstutis Sadauskas holds a Master Degree in International Relations and a Master Degree in Geography.

In 1993-2006 he worked in various positions in the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Head of Cabinet of the European Commissioner for taxation, customs, anti-fraud, audit and statistics in 2010, in 2014 Sadauskas assumed his role as the Director for Green Economy in Directorate General Environment.

How will the Circular Economy Package (CEP) impact Europe? This is the fundamental question everyone in the business is debating right now. In Brussels the glass seems to be half full for the final text. The endorsement for the set of legislation designed to increase recycling, reduce waste and advance a circular economy in Europe came February 23rd, more than two months after the agreement was reached on the CEP between the European Parliament, the European Commission and the European Council. The CEP, once ratified will establish legally binding targets for waste recycling and the reduction of landfilling with clear deadlines. These targets will increase the share of municipal waste and packaging waste that is recycled, with specific targets for the recycling of materials used in packaging.

The rules also include targets for reducing the amount of municipal waste, which is landfilled.

The European states will have to reach a 55% municipal recycling rate by 2025 and 65% by 2035. Specific targets for packaging are also included for all packaging (70%), plastic (55%), wood (30%), ferrous metals (80%), aluminium (60%), glass (75%) and paper and cardboard (85%). Other measure will include separate

collection for textile waste and hazardous waste, ensure that bio-waste is either collected separately or recycled at source. This should boost other circular economy strategies like service-as-a-product, repair and reuse practices. Renewable Matter has interviewed at the Circular Economy Stakeholder Forum in Brussels Kęstutis Sadauskas, Director, DG Environment of the European Commission, which has followed the negotiations of the Package very closely.

What are the main features in this new circular economy package?

“It’s a review of the waste legislation.

And while waste is only a part of the circular economy, without straight solutions there is no circular economy. It’s a very good package, a forward-looking one, it has high targets but also small targets, for waste management.

For example, it reforms the methodology of calculation of recycling: it simplifies it, totally harmonizes it. This helps to know for sure what is recycled and how much. Before the CEP there were four calculations in 12 different combinations, which made compare one country to the other impossible.

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renewablematter 20. 2018

Is very good to invest in circular economy solution, because these are long lasting solution, they create jobs, they grow economy, they make everything more sustainable, they make Europe more competitive.

“We are strengthening one of the most successful market-based instruments for the circular economy: extended producers responsibilities.

It’s proven to be a very powerful tool, but it needs to be improved. What have we proposed in our draft legislation? We have to increase transparency, accountability, auditability and link to circularity. This is the general requirements we propose to put in the law and then it will be down to the member states to decline or to apply according to their national regional specific circumstances, but the general principles have to be there. Producers who participate pay a fee. They deserve to know where the money goes and that they are put to a good use, and that’s what we are trying to fix with the extended producer responsibility.

“Collection of biowaste is another key element that has been neglected for a long time and it’s a very problematic, because of the release of CO2 and equivalent gasses, it’s a loss of very valuable materials, which can be composted, fertilized, you can do a lot of good things.”

Will there be more “renewable matter” for new materials or for energy?

“Materials are usually much times more valuable than energy, that is the last part squeezed out of the lemon, but what we want is the juice, the vitamin, the fibre. So there will be a lot of things that will be forward looking and that will simplify life, but at the same time it will be demanding to reach out for more circularity. This will benefit more economic operators because they know there is a certainty for investments; they know that Europe is really going to recycle more and to landfill less.

So there will be new materials coming on to the market.”

Will there also be more funds coming from Europe for circular enterprises?

“It’s already the case, it’s a choice for the member states, for the regions, for the operators to use the funds that are already available, whether it is cohesion funds or international, aid, all of those are available.

“The question is if the member states and all those who can apply would like to fight for those funds and use them for the circular economy rather than for something else.

It’s their choice. The money is there. I argue it is very good to invest in the circular economy solution, because these are long lasting solutions, they create jobs, they make the economy grow, they make everything more sustainable, they make Europe more competitive, they help preserve the industrial base in Europe and help especially the suffering regions with a low skilled workforce to get on the ground and to start something new. So it really delivers multiple achievements at the same time, it’s a very good investment. I trust the wisdom of the applicants of those who enjoy the funds that are really investing into smart solutions.”

Has the CEP raised interest from USA or China?

“Absolutely. There is big international interest, people follow. Definitely China, lots of countries in Asia, in North America, Canada, Africa, Latin America, I can confirm that. The EU Commission organizes circular economy missions around the world.

European businesses meet with many authorities in different countries, Chile, Iran, South Africa, China, Colombia, Indonesia, India and Mexico. Countries which want to adopt those solutions. We offer solutions and open up the market for European producers at the same time.”

Which parts do you think are missing in the package, what else has to be done?

“The action plan is as it stands right now.

We need to complete it and there is plenty to do about the product policy. We have a new work plan for the ecodesign, which we need to implement. We need to be very responsible about how we do it but there is a lot of potential. The new waste legislation and the Extended Producer Responsibility scheme will incentivize better design for circularity, namely waste prevention, so it will have an impact on the products. The implementation of the chemicals legislation also impacts the design and the products, how it’s produced, what materials are chosen. So we already have enough on our plate, we have enough instruments. What we promise to do is to look into this instruments altogether to reinforce their coherence and see if there’s even more that can be achieved from it, if there are any gaps and if there is anything else that needs to be done.”

At the Stakeholder conference there was a lot of attention on the issue of plastic. Why is it so important and which steps will the Commission take in the future?

“We summarize that issue in the EU Plastic Strategy, a complex document that sets important goals. By 2030, all plastics packaging placed on the EU market is either reusable or can be recycled in a cost effective manner.

Our narrative is this: plastic is an indispensable material, we can’t live without it, it made our life easier, more comfortable. Plastic is an easy and cheap material. Unfortunately, plastic doesn’t degrade, as fast as we piloted, and it is a major environmental problem. We need to make sure that we collect it all and recycle it, while making sure that the environment is not damaged, regulating micro-plastic. We also need to look into the bioeconomy for the plastic.

There are big opportunities there but we need to be careful we won’t regret our decisions.”

Think Tank Do we have to shift to other materials and try to substitute as much as we can?

“It depends on which ones. There are plastics that are contaminated by heavy metals which weren’t banned when they were produced but now they are. In that case we need to safely dispose of them and to replace them with something that’s safer and better. The other plastics need to be recovered and collected in the right way and put back in the economy. I think with that Europe would reduce its dependence on fossil fuels imports and raw materials, reducing its dependency.”

Given the rising complexity of the matter market, thanks also to the CEP, do we need a sort of passport for materials to make sure of the origin?

“Ideally yes, we need to know where materials come from. We need to be sure that we source from the right responsible businesses and we don’t bring in timber that came from cutting down the jungle or the materials that have been produced using child labour, that’s absolutely a must. The question is: How can we do it? The key is to track especially chemicals, know where they come from, how many of them are present, what is their effects. If you have waste, which is contaminated by some chemical toxic substances, no recycler will want to take them, because they can’t sell the recycled materials afterwards. You have to make sure they know the composition of that waste; they need to trace upwards the origin of it. Technical enforcement is very, very complicated.

How do you track and trace thousands of various streams in millions of various value chains? We need to solve it in a cost efficient smart way. Digital technology probably could be one of the ways to do it. But it is key to build the second raw material market, knowing for sure that it’s good quality stuff, that can be used to produce consumable goods that are safe enough, good quality, constant, cost is good so that it is competitive in every possible way.”

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THE DARK SIDE of Digitalisation Interview with Tilman Santarius Why we can’t take for granted that digital technologies can contribute to sustainability.

by Silvia Zamboni

Tilman Santarius is head of a research group on digital technologies and ecosocial transformation at the Berlin Polytechnic and at the Institute of Economic Research for Ecology (IÖW). He was project leader at the Wuppertal Institute for climate, environment and energy and director of the Heinrich Böll Stiftung-The Green Political Foundation.

According to a report issued by Global e-Sustainability Initiative, digital solutions can bring to a 16% reduction of climatealtering gases before 2020, a result that would go way beyond the objectives of the 2015 Paris agreement on climate.

But is glittering digitalisation really all gold? How and how much the digitalisation processes at the base of sharing economy can contribute to environmental sustainability?

“First of all we have to take into account that creating infrastructural systems and digital devices involves the use of considerable amounts of material resources and energy. For example, if we consider an iPhone ¾ of the energy consumption of its whole life cycle is used during its production process, and only 25% during its use,” points out Tilman Santarius, an ecoanalist who is head of a research group on digital technologies at the Berlin Polytechnic and at the Institute of Economic Research for Ecology (IÖW). “From this point of view digitalisation does not seem to be sustainable. But there’s another question: can digital tools reduce the use of energy and resources in other fields? In the case of digital platforms for goods and services sharing the answer is yes, because these sharing systems allow a reduction in production and purchase.”

extracted and in which conditions? Many are rare metals that come from conflict-torn areas.

Let’s just consider palladium or cobalt, that are extracted in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in mines where workers, and especially children miners, are inhumanly exploited, where the level of environmental protection standards is minimal and the resulting profits feed the guerrilla.

“Other problems arise at the end of the products’ life cycle, when these devices end up as waste.

This often happens prematurely, partly because of planned obsolescence, that deliberately shortens their life-cycle, and partly because of some sort of psychological obsolescence, that pushes consumers to long for the last, best performing model on the market, and get rid of devices that are still working perfectly. All this is causing a constant increase in electronic waste: in 2015 we reached 42 millions tonnes, a mountain of waste as big as the one we would have if we piled up all the cars that are now on the road in Germany. This waste ends up mostly in China, Western Africa or in the Indochina peninsula, where it gets only partly recycled, in disastrous environmental and working conditions, whilst the rest is thrown in unauthorised dumps. The issue of electronic waste is crucial in any sustainability analysis of the digital world.”

Let’s focus on the material resources of which digital supports are made of: what are the main problems during their entire life cycle?

“As I said, the production of a tablet, an e-book reader or a smartphone covers most part of the whole energy balance. At this stage it’s important to reflect on the raw materials employed in production: which materials, where are they

What do you think of 3D printers in terms of sustainable use of resources?

“On the one hand 3D printers have the advantage of being able to make use of poor materials of various nature and waste materials, and could therefore reduce the use of raw material and avoid the use of rare precious metals. On the other there’s an economic issue we need to deal with: who can afford a printer that can really

Think Tank produce goods such as cars? Who’s got the power and the know-how to manage devices of such a size? If we look at what 3D printers are actually producing in the world now we find out, to quote the funniest example, they are mostly producing thousands of plastic toy dinosaurs in different colours, because people enjoy watching how they are created. I rule out that this has anything to do with ecology. Therefore there’s still much to be done to make sure that these technologies can give a real contribution to the safeguard of the environmental and of natural resources.”

Institute for Ecological Economy, www.ioew.de/en

Silvia Zamboni is a journalist specialized in energy and environmental issues. She has authored books on good practices of the green economy, mobility and development.

Let’s consider Industry 4.0: what’s now prevailing is the discussion on the effects of automation on employment. From the point of view of environmental sustainability, could the automation of productive processes be beneficial in terms of resources and energy savings?

“There’s an aspect that must not be overlooked in this discussion: we have to ask ourselves if because of the rebound effect automation will not end up increasing production, and as a consequence the overall resources and energy use. The increase in efficiency is an incentive to produce more goods, because productive processes get more efficient and therefore use less materials and energy to create each single product: the final outcome is that altogether we employ more resources, because of the increased amount of goods we produce. In other words, what we save through efficiency for each single product, we loose because of the increased amount of products.

“The same happens with consumption: because automation brings to energy efficiency and an efficient use of resources, industries can place on the market a bigger amount of goods at a more convenient price. But this encourages consumption, because there’s more goods on the market at a lower price. If we really want to use the energy efficiency of Industry 4.0 to save resources and energy, we need to support this increase in productivity with proper political measures, for example raising the cost of energy and raw material in relation to the level of efficiency that has been reached in their employment.”

In everyday use we make of platforms in sharing economy, what are the positive examples in terms of contribution to environmental sustainability, and what instead goes in a very different direction?

“In my opinion positive examples are local systems to share and exchange working equipment and tools, cars, clothes and so on: in this case sharing brings to a real reduction of consumption. And it also has a relevant social aspect, because it helps create networks, as well as friendships and good neighbourly relations, that can strengthen and revitalize communities. Negative examples are the

instances of sharing economy that do not bring people to give up individual ownership, but instead increase the options for consumers.

In my opinion these include free floating car sharing systems, that are not used by people who have given up owning a car, but by people who have a car parked at home, and use car sharing in town as an extra-option. A poor result in ecological terms, that increases car traffic on the roads. Another critical aspect of sharing economy concerns the players who have control over it.”

Could you tell us more about this?

“I would distinguish two kinds of digital platforms: on the one hand those with a capitalistic print, like Uber and Airbnb that have reached the size of a world network and now control the residential and housing sector, as well as the private transport sector, in a purely business style. On the other we have platforms that are inspired by a cooperative model, based on exchange.”

Couch surfing, the platform used to offer free hospitality in exchange for further hospitality and therefore with no money involved, is part of this second category, right?

“Of course, and it’s not the only one. There are also taxi coops. And as for shopping online we have Fairmondo.de, an environmentally and socially responsible coop that is taking hold in Germany, and whose philosophy is the opposite than Amazon’s.”

An ongoing debate concerns the way Big Data is a risk for privacy, as you underlined during the Colloqui di Dobbiaco in 2017. Is it possible to protect privacy when using sharing economy platforms?

“We have to be aware that all the information published on WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook is not protected. But now there are some online competitors like for example Threema, an alternative service to WhatsApp, that guarantees privacy because the information circulating through it is encrypted, and is available only to the people who exchange it: the provider itself has no access to it. It’s still a ‘niche’ app: it would be good to use it at least with family and friends. There’s also alternatives to Google: DuckDuckGo is a research engine whose headquarters are in Paoli, Pennsylvania. Its mission statement contemplates data protection for its platforms users. However, providers can’t bear all the responsibility for privacy: policy must play its part. There are already rules on privacy protection for police, public officers and secret services. They should be extended to private economic operators, determining who is authorised to develop and preserve data and eventually sell them to third parties, for example to the advertising industry. These are previsions that must be set out by law.”

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Policy

Focus Planned Obsolescence

Use-by Date Product We change a smartphone every 2.7 years, a t-shirt every 2 and a half years and a PC every 4. Yet 30% of the goods we throw away are still in working order, 60% when talking about electronics. It’s hard to draw the line between planned obsolescence and our psychology, between research on greater efficiency and errors in design.

by Sergio Ferraris

Sergio Ferraris is director of QualEnergia.

Markets seek value, just like consumers.

The problem is that different types of value are brought into opposition. For markets it is about economic value, whereas for consumers of a good it is about maximising the cost to use value ratio. At the beginning of the industrial era the dialectic between producer and consumer was: the former would supply a good that would last over time, in exchange for value. The mechanism jammed with mass industrialisation which, at the beginning of the 20th century, saturated the European economy’s richer and more appealing markets. At the time, certain sectors arrived at what economists define as “market saturation,” whereby the supply of a good is greater than its demand. This brings to a levelling of the growth curve of a market. Hence the birth of the substitution market, where consumers no longer buy goods because they are useful or because they did not already possess one, but rather as a substitute for a similar good. Clearly, for this scenario to work, the substitution has to be incentivised.

In early 20th century companies would verify the market saturation of certain goods such as light bulbs, which over the course of a couple of decades had entered all western households.

In 1924, the companies producing light bulbs created the Phoebus cartel which, if on the one hand standardised the fittings, power and luminosity of light bulbs, it also established the ideal durability of light bulbs produced by all

companies: 1,000 hours. Less than half the time that light bulbs could have been made to last in those years: 2,500 hours. Subsequently, other examples emerged, such as that of Dupont, the company that invented nylon and then went on to lead research on how to render it less resistant, seeing as its excessive durability was damaging the market. At the time, some theorised that planned obsolescence was imposed by law, so as to break out of the Great Depression of 1929.

Today the debate surrounding planned obsolescence is different and focuses on two cardinal points. The first is that of safeguarding resources, materials and energy. The second, which is less tackled and slightly controversial, regards the economic aspect of the debate.

The GDP dogma, exemplified in exponential growth, is in fact a cornerstone of both economics and politics, notwithstanding the fact that it has been challenged for over half a century. And the few cracks that begin to emerge in international forums are just the first signs.

For example, the French president Emmanuel Macron, on the 24th of February 2018 in Davos, launched some timid critiques of globalisation and growth that only pushes for an unbalanced redistribution of income and the polarisation of the rich and the poor. Macron is the President of France, a nation that has a law regarding planned obsolescence and a Minister for the Ecological and Inclusive Transition, who in 2017 at the UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme)

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Bakker C.A., C.S.C. Schuit, “The long view,” tinyurl.com/y9vvt6qj Tröger N., H. Wieser, R. Hübner, “Smartphones are replaced more frequently than t-shirts,” tinyurl.com/y7orls66

financed the study – The long view – on product lifetime extension.

The approach of this research in product lifetime extension starts from a 360° vision that attempts to make a point about energy obsolescence.

This is in reference to when is it necessary to change a good because a new and more energy efficient version has been introduced.

The categories analysed are washing machines, fridges, televisions, smartphones, computers, clothes and vacuum cleaners. The result is that, in terms of energy efficiency, washing machines and fridges have to be used for at least ten years before they can be replaced with more efficient models whereas for televisions even more years are necessary. Today it makes more sense to keep old LED ones, seeing as the new 4k high definition models are less energy efficient.

On the other hand, all other products analysed are replaced for reasons that differ from “energy comparison.” Here the sinkhole of psychological planned obsolescence opens up. Namely, when one becomes convinced that an object can no longer satisfy his/her needs, needs which are often induced. This is an issue that is hard to define in a scientific manner. For example, the European Economic and Social Committee, which has embraced the battle against planned obsolescence for quite some time, has found only a few isolated cases in which it is possible to talk about well defined “models of accelerated consumption.” A recent study (Tröger, Wieser, Hübner, 2017) attempts to approach the phenomenon from a sociological perspective.

Basically, relative to consumption of smartphones

in Austria and by observing the time that passes between their first and last use, they highlight how societal acceleration influences the behaviour of consumers, directing them from times dictated by lifecycle to those of use. Before, an empirical study (Cooper, 2004) demonstrated how 30% of eliminated goods are still in working order, a percentage that increases to 60% for electronic goods. This is a problem of true analytical complexity.

From the point of view of physical durability of objects, it is in fact complex to determine whether inferior durability is down to planned obsolescence or computerised design that allows for the “nanometrical” dosage of production materials. Therefore, is there a desire for obsolescence or for industrial – and also environmental – efficiency, in the use of materials? An exemplary case is that of cars. The increased efficiency of vehicles is down to, mostly, a general lightening of cars, which reduces fuel consumption and pollution, but has also reduced the resistance to wear, whereas mechanised welding and varnishing of the chassis, together with a great use of plastic components, have made rust a distant memory.

Let us return to Austrian smartphones. From the analysis it emerges that the average use time of a smartphone is of 2.7 years, little more than that of a t-shirt (2.5 years) and of sandals (2.2 years).

Printers and computers are at 4 and 4.1 years, cameras at 5.3 and cars at 7.5 years, whereas the longest-serving object is the cooking hob with 10.8 years. With regards to the reasons for changing a smartphone 31% of interviewees claim technical problems, which turn out to be

Policy genuine in about 10% of cases. Other than that, it is a question of functional decadence, such as those tied to the exhaustion of available memory, which doesn’t actually impede use.

Of this residual 10%, 4% is down to faulty batteries that, all the more often, cannot be replaced. Only one user in three attempts to fix their phone. “We chose the point of view of consumers by interviewing families and giving one thousand people a questionnaire – says

Harald Wieser of the University of Manchester, who participated in the research –. We discovered that durability isn’t a big problem for consumers and that many phones are changed before they break.” The problem of obsolescence, whose origin at this point could be either planned or desired, is more complex, as it becomes a sociological and above all a psychological matter.

Let’s move on to the technological aspect.

A group of European researchers have conducted

Information on the lifecycle of a label

Only one user in three attempts to fix their phone.

Putting lifecycle information on the label. Just change the energy labelling (Winzer, Schriddle, Kreiss, 2013) to indicate the predicted lifespan and the rate of reparability of the object in question, so as to give the consumer tools and increase the average lifespan of goods.

The proposal is contained in a European Parliament Directive of July 2017, where it is proposed as “supplementary information” and therefore voluntary. It is also found in the energy labelling reform, bolstered by the M5S Euro Parliamentary Dario Tamburrano, on maintenance, lifecycle and connectivity; which passed in the ITRE committee, always in the form of voluntary adhesion. All of which was dismantled in the negotiations with the United Sates, whereby the final text only has one reference to durability and environmental performance. All the rest was lost.

“The European legislation – explains Tamburrano – exists and has not been implemented for too long.

It is missing the standards with which to assess the criteria of reparability, durability, and so on. However, the production rewards those who innovate and I hope that more careful producers get going and act as trend setters.

The European Commission has to take charge of this evolution, which must not result in an increase in prices for consumers and has to find a balance with many different aspects. The end of planned obsolescence is to the circular economy what the end of subsidies for fossil fuels is to a transition to renewable energy.”

Even though there are no concrete projects, for now, on the part of the European commission there has been some initiative. In the field of Ecodesign 2016-2019, the Commission has pushed itself to explore the possibility of including horizontal criterion on durability, reparability and disassembly. Factors that have to be taken into consideration in the design of a product and communicated to consumers with labels.

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To affirm that there is a systematic design for planned obsolescence, from a scientific point of view, is still a questionable matter.

an investigation on how to perfect a methodology for measuring the durability of washing machines (Stamminger, Tecchio, Aedente, Matheiux, Niestrath, 2017). “We created this research to search for clues as to whether producers intentionally programme their products to break after a certain amount of years – says Rainer Stamminger, researcher at the University of Bonn –. The answer is yes and no. Yes, because producers during the design phase use requisites for the durability and resistance to stress. This is a common and consolidated planning practice, because you cannot use anything without defining this aspect.” And if on the one hand there is this awareness in the design, with regard to the investigation on planned obsolescence Stamminger is clear: “We found no proof that products are deliberately designed to break, but what we did find is the fact that there are design errors, that could be examples of bad design.”

On this topic Stamminger quotes the renowned example of the 1,000 hour light bulb. “It isn’t a secret that by using thicker wire you would get more hours of use – concludes Stamminger – but, using a thicker wire requires more electricity to obtain the same amount of heat and the same

amount of light. Therefore, it is necessary to reach a compromise between durability and energy consumption. Engineers have to consider the surrounding conditions, in this case the consumption of energy, during design.”

And, even if there are no certainties on this front, researchers have noticed that, notwithstanding the average lifespan declared by producers of washing machines to be of 12 years, many of those present on the market last less than 5 years.

It therefore appears that, even with some clear examples of planned obsolescence such as with the light bulbs in the 20’s, nylon and ink cartridges for printers more recently to affirm that there is a systematic design for planned obsolescence, from a scientific point of view, is still a questionable matter.

However, there are some clues. Firstly, designers have a deep knowledge of materials and the possibilities that these give, also owing to their huge calculating potential, that enables them to programme the durability of goods (Kreiss, 2014).

Then, one must consider the market dynamics.

The reduction in quality of materials offers an advantage for price and costs of production, whereas the durability gives a competitive advantage to brands in the long run. It is clear that, in a competitive and short term oriented market, companies will adjust accordingly, and therefore reduce the durability of goods. In this way, the consumer is instilled with an idea of average lifespan that is minimal and elected by the producer. Translation: all light bulbs last 1,000 hours, all socks brake, all cartridges for printers run out after exactly 1,000 copies and all cars last for 150,000 kilometres.

In this way brands are able to reduce the risk of being associated with low quality products (Reischauser, 2011). Furthermore, the consumer is unable to make an informed choice, seeing as the information on average lifespan, on reparability, availability and cost of replacement parts over time and costs of use, is in the hands of the producer and not shared with the consumer.

When a

Photo by Heather Agyepong for The Restart Project Left photo by The Restart Project

Photo by Brendan Foster for The Restart Project

Photo by Heather Agyepong for The Restart Project

Focus Planned Obsolescence

Party Extends Your Life

Printers impossible to repair, devices difficult to disassemble, poor information for repairs and unavailable spare parts. Corporate strategies and lifestyles inspired by inflated consumption hone in on products designed with a deadline. But namely designers and consumers can reverse this trend, many of which are already trying.

by Veronica Ulivieri

Top images, from left to right: Satisfied partygoers after a restart party in a Selfridges electronics store Repairs during the 2017 Fixfest Restart party in Havering, London A Restart Party in Kentish Town, Northwest London, UK

In 1924 the expression “planned obsolescence” did not exist, but the phenomenon was already there. Indeed, during the same year, a few light bulb manufacturers signed a non-aggression pact: no competition amongst them and products on sale with the same reduced life expectancy. Decades after the so called “Phoebus cartel,” there was a proliferation of high-mortality products. From printers impossible to repair to the early IPod Apple, with a fast-degrading and very expensive battery to replace, so much so that it was cheaper for users to buy a new MP3 reader.

If these are the most glaring cases, premature aging affect all types of devices and most manufacturers. According to data mentioned in a report on this subject carried out by UN Environment in late 2017, between 2000 and 2005 in the Netherlands, a laptop’s life expectancy dropped by 5% and that of small electronic devices by a staggering 20%. In Germany, most appliances are replaced in less than five years from purchase.

“Before, the design of a product was studied so as to optimize the production phase with that of performance during its use, with various repercussions for economies of scale, quality and durability. A number of products that up until a few years back were mere assembling of plastic and metal have now become a concentration of hardware and software encapsulated in a captivating bodywork and, when systematized, grab the potential customer’s needs and attention,” explain Damon Berry and Matteo Zallio, researchers of the Dublin Institute of Technology.

If this evolution is the result of a new way of designing objects in response to customers “with an increasing power in making their needs felt,” the effects on the environment are not always positive. When the electronic components increase beyond measure, so does the probability of faults, and wherever there is software, if the manufacturer stops updating, the product ages instantly, thus becoming waste. In many instances, the very designers are asked to elaborate

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renewablematter 20. 2018 products with a definite life expectancy, both for corporate commercial strategy and because over the last decades lifestyles have had a tendency to frequent consumption of electronics, as testified by Dutch and German data.

Veronica Ulivieri, journalist, mainly deals with economics and enquiries on environmental issues.

She writes for, amongst others, Repubblica Affari & Finanza, La Stampa and Il Fatto quotidiano. it. In 2015 she won UGIS prize – Union of Italian scientific journalists.

Restart Project, therestartproject.org Open Repair Alliance, openrepair.org iFixit, www.ifixit.com

If designers and consumers are part of the problem, they can also be active promoters of the solution. On the basis of a scenario already appearing on the horizon: “It is important to concentrate on designing flexible, modular, adaptable devices, simple to mend and update, moving from a design of a product to one of services,” explain the two researchers, according to whom in this evolutionary process of the market, a key role will be played by consumers: “Today, it is the users who hold the power, they have the opportunity to express their concepts and needs in a much more effective way compared to last century.

Design will evolve hand in hand with people because design is still made by human beings and is a consequence of the demand from the market.”

So, in order to solve the problem of planned obsolescence, one of the smartest things to do is to start from people. This is also the approach adopted by the best initiatives at global level to stop premature death of electronic devices.

As a result, by repairing a toaster, irons and smartphones, relations between people and objects are also altered and a consumption model more compatible with the Earth’s limited resources is also promoted.

So far, one of the most successful experiences is Restart Project, an association created in London in 2012 by Janet Gunter and Ugo Vallauri. She is an anthropologist and activist with experiences from Brazil to Timor East and he is a researcher and an expert in international cooperation. Together they started out with an idea to do something against the proliferation of electronic waste that in many instances is disposed of in the Global South, amongst thousands of environmental criticalities. “We were extremely frustrated at the large amount of electronic devices being thrown away in Europe and the United States.

So we started to organize restart parties in London, events where people bring their own broken devices and repair them with the help of volunteers,” tells Vallauri.

The initiative was successful and became popular the world over, with affiliated groups organizing parties in the US, Canada, Israel, Tunisia, Spain, Italy and Argentina. The first 200 parties organized involved almost 8,000 people, with over 6,200 devices, of which only about a thousand proved impossible to repair.

All the remaining ones are now back up and running or soon they will work again, thus avoiding the production of 8,500 kilos more waste and an amount of emissions equal to that necessary to produce 26 cars: “We don’t

want to take the place of the repairing economy, but we would like to offer training and help people to share and exchange knowledge.”

Some research carried out by Restart Project in collaboration with the university of Nottingham Trent showed that 48% of Restart’s partygoers has little or no faith at all in home repairs and 45% cannot even recommend a repairer.

Here the planned obsolescence phenomenon appears in all its complexity: “It’s not merely a question of companies planning products to last a certain length of time, but many devices are so difficult to disassemble and repair that many manufacturers do not divulge repairing information to users and spare parts are not always easily accessible to everyone.”

All these fronts need tackling, restoring the will in each individual to try and get one’s hands dirty before opting for the easier solution of buying a new device.

Last autumn, Restart Project launched the first edition of the International Repair Day and organized the first FixFest. Also, the Open Repair Alliance was born, a group of organizations aiming at building an international standard to exchange information on repairs at global level. It will help repair objects and plan more durable devices, easier to repair. iFixit is also part of the alliance, a project born in 2003 in California, also from some frustration: Luke Soules and Kyle Wiens studied Engineering at the polytechnic university and wanted to repair an old iBook, but nowhere could they find the instructions on how to do it. “They fiddled, tinkered with it, broke some keys and lost a few screws but in the end they managed to repair it. They tried to repair more laptops but they would not find the parts. So they bought an old computer on eBay and obtained the components from it,” tells today Kay-Kay Clapp from Headquarter in San Luis Obispo. That’s how the idea of iFixit was born, a platform for both e-commerce where spare parts are sold and a community where people from all over the world exchange repair manuals for free and reply each other’s questions. “Today iFixit boasts over 35,000 free online repair manuals accessible to anyone. Last year it helped over 100 million people repair their things.”

The project motto is: “If you can’t open it, you don’t own it:” iFixit allocates a score from 1 to 10 to each device according to the level of reparability and ease of repair of the components and the accessibility of the repair information. Sometimes, adds Kay-Kay, “technological companies complain for the score we give them, but some now work with us during the design processes to have advice on how to plan easier to repair products.” The change has already begun.

Policy

Focus Planned Obsolescence

C’mon People, Let’s Repair!

The experience of Repair Café started in Amsterdam, but now it’s popular all over the world.

Welcoming places where you can bring any kind of broken objects, from your bicycle to your blender, cellphone or an old garment, and you have 7 chances out of 10 to repair them. Here’s where you can get your repairing skills back.

by Silvia Zamboni

Do you have a sweater you really like, but so do moth which left a clear trail on it?

Did your children break the toy train they got as a Christmas present? Do you have to reposition your bicycle brakes? No worries, even if you have to repair a small domestic appliance, or a digital device, at Repair Café somebody is going to be able to help. And he or her will do it for free, thanks to the philosophy of this self-help group, that goes stubbornly against the usual use-break-throw away mentality. All this in a friendly atmosphere that helps socializing.

That’s why Repair Cafés are usually located in welcoming places where you will find repairing tools made available by the many volunteers, experts in different branches of repairing, as well as a nice tea, coffee or piece of cake.

The original idea of Repair Café was born in Amsterdam thanks to the journalist Martine Postma who in 2009 decided to take action after

writing for years about domestic waste reduction and prevention. “Thinking about why we produce so much waste, I came to the conclusion that this happens also because people have lost the habit of repairing broken objects,” explains Martine Postma to Renewable Matter. “To make the art of repairing popular again, I could rely on experts that were willing to work as volunteer trainers. But we needed an attractive and easily accessible location, just like the shops where you can buy new objects to replace the old ones, and that are just around the corner.”

Easier said than done, with a press release on newspapers, radio and television Postma launched the first meeting, that was a real success. “More than 80 people came, and this was well beyond my expectations.”

Today successful Martina Postma is head of the International Repair Café Foundation, that

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Repair Café, repaircafe.org/en

coordinates the creation of similar initiatives, also thanks to an instruction kit available online.

By the end of 2017 throughout the world there were already 1,450 Repair Café, 300 more than in 2016.

This means that under the guidance of hundreds of volunteers, thousand of citizens have given a second life to a huge amount of objects that would have otherwise been thrown away.

“According to the last yearly report, in 2016 about 357,000 objects were taken to the Repair Café, 70% of which (that is 25,000) have been successfully repaired” explains Postma.

“According to our experts, in terms of carbon savings this corresponds to 25,000 kg of CO2 that were not released in the atmosphere.”

And there’s more: on October 6, Fixfest took place for the first time in London. This is a threeday international event including meetings, workshops and best practices exchanges that was joined by more than 200 repairers, public administrators, companies and people coming from all over the world. Moreover, every year in October the International Repair Day takes place on the third Saturday of the month.

In order to consolidate the world community, during the Fixfest the International Repair Café Foundation has launched the Open Repair Alliance together with The Restart Project (UK), Fixit Clinic (USA), Anstiftung Foundation (Germany) and iFixit (USA), different associations working to spread the culture of repairability

Policy

and illustrate the various repairing techniques, even online.

“Our organisations play an important role in the promotion of the pro-repairing movement,” explains Ugo Vallauri from The Restart Project. “We can share how we managed to solve problems, and share what are the most frequent kinds of damage and the difficulties in repairing them, in order to reach a higher level of repairability of goods.” Moreover, adds Potsma, “by joining together, our power towards producers, designers, politicians and consumers increases.”

But what’s a typical meeting in a Repair Café like?

“Usually during our events there are 4 or 5 desks.

There’s one desk to repair domestic appliances, one for clothes, one for bicycles, a carpentry desk to repair furnitures and soon we will start a desk for electronic devices” explains Raffaele Timpano, who is an economist for AIF (Amici Italiani di Raoul Follereau, “Italians Friends of Raoul Follereau”), an NGO working in international cooperation, and President of the Bologna Repair Café Rusko. This last name stays for “Riparo Uso Scambio Comunitario” (“Repair, Use, Community Exchange”), and amusingly recalls the term “rusco,” which in the local dialect means house waste.

Rusko does not have its own headquarter due to lack of funds, and therefore has introduced an innovative travelling model, moving around

different areas of the city. “We don’t ask for money. Our objective is to teach people to repair in order to increase the community’s resilience by recovering the manual skills that have been lost with consumerism. How many time we hear from artisans themselves that it’s not worth repairing because it’s cheaper to buy a new object” states Timpano. “However this way people do not feel responsible for their consumerism, all is measured just in terms of price and we also loose the emotional connection with we objects we own.”

For what concerns the average profile of the people that make use of Rusko “in the suburbs of Bologna we had people with economic difficulties and migrant women from Syria and Egypt, who were happy to find here repairing practices, just like in their own counties,” explains Timpano “whilst in the city centre we had people who believe in the ecological value of this initiative, and in the importance of education in fighting against waste. The most enthusiastic were the children we met during our initiatives in primary school, who were excited to repair their toys and bicycles.”

According to Postma “the biggest success we detect everywhere is the change of mentality in the people that come to Repair Café: they learn that it’s possible to repair things, and also that it’s fun to do it.” A bottom-up way to circular economy, self-managed and solidarity-based. That is also good news for the household budget.

We don’t ask for money.

Our objective is to teach people to repair in order to increase the community’s resilience by recovering the manual skills that have been lost with consumerism.

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Focus Planned Obsolescence

Disruptive Design

by Leyla Acaroglu, from New York

The greatest design challenge of our time is not how to create more efficient parking apps, but how to design a future that works better for all of us.

Recycling alone is not enough to solve “through-away” production. There is a need for a new planning method able to meet needs while creating a regenerative system bringing together phisical components and cognitive, social and environmental implications.

It has become increasingly normal for businesses to manufacture products that are specifically designed to lose value over time, dramatically so in some cases, with the intent to manipulate consumers into continual purchasing patterns.

Aside from the ethical issues of this, one of the significant negative by-products of designing goods for disposability is that it draws heavily on the supply chain to constantly churn out new materials.

This in turn puts extreme pressure on natural resources and results in many of the negative environmental and social issues we see today.

Recycling is often heralded as the solution to the externalities created by this, yet recycling validates the production of waste and incentivizes the continuation of a linear

economy. The circularisation techniques we start to implement today can not be just about managing the end of life of products to be reused, remanufactured, and recycled – but instead, it must involve a systems level perspective of the creations across their entire life in order to design for systems change.

From a sustainable designer’s perspective, I continuously see designers in all factions of the industry investing their incredible creative skills in developing “problematic stuff,” designs dressed up with the bells and whistles of newness to mask that it really has no positive contribution to make. To be clear, the greatest design challenge of our time is not how to create more efficient parking apps, but how to design a future that works better for all of us. And this requires the development of a

Policy

Sociologist and entrepreneur, Leyla Acaroglu challenges people to think differently about how the world works. As an award winning designer of UNEP Champion of the Earth prize, she developed the Disruptive Design Method.

more multidimensional worldview, which takes into consideration the infinite possibility of the universe along with the finite biosophical realities of the world we inhabit.

To this end, over several years of working at the forefront of using design as a catalyst for positive change, I developed the Disruptive Design Method. The DDM is a three-part process of Mining, Landscaping and Building that adopts

a systems, sustainability science, and design approach to complex problem exploring, solving, and evolving.

When we take a life cycle perspective it’s easy to see that all materials, “natural” or not, have an impact in some way. It’s not about which materials we use but what we do with them that results in the degree of planetary and social impacts. This is why designing products that fulfill our needs but also contribute to

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renewablematter 20. 2018 MLB DisruptiveDesign/credit: EmmaSegal

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a more regenerative system need to consider the physical components along with the the cognitive, social and environmental implications.

In the DDM, the first stage of Mining is all about understanding the components that make up a system. We explore a problem arena without judgment, as in systems thinking, there is no blame in an interconnected system (and everything is interconnected!). We explore what elements and components make up a problem set whilst suspending the need to solve, which allows for the collection of insights related to the relationships between the elements that make up a system and the identification of the sub-terrain of a problem set. We then take these

new collections and piece them together in the Landscaping phase to develop a more complete picture of the complexity at play in the system arena we are working in.

Taking a bird’s eye view, we can then identify areas to intervene within our agency, focusing on leverage points, often small and previously unnoticed, that allow for a systems wide shift of the status quo. This naturally progresses into the ideation phase of Building, where we rapidly develop potential designed interventions that fits problem set in diverse ways, test, prototype and evolve.

This entire process is cycled through in a interactive and action-oriented way: seeking out new insights in the problem loving Mining stage, identifying areas to intervene in the systems mindset Landscaping stage, and then generating divergent approaches to evolving the contemporary stat into a new one in the Building phase.

If you were to apply this scaffolding to the product develop process, you would be using the Mining phase to explore the core functional delivery of the set brief, to define the status quo of delivering that function, to identify the things that work/don’t work and move into piecing these together to define the current operating landscape, and then to build an alternative model that makes the old obsolete based on the systems perspective.

Take, for example, the refrigerator.

The functional delivery for the design has not changed much in 65 years: a box with two main parts, shelves, and a internal container for vegetables. The core functional delivery of a fridge is to keep food fresh, yet the product is not very good at actually doing this for many cellbased perishables like vegetables. This is mainly due to the poor design of the crisper drawer, which speeds up the dehydration of vegetables cells since it is not a sealed environment, resulting in soggy and limp veggies.

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Take, for example, the refrigerator.

The functional delivery for the design has not changed much in 65 years.

Using the DDM to explore the issues would enable a system-wide perspective for this problem. Then, when moving into the design phase (Building), the creative would be equipped with the agency to redesign from the functional level up, from the understanding mined in the first phase that the fridge is just as much a culture status symbol as a functional unit for storing food.

Thus the delivery of food preservation can be done in a variety of diverse ways that maximise service but minimise energy use and product loss.

Taking a systems perspective of design and production accounts for the full life cycle impacts of our actions, designs for value gain, and considers the social, environmental and economic impacts not just to us humans, but to the entire biosphere.

There are many steps a creative producer can take to dramatically shift the status quo of complex problem areas. It’s not

about boycotting or complaining; it’s about understanding and motivating oneself to be able to exercise more informed design decisions based on a broader and deeper sustainable view of the world.

The DDM allows for a more three-dimensional design approach, where our choices are made with a worldview of intentionally generating positive change.

From here we can explore and build on what’s actually needed. The more creatives that invest their capacity in challenging the status quo (instead of enabling its dysfunctional parts), the quicker we will design a future that is regenerative, not accidently destructive.

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Dossier

BRAZIL

The sky over Rio de Janeiro on 15th November 1889, the day in which the Republic was proclaimed.

1. Procyon 2. Canis Major 3. Canopus 4. Spica 5. Hydra 6. Southern Cross 7. Sigma Octantis 8. Atria 9. Scorpio

An excellent heritage in terms of biodiversity, large availability of biomass along with an innovative biotechnological and chemical industry.

These are the characteristics of Brazil’s bioeconomy making the country one of the world’s main players.

But an integrated strategy and a long-term vision are still lacking.

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A Bioethanol-Fuelled Bioeconomy

700 million tonnes of sugarcane treated in one year; 30.23 billion litres of bioethanol produced in 2015-2016. Used not just as biofuel but also in industries, it is the global leader in the production of biopolymers and biochemicals.

by Mario Bonaccorso

Abundance of non-food biomass, soil and vast availability of natural resources, a biodiversity almost unmatched anywhere else in the world and a biotechnological and chemical industry focused on innovation, with the biofuel sector as the nation’s spearhead. These are the main characteristics of Brazil’s bioeconomy, making the South American country one of the world’s leading actors in such metasector. Despite the lack of an integrated strategy on the bioeconomy, since the early 70s, when it was necessary to react to the oil shock, Brazil has introduced a set of policies promoting the advent of bioethanol and, more recently, the conservation and sustainable use of its biodiversity for economic purposes.

The role of bioethanol

Mario Bonaccorso is a journalist and creator of the Bioeconomista blog.

Brazil boasts over 400 sugarcane factories able to process about 700 million tonnes a year. In 2011, with the institution of the PAISS programme by the Brazilian Development Bank, the country came to prominence for the production of cellulosic ethanol, with two commercial plants and a pilot plant with a production capacity of almost 140 million litres per year, second only to the United States. There are ten more commercial plants in the pipeline for the next decade that will supply production capacities close to 10 billion litres per year of second generation ethanol. Today, Brazil is already capable of replacing almost 42% of its petrol consumption with sugarcane-derived ethanol, thus making petrol the alternative fuel in the country. In 2015-2016, the Brazilian production of bioethanol reached 30.23 billion litres (8 billion gallons). Most of such production is absorbed by the domestic

market where it is sold as pure ethanol fuel or blended with petrol. All petrol sold in Brazil includes a blend of ethanol between 18 to 27.5%.

Nine out of ten new cars sold in the Latin American country are flexible in the use of fuel, because most Brazilian motorists prefer sugarcane ethanol for its price and environmental advantages. Such vehicles today represent almost 70% of the country’s whole light vehicle fleet. Since 2003, the combination of ethanol and petrol-fuelled vehicles reduced the emissions of carbon dioxide by over 350 million tonnes.

This – the experts say – is as positive for the environment as planting and maintaining 2.5 billion trees for 20 years.

As things stand at the moment sugarcane ethanol is obtained from saccharose present in the sugarcane juice and molasses, a process tapping only one third of the energy sugarcane can offer. The remaining two thirds are still trapped in the cane fibre left over (called bagasse) and in the straw. While part of such energy is converted into bioelectricity, from the remaining vegetable material cellulosic ethanol can be produced, thanks to a process involving hydrolysis and gasification technologies to break down lignocellulose in the sugar. If on the one hand cellulosic ethanol can be produced from abundant and diverse raw materials, on the other its production requires a higher level of processing compared to traditional sugarcane ethanol and thus more expensive. But the market is expanding and at the moment there are two commercial plants producing cellulosic ethanol in Brazil: one belongs to GranBio group and the other to Raizen. Their production capacities is 82 and 40 million litres respectively.

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renewablematter 20. 2018 The RenovaBio initiative

BioFuture Platform, biofutureplatform.org World Business Council for Sustainable Development, www.wbcsd.org GranBio, www.granbio. com.br/en/conteudos/ executive-leadership

In late December the signature by Brazil’s president, Michel Temer gave the bioethanol sector new impetus. The law defines the national policy of biofuels (RenovaBio), promoting the production of ethanol and biodiesel and setting annual objectives of reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The law is part of the series of commitments subscribed by Brazil within the Paris global agreement on climate, mandating a 43% reduction of greenhouse gases, considering 2005 as the base year.

The programme should spur the increase of the country’s biofuels production with a set of rules regulating the purchase of “decarbonation” bonds (CBIO) issued by producers and importers. Analysts and specialists estimate that, by stabilizing a strongly indebted sector that has shut down several production units over the last years, RenovaBio could attract new investments in the industrial sector, while encouraging a fusion and acquisition movement.

Such measure could also promote stock exchange listing of new sugarcane processing factories in a sector where companies such as Cosa, Biosev and Sao Martinho are already public.

“The programme creates a clear long-term policy for biofuels, paving the way to achieve the targets for the reduction of CO2 emissions so as to curtail global warming and contribute to the supply of fuel in Brazil,” stated to the Brazilian press Luis Roberto Pogetti, Cupersucar’s Chairman of the Board, a world leader in trading sugar and ethanol. “We support RenovaBio and we are committed to its regulation since environmental and supplying issues demand urgent political decisions,” added Pogetti.

The target of the new law is doubling the consumption of ethanol in Brazil. And yet, binding targets have not been defined in order to estimate the overall impact of the programme.

The BioFuture platform The strategic importance of bioethanol is testified by the BioFuture Platform initiative.

In 2016, during Marrakech COP22, Brazil launched together with other countries including Italy, Finland, United States, China and Argentina such platform with the aim of speeding up the development and trading of low-carbon fuels, the techniques for their production and upgrading of the byproducts.

The project strives to contribute in its own way to the commitment subscribed not just with the Paris Agreement but also with Rio +20 and the elaboration of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. One of the platform’s pillars is represented by advanced biofuels, or more precisely those obtained from wood biomass.

Last October, Sao Paulo hosted the first conference of the platform which produced a Vision Statement aimed at introducing the

low-carbon sustainable bioeconomy into the global agenda as an urgent solution to fight climate change while sending a strong signal to markets and investors on the expected role for the next decades. “The Biofuture platform is a fundamental part of a necessary effort to reinstate bioenergy into the global agenda,” claimed Rasmus Valanko from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). “It is a mechanism whereby the private sector and academia are able to cooperate in a very dynamic way.”

Large-scale industry With bioethanol as the spearhead of Brazil’s bioeconomy, surely this cannot be the main business of the large-scale Brazilian active industry: Raízen, Braskem and GranBio are the main protagonists of this sector and play a leadership role at global level.

The result of a joint venture between Cosan and Shell, Raízen is one of Brazil’s five largest companies in terms of earnings and the third fuel distributor. It is also Brazil’s sugarcane and ethanol producer and the world’s largest sugarcane exporter. Raízen Combustíveis, the branch distributing fuel, manages a national distribution network of over 6,000 Shell filling stations, 960 shops and 67 distribution terminals, as well as the fuel distribution service for the aviation industry in 64 airports. Raízen Energia produces annually over 4.1 million tonnes of sugar and 2.1 billion litres of ethanol both for the domestic and the international markets.

Its plants have a generation capacity of 940 MW of energy from sugarcane bagasse.

Braskem, the largest petrochemical colossus in the Americas, is also working in the field of ethanol and it’s the world’s largest biopolymers producer. Braskem – besides producing resins in polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP) and polyvynicloride (PVC) as well as basic petrochemicals such as ethylene, propylene, butadiene, chloride, benzene, toluene etc. – also uses sugarcane to obtain biofuels and a bioplastic known as “I’m Green.”

It is a polyethylene from renewable sources produced since 2010 and it has allowed the company to become world leader in the sector of bioplastics.

The innovation produced by Braskem relies on the business carried out in two modern centres of technology: the first is located in Triunfo, Brazil, regarded as the largest and most modern centre in Latin America; the second in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in the United States. Moreover, since 2010, the Brazilian company has had its own facility for research in biotechnologies and renewable products in Campinas. The eight pilot centres study the polymerization processes and the production of renewable monomers. In 2008, the company signed a cooperation agreement with Campinas State University (UNICAMP)

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Campinas laboratory

Campinas laboratory

and the Foundation for the support to research of Sao Paulo State (FAPESP) for the development of research for the production of biopolymers or polymers from renewable sources. In 2009, it subscribed a technological cooperation agreement with Novozymes, a Danish biotechnology company. The latter is the world’s leader in the production of industrial enzymes to develop a new competitive strategy for green polypropylene, which Braskem had already obtained on a laboratory scale in 2008.

In 2012, it started a partnership with WR Grace & Co., world leader for catalysts, to develop new process technologies and catalyst solutions to obtain chemical products from renewable sources.

Alongside the petrochemical giants is a purely biotech company, GranBio, developing solutions to turn biomass into renewable products such as biofuels, biochemical, nanomaterials and nutrients. Incorporated in June 2011

by Bernardo Gradin, GranBio manages in Brazil the first commercial plant in the Southern hemisphere for second-generation ethanol (2G). The factory, called Bioflex 1, has been operational since 2014, in Alagoas.

The production of biofuels from sugarcane straw and bagasse, the raw material that up until then had been discarded or burnt in the field, places the company amongst the most sustainable on the planet in its sector. Selected in 2013 as one of South America’s most innovative companies

by American magazine Fast Company, GranBio boasts a research centre in synthetic biology and an experimental station for the development of new biomass sources. Since 2013, it also has a holding in the American company of clean technologies, American Process Inc., API. In the sector of biochemical substances, it is a partner of Rhodia – a company of the Solvay group – in a pioneering project at world level for the production of biobased N-butanol, used in the production of paints and solvents. GranBio is a subsidiary of GranInvestimentos S.A., a holding by the Gradin family, and has BNDES PAR as a partner, the investment branch of the Brazilian Development Bank, as a minority shareholder, with 15% of total capital.

The role of the Brazilian Development Bank The large development characterizing the biofuel industry in Brazil owes a lot to the support offered by the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES). In 2014, BNDES and the Fund for Financing Innovation and Research (FINEP) announced a new programme to encourage agricultural innovation for the Brazilian sugarcane industry. The aim is to stimulate innovation and research able to increase productivity while reducing production costs, such as the development of new technologies for agricultural machinery and

genetic improvements of plants. The new plan complements PAISS launched by BNDES and FINEP in 2011. Between 2004 and 2013, the Brazilian Bank invested a staggering US$23 billion to support the national biofuel industry.

According to economist Elizabeth Farina, Chairperson of the Brazilian association of the sugarcane industry (UNICA), 60% of production costs of ethanol and sugar goes in agricultural production. “Agricultural costs are already high and are on the rise, unlike industrial processing costs of sugarcane, which were reduced thanks to research and investment,” explained Farina.

UNICA’s data show that over the sugarcane boom years, between 2002 and 2010, the agricultural production cost amounted to $15 per tonne while today it has almost doubled to nearly $30 per tonne.

A strategy for the bioeconomy Over the last years, besides PAISS, Brazil has put in place a number of projects to support the development of the advanced biofuels industry, green chemistry and biotechnology.

Within the national Strategy on Science, Technology and Innovation 2016-2022 ample room is devoted to support all those economic activities based on the use of renewable biological resources instead of fossil fuel raw materials for the production of food, feeds, materials, chemicals, fuels and energy, health and wellbeing of society. So, Brazil decidedly aims at a sustainable use of resources.

The specific goal of the South American country, which is struggling to come out of a strong recession and where even for 2018 the unemployment rate should be higher than 10% according to the analysts’ estimates is to promote the development of the circular bioeconomy starting from scientific research, putting in place a set of integrated actions involving the agrifood and water sectors as well as the industry. The Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communication has pointed out measures including the setting up of a national observatory on the Bioeconomy inspired by the European model.

“Many areas of the bioeconomy are regulated and have dedicated policies,” tells us Bernardo Silva, ABBI’s Chairman (Brazilian association of industrial biotechnologies).

“But a consistent framework, a long term vision and objectives that may be considered a strategy are still lacking” he adds. “Without a clear understanding of where we are, where we want to go and what we need to achieve it, i.e. without a governance implementing, monitoring and assessing a strategy, the bioeconomy will hardly carry on.”

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renewablematter 20. 2018 Interview

by M. B.

Sustainability Is in our Genes Henri Colens, European Public Affairs Manager for Braskem Europe

“Braskem has embedded sustainability into our company purpose, which is to improve people’s lives by creating and developing sustainable chemicals and plastics.” Henri Colens, European Public Affairs Manager for Braskem Europe and ViceChairman of European Bioplastics, talks to Renewable Matter. In this long interview he explains what is the bioeconomy from the perspective of the largest petrochemical producers in the Americas, and what are the strengths and weaknesses of the Brazilian bioeconomy.

Braskem Europe, www.braskem.com.br/ europe European Bioplastics, www.europeanbioplastics.org

Braskem is the largest petrochemical producer in the Americas and the world’s leading biopolymer producer. What is the bioeconomy for your company?

“The bioeconomy is a concept, but it’s also a practical reality. For Braskem, the idea of harnessing the power of agriculture and replacing conventional fossil-based feedstock with biomass is a key part of our innovation strategy.

“We’ve been able to become a key player in renewable building blocks and plastics because of our Brazilian heritage, but we’re starting to look beyond our home base. For example, last year we announced the launch of a demonstration plant to develop a pioneering route to produce Monoethylene Glycol (MEG) from sugar. We’re partnering with Haldor Topsoe in Denmark, where the plant will be located.

“The company’s vision of the bioeconomy is based around innovation. We need to seize on opportunities where biobased is better, in functionality and environmental performance.

And we’re very excited by the development of new ideas and technologies which stem from our biolabs in Campinas. We’ve invested millions into these facilities, which are looking to turn the bioeconomy from concept to reality.”

What are the main projects of your company in the bioeconomy?

“I just mentioned the bio-MEG, a key component of PET resin, the main man-made raw material used by the textile and packaging industries that is also widely used to make bottles. Our partnership is developing new technology which will allow us to push renewable chemistry to a whole new level.

After I’m GreenTM (bio-PE), this is another major step forward in our vision of using renewable polymers as a carbon capture tool.

“As part of our focus on renewable chemicals, Braskem signed a technological cooperation agreement with the U.S. renewable products company Amyris and French tyre maker Michelin to develop technology for the production of biobased

isoprene, a chemical feedstock used by the tyre industry, and other rubbers. The technology is developed from plant sugars, such as those found in sugarcane and cellulosic feedstocks.

We’re also continuing to make progress on the joint development of a new technology for the production of biobased butadiene in partnership with Genomatica.

“Of course this has to be underpinned by commercial developments and we’re proud of our growing client list and the number and quality of the applications using our material. Did you know the new 2018 Football World Cup ball contains renewable material supplied by Braskem?

Biobased EPDM rubber Keltan Eco from ARLANXEO, one of the world’s leading suppliers of synthetic rubber, is the basis for a sponge rubber layer directly underneath the ‘Telstar 18’ ball’s outer cover. It serves as a mouldable cushion for the ball and supports optimal bounce characteristics during games. Braskem supplies the biobased ethylene used to make it.

“And following on from our partnership with Made in Space to develop biobased 3D printing on the International Space Station, we have now developed a machine which will allow astronauts to recycle plastic too. It’s symbolic of Braskem’s commitment to closing both the technical and carbon loops, and creating the conditions for a truly circular economy.”

How can you summarize the pillars of Braskem’s sustainability strategy?

“Sustainable development was defined by the Brundtland Commission (formally known as the World Commission on Environment and Development, 1983, Editor’s note) as meeting present needs without compromising those of future generations. This is a question which many companies like ours grapple with, and one which a growing proportion of the population is aware of.

“Braskem has embedded sustainability into our company purpose, which is to improve people’s lives by creating and developing sustainable chemicals and plastics. The company is setting itself goals to continually improve our use of sustainable resources and production methods, but also to create better products. We’re linking this to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and we’re making the fight against climate change a key pillar of how we move forward.

“It is difficult for a company to make big leaps into renewables, especially with the continuing low oil price. But, we offer an un-matched portfolio of renewable and recyclable PE resins to our

Policy customers. We are the leading biopolymer producer, and we’re keen to keep that position. As members of associations such as Associação Brasileira de Biotecnologia Industrial (ABBI), PlasticsEurope and European Bioplastics, we hope to increase the recognition and acceptance of biobased plastics around the world.

“In Brazil, Braskem also launched Wecycle, a platform for recycled resins, where we support our customers to understand their waste material needs.

With this tool we are able to match them to the best recycling chain, guaranteeing an upcycled product with traceability and quality.”

As far as you’re concerned what are the strengths and weaknesses of Brazilian bioeconomy?

“Brazil’s bioeconomy has a lot going for it.

The country’s size, geography and tropical climate means it has an almost unparalleled bioeconomic potential. Pabulo Henrique Rampelotto (a molecular biologist currently developing his research at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Editor’s note) summed it up nicely in his 2016 article for Industrial Biotechnology, by saying: ‘Such extraordinary natural wealth and variety of resources represent a unique, albeit unexplored, asset in terms of the potential to develop sustainable, biodiverse, and environmentally friendly food, energy, and drug products.’ Brazil has already made great strides in greening its energy production – around 45% of the country’s energy comes from renewables. With over 400 biorefineries and an expanding capacity and portfolio of renewable intermediates, Brazil is already a leading player in agribusiness. Over the last 50 years, Brazil has amassed knowledge and wealth in this area and has become a leading player in research, development, innovation management and science and technology.

“Despite this, there are challenges which need to be overcome. Brazil, as far as I’m concerned, has more to do before it can truly tap into the high-value potential of second and third generation feedstocks.

Several companies are looking to develop 2G and 3G bioethanol (2G bioethanol only utilizes dedicated crops without resorting to food crops; 3G ethanol employs production waste and by-products, Editor’s note), but it’s worth saying that the vast majority of sugarcane mills operate with little or no waste, using bagasse to produce energy, and sending vinasse for nutrient and water recycling.”

What are the main differences between Brazil and European Union regarding public policy to support the bioeconomy?

“The EU is an entity comprised of 28 (soon to be 27) Member States and, at the turn of the century, its main actions towards the bioeconomy were to set standards and allocate funding. The core intention was to create a level playing field and stimulate innovation. Latterly, the development of Horizon 2020 has had a positive impact, but many still believe that Europe is lagging behind the USA and China when it comes to stimulating the bioeconomy.

Many European Member States have been slow

to allocate investment, and some do not have bioeconomy strategies in place.

“Neither does Brazil (have a dedicated bioeconomy strategy), yet Brazilians have long recognized the potential of their agricultural sector and in the 1970s set about stimulating it with progressive subsidies and support mechanisms. The requirement to produce ethanol (as well as sugar) eventually led to one of the world’s most advanced green transport programmes: flex-fuel cars. Successive governments have taken further measures to support the sugarcane industry. For example, in 2015, petrol subsidies were terminated, largely in a bid to ease pressure on ethanol producers.

“I think there are many similarities too, and they could learn much from each other. Both Brazil and Europe can be accused of not having fully exploited the opportunities at their disposal, due to a lack of vision or because of a tendency to over-complicate.

There are different reasons, far too numerous to go into, but I get the sense that bureaucracy is often getting in the way.

“Moving forward IP (Intellectual Property), collaboration and knowledge-transfer are areas where progress has to be made. Furthermore, a more open (less protectionist) approach could be beneficial in the medium-to-long term. We await the outcome of EU-Mercosur trade talks to see if there will be progress there.”

What is the perception of the bioeconomy by the Brazilian public opinion? Are there plans for education and training?

“Brazilian colleagues assure me that public perception of the bioeconomy is very positive, a source of pride even. The reason is that it has a very real impact on people’s everyday lives.

Although, in the recent past, surveys have also shown that the majority of the Brazilian public feels that the country is not seizing on the opportunities of its bioeconomy.

“It is tough to assess whether Brazilian consumers are becoming more environmentally-minded – the recession has made people rather pessimistic about the country’s economy, and price still dominates spending habits. But even in this tough climate brands are offering more sustainable alternatives, with the majority of consumers reacting positively to products labelled as environmentally friendly. An example is Natura, which is one of a growing number of brands to offer responsiblysourced products which lower CO2 emissions and minimize waste.”

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renewablematter 20. 2018

Barcelona,

Fab City

by Rudi Bressa, from Barcelona

Rudi Bressa is a freelance journalist and naturalist who writes about the environment, science, renewable energy and the circular economy for various Italian newspapers.

Space10, space10.io

In the Catalan city’s Poblenou neighbourhood, one of the first trials of a Fab City occurred: a new urban model conceived for self-sufficient cities.

Here, food, materials and products are no longer manufactured thousands of kilometres away, but they are conceived, designed and even grown within the urban boundaries.

There is a new idea of a society that is catching on in many cities, from Paris to Boston, Amsterdam to Barcelona. Actually, it is more of a movement stemming from the very principles of the circular economy.

It’s the Fab Cities, urban ecosystems in their own right which are emerging as the image and model of fabrication laboratories, now scattered all over the world.

The Fab Labs are physical places where spaces, technologies, software, tools and various types of craftsmanship are shared to reach speedy prototyping of new products, often linked to digitalisation and sustainability. A Fab City is created for this very reason: a new urban model conceived for self-sufficient cities able to locally produce what they need while globally connected.

Food, materials and processes are interlinked in an ecological system able to dramatically reduce the need for raw materials and energy, while reusing local resources and materials. From here, Space 10 – a Danish design studio – in collaboration with Fab City Research Laboratory of IAAC (Institut d’Arquitectura Avançada de Catalunya) and IKEA – created the first Fab City prototype in Barcelona. A competition of ideas where architects, IKEA designers, biologists,

local manufactures and artisans partook in a project that went beyond the concept of recycling and upcycling.

The Poblenou Trial in Barcelona Poblenou – “new village” in Catalan – is a neighbourhood of the Spanish city that over the years has undergone profound transformations: from an industrial village, it has evolved into a district devoted to art, design and above all ICT (Information and Communication Technology).

In 2016, Space 10 took part in Made Again Challenge: a one square kilometre district turned into a Fab City, where the circular economy model could be actively tested. About ten interconnected Fab Labs opened their doors to citizens too, making available milling machines, 3D printers and laser cutting machines. Here a new production concept was tested, different to how we have ever experienced it. No more materials and products made thousands of kilometres away, sent and sold to passive consumers, but a production system able to use local resources for local needs. The very people living in the neighbourhood have been involved in the project. They collected rubbish, plastic,

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CITY LINEAR TRASH MACHINE

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Hort Indignant Community Garden Sopa Restaurant and Bio Market

Medio Design Leika Open Source Restaurant limit of production In this hyperlocal scale, production is based on local needs. Production works on demand, not on stock. The neighbourhood produces what the neighbourhood needs.

Punt Verd Neighbourhood Recycling Spot Connecthort Community Garden

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Fab City Research Laboratory, iaac.net/ research-departments/ fab-city-researchlaboratory

The Fab City Movement Launched in Lima in 2011 during the FAB7 international conference by Institut d’Arquitectura Avançada de Catalunya, MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, Fab Foundation and by the Municipality of Barcelona, the Fab City Movement has quickly grown the world over. Barcelona committed itself to becoming a self-sufficient city (at least up to 50%) by 2054. In other words, it will produce all it consumes, it will act as a source for open source projects conceived for smart cities and recycle most materials.

In 2014 the appeal was launched worldwide and in 2015 at least 12 large cities including Amsterdam, Paris and Boston joined the project followed by two nations (Bhutan and Georgia), thus allowing the movement to grow all over the world.

wood, metal and were inspired by fabrics such as Ecoalf, produced with fibres from plastic collected on Spanish coasts. Or by panels manufactured with recycled materials by Smile Plastics. Or again by Piñatex, eco-leather obtained from pineapple leaves. Totally new objects were thus born as well as original and singular pieces of furniture and furnishings were created, that went beyond a mere formal exercise or recycling.

The idea is to create a network within a city, able to communicate, produce and share, while reducing consumption, waste, materials, refuse and consequently emissions linked to industrial production and manufacturing. But the trial went beyond this: a group of biologists, of mushroom experts and designers created a “biological laboratory.” A sort of indoor biological composter, where on the one hand living organisms could be farmed in order for them to digest some organic materials which otherwise would be landfilled and on the other it would supply biobased building materials, starting from mycelium. Mushrooms’ vegetative part can indeed be used as building insulation instead of polyurethane foams.

In theory, every neighbourhood could have their own biological laboratory to grow mushrooms or algae.

True, going from one paradigm to another will not be simple, nor will it occur in the short term.

But the very idea of a circular city can kick start a collaboration and creation of new opportunities, which could rebalance the impact our society has on the planet.

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AMSTERDAM, the Circular City

Interview with Eveline Jonkhoff

by Emanuele Bompan

www.freepik.com

Biologist with specialisations on Environment & Society, toxicology and environmental legislation, Eveline Jonkhoff worked for the City of Amsterdam in the field of waste-toenergy and sustainable development as projectleader, advisor and marketing manager. Now she is responsible for the Amsterdam Circular Economy programme.

For the Dutch municipality, the construction and food sectors represent two valuable precious value chains. Improving building materials’ reuse strategies could generate €85 million per year and as much as €150 million could derive from a more efficient management of organic waste.

The city of Amsterdam has made a major step in the transition to become one of the world’s first circular cities. The goal? Minimize waste, innovate product-as-a-service business, boast new businesses, increase its well-being and profit.

Commissioned by the city, the plan started out by mapping and identifying areas in which circular business models can be applied while highlighting strategies to accomplish practical implementation of these sustainable solutions. Called City Circle Scan, the plan has been implemented by a dedicated office

in the municipality and Circle Economy, a social enterprise, organized as a cooperative, whose goal it is to accelerate the transition to circularity through practical and scalable solutions.

The City of Amsterdam aims at redesigning twenty product or material chains.

The implementation of material reuse strategies has the potential to create a value of €85 million per year within the construction sector and €150 million per year with more efficient organic residual streams. The material savings could add up to nearly 900,000 tons per year, a significant

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renewablematter 20. 2018 amount compared to the current annual import of 3.9 million tons currently utilized by the region. In terms of jobs? Increased productivity levels have the ability to add up to 700 additional jobs in the building sector and 1,200 additional jobs in the agriculture and food processing industry. Not bad for a city of 800,000 inhabitants.

We discussed the implementation plan with Eveline Jonkhoff, Chair of the Circular Economy Taskforce for Eurocities and strategic advisor on circular economy at the City of Amsterdam, during a long day of workshop in Helsinki.

Circle City Scan, amsterdamsmartcity. com/projects/circle-scanamsterdam Circle Economy, www.circle-economy.com Eurocities, www.eurocities.eu/ eurocities/home

Why did the city of Amsterdam come up with the strategy of enforcing circular economy at local level?

“For a long time we have been working very hard on sustainability in Amsterdam, so we have quite a long tradition. Developing a circular economy policy was a natural thing to do and we had an opportunity because there was a political momentum: we had a new local government and a new major was elected.

Circular economy was part of his political agenda: that helped kick start the whole process.”

What are the pillars of the City Circle Scan and what is the municipality doing to implement it?

“We started an in-depth research around Amsterdam. We discovered that there are two sectors which are very valuable: the value chain in the buildings sector (materials and construction) and the food sector. So we think those are the two pillars of our circular economy we have to focus on.

After that we have initiated collaborations with private actors to do pilots and experiments, while assessing the added value of these two chain values.”

Which financial instruments are you using with private partners, funds, grants, awards?

“We have funding, of course, and we have

awards, but our philosophy is ‘learning by doing,’ so what we do as a local government is to stimulate market to start with a lot of pilot experiments, while working with universities to research around this projects. I think we have about 60 projects running now. I am very proud of how the city businesses and cultural institution are responding.”

In terms of education, how relevant is to inform and educate citizens?

“Awareness is everything, because the circular economy is not something exclusive for industry executive and city planners. It happens everywhere, in your own house, at school, at the park.

It’s very important to teach children about what they can do with garbage, with waste, how they can use and reuse clothing, or plastic. Also for older citizens and small business education programmes are fundamentals in the circular economy.”

From a regulatory perspective do private companies or other associations request modifications to the municipal regulation in order to use renewable matter or adopt new forms of circular economy business strategies, like start-up repair-shop, life-time extended guarantee, etc?

“I think in the end regulations are very important for innovation, but you have to think it over very carefully. Because if you are too quick with regulations it can be a benefit for someone while damaging someone else. One example we have heard during the workshop is Kenya. A massive second-hand clothing market, mostly from UK donation, solicited by regulations by the Kenyan government, has produced the negative effect of destroying Kenyan fashion industry. So it’s clearly good that Great Britain get rid of the second-hand clothing but for the garment economy in Kenya, it is awful. We have to be very

Policy

careful with regulations, in terms of stimulating and accelerating, that’s very important.”

We have a very interesting 3D printing economy in Amsterdam.

With these machines we can make new products locally with recycled materials.

Are there specific regulations or piece of legislations that the municipality has produced?

“We don’t have specific legislations on circular buildings, we employ energy efficiency criteria standard. We are currently developing together with the private sector a new standard for circular buildings. You can call it a regulation, but that’s also a stimuli. We believe that rather than punishing who is not doing it we have to support who is going circular.”

Is there an example of a very innovative partnership you are doing in the city?

“We work together with a lot of start-ups and companies, for example in the Port of Amsterdam, the Harbour area, an innovative hub for the energy transition, circular and biobased economy that will create jobs, new products and economic progress. It currently leases space to Orgaworld, a biodiesel fuel producer, and to two other bioplastics companies: Plantics and Avantium. In the future, the port might even be interested in developing a project of its own, such as a biomass power plant.

The goal here is to collect various organic materials and give it back to the chemical industries (The Harbour also hosts Prodock, a scale-up incubator initiated by and located in the Port of Amsterdam, which provides a dynamic production, office and event space where growing businesses and established corporates can co-create solutions for tomorrow’s harbours, Editor’s Note.) Another example is the use of recycled concrete in the building sector: now we have as a standard 100% reuse of the concrete materials from public spaces. Last but not least we have a very interesting 3D printing economy in Amsterdam.

With these machines we can make new products locally with recycled materials.”

What is the circular economy take on food?

“We have a flourishing foodscape in Amsterdam, lots of restaurants, hotels, hospitals, companies, supermarkets, and they all together produce

a lot of leftovers. What we do is reduce waste and use scraps and waste as new food for new meals. We even have restaurants that prepare meals from next-door supermarkets’ left-overs.

That’s just an example of how we want to intervene in this food chain.”

Has the municipality set any goals for the circular economy?

“As I told you, we are working on 60 projects and we will produce an evaluation at the end of this year and make new policies for the next year, when we have a new local government.

We hope to learn a lot from these pilot projects. Then we may have to invest more in knowledge or in resources, maybe we have to set up more pilots projects to have more proofs of what can happen, maybe we have to change policies totally or set a new set of regulations, everything is possible. We learn by doing.”

Sharing is part of the circular economy: what type of sharing businesses do exist in the city of Amsterdam?

“Car sharing is very popular. Also gears and tool sharing services to repair car or houses.”

What is the future for circular cities?

“I think for Amsterdam and maybe for other cities, innovation is expected from urban development: entire new neighbourhoods will be adopting a circular economy philosophy.

Sanitation, building materials, waste management, mobility, energy transition, all in a holistic concept in completely new or regenerated areas. It’s not just a single house, company or project, we have to think of projects where 50.000 households are involved, whole neighbourhoods. And we have to build this area circular.”

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renewablematter 20. 2018

In Depth

Pollution as Blue as

OUR JEANS

by Laura Filios photos by Diana Bagnoli, from Tehuacán

Water so polluted that it is no longer possible to grow fruit and vegetables, workers getting sick because of close contact with chemical substances. This happens in Tehuacán, Mexico, where the manufacturing of blue jeans continues to test the environment and people’s wellbeing.

“Detox my fashion,” www.greenpeace.org/ archive-international/en/ campaigns/detox/fashion

In Tehuacán there are over one hundred industrial laundries, some legal and others illegal. For over thirty years the city, in the region of Puebla, has been a cornerstone of the textile industry. Mexico in general, is second only to China in the sector. Once famous for the purity of its water, today Tehuacán is better known for the colour of its water. Blue. Or rather “blue jeans.” They call it “aguas azules.” Streams and irrigation canals, at certain times of day, are tainted blue. This is when the industrial washing machines finish their cycles and drain the residues of the sandblasting process into the drainage. Nowadays that’s how jeans are fashionable: worn down or “distressed.”

“Clean Clothes Campaign,” cleanclothes.org

Image above: A Jeans shop in Tehuacán

Due to the contaminated water, peasants of entire towns have been ordered to stop growing vegetables and cultivating orchards. The only crop that can be grown is corn. The repercussions on transgressors are hefty fines, especially if, often out of a need for revenue, they then go on to sell their produce in city markets. Some even claim to have been threatened with incarceration.

Notwithstanding the fact that Greenpeace has launched multiple campaigns: in 2011 one called “Detox my Fashion,” in an attempt to teach the world of fashion about environmental issues; as well as in 2012 publishing the report Hilos Toxicos, focusing on the contamination of rivers on behalf of the Mexican textile industry, in Tehuacán nothing has changed.

In Depth

The industrial laundries connected to the large brands, first among them Levi’s, continue to flush waste water into canals and are yet to install water purifiers.

On top of the environmental repercussions, workers are also suffering the consequences.

Before being washed, the trousers are treated with chemical agents. Lucia Ortega Rodriguéz, who has worked for 35 years in a company that even boasts a “social responsibility” certificate, is sick. In 2015 she was diagnosed with interstitial pneumonia, a chronic lung disease. For this reason, the company should provide her with a respiratory mask. “However – she reveals – the safety norms are only applied in those two or three days a year

in which there are checks, for the rest of the time we work without a mask and without gloves.”

The past 9th January, 70,000 people asked Armani and Primark, amongst others, to improve transparency in relation to their productive processes. Their appeal was given a voice through the “Clean Clothes Campaign,” the largest alliance of unions and NGO’s that aims for the improvement of working conditions in the clothing sector.

Included in the various campaigns launched by the association, there is one that targets the sandblasting of jeans. However, it appears to have remained unchanged since 2013, whilst the deterioration in wellbeing of the people affected continues, just as is occurring in Tehuacán.

Image above: The water drainage at one of the laundries in San Lorenzo Teotipilco in the state of Puebla, Mexico

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renewablematter 20. 2018 Laura Filios, journalist and video-reporter.

Originally from Emilia Romagna, she emigrated to Milan and then Naples.

A graduate in philosophy and Arabic-Islamic studies, she also lived in the Middle-East for a few years. Her interests revolve around human rights, the Arab world, immigration and the tertiary sector.

Diana Bagnoli, freelance photographer, born in Turin and a student in Barcelona. She focuses on portraits and reports for international magazines. In 2017 winner of the Grand-prize Rangefinder’s Contest, Feature Shoot Emerging Photography Award and a PDN award.

Above: A pile of jeans at one of the companies in TehuacĂĄn Top image: A close up of the soil beside the Lavasport industrial laundry, one of the large companies that package jeans for third parties and supply some of the big brands

On the right: A washing machine for jeans in one of the major laundries of San Lorenzo Teotipilco, in the state of Puebla, Mexico

In Depth Below, first image: The daughter of farmers in San Diego Chalma tries to catch a turkey in her courtyard after school. Animals have become their only form of sustenance as crops are considered toxic

Below, second image: A waste water canal in San Diego Chalma, state of Puebla.

At a certain time of day the river becomes a white froth and then turns blue. This is when the washing machines end their cycles and discharge the residues, without filters, into the waters of the river Valsequillo

On the right: A farmer poses for a picture amongst his crops of corn. These are crossed and irrigated by a river tainted blue.

San Diego Chalma, state of Puebla

On the left: One of the clandestine jeans companies in Tehuacรกn

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renewablematter 20. 2018 On the left: Martin Barrios, environmental activist, observes the chemical blue water drainage of the Lavasport industrial laundry, one of the large companies that pollute the waters of Tehuacรกn and the surrounding area

On the right: A blue river in San Diego Chalma, the most affected town that has a population of 3,000 inhabitants

Above: Martin Barrios, reflected in the blue waters that flow from the Lavasport laundry Page on the right, top image: Lucia has worked for a large jeans company in Tehuacรกn for 35 years.

For the last two years she has suffered from respiratory problems and has been diagnosed with a chronic lung disease

On the left: Hands dyed blue by a washing machine after her shift

In Depth

Above: In San Lorenzo Teotipilco, a town bordering Tehuacรกn, there is the largest concentration of industrial laundries

On the right: A close up of the soil beside the Lavasport industrial laundry

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renewablematter 20. 2018

In Depth

infographic by Michela Lazzaroni, texts by Antonella Ilaria Totaro

Life Expectancy (of Stuff) This graph shows the life expectancy of objects according to British consumers (Cox, et al., 2013).

People in the United Kingdom buy boilers, together with fridges and televisions, thinking of a long-term use varying from 7 to more than 10 years, whilst expectations for electric toothbrushes, clothes and cellphones don’t go beyond two years of life. Whilst the first are substituted only if broken, the second group of objects, together with computers and music players that have a life expectancy of 3 to 4 years, are often substituted before they break to give way to modern technologies. Between these two extremes are electric tools, vacuum cleaners and washing machines, that are expected to last for 5 to 6 years.

0-2 YEARS

Electric tooth-brush Clothing Mobile phone Shoes

3-4 YEARS

MP3 Player Kettle Suit Cushions Toaster Computer

5-6 YEARS

Camera Lamp Vacuum-cleaner Washing-machine Microwave Curtains Landline-phone Power tools

7-10 YEARS

TV Cooker Fridge/freezer Carpet Sofa Bed

10+ YEARS

Boiler Kitchen units Wardrobe

Data Source: The Long View, UN Environment, 2017.

World

A Textbook Case

From paper to biomaterials. The exemplary case of a Swedish/Finnish company that has relied on innovation and sustainability to expand and grow.

by Sergio Ferraris

Analysing internal industrial processes and finding the keys to make them sustainable. This is one of the most interesting and hardest challenges of the circular economy because if sustainability does not protect the value chain of businesses it has little opportunity to develop. Let alone when sustainability aspires to increase the value chain, thus increasing new markets.

It seems a dream book but actually it is a challenge embraced by one of the oldest and largest wood businesses, Stora Enso, a Finnish/ Swedish group, with a 2016 turnover of €9.8 billion, with 25,000 employees in 35 countries that decided to turn into a company using second generation renewable raw materials, i.e. not competing with agriculture for human consumption.

“Our business has been and will stay in forests – states Andreas Birmoser, Stora Enso’s vice chairman for business and strategies of

biomaterials sector –. We are convinced that it is already possible to do with trees what we are doing with oil.” Since 2012 the company has created a division of innovative biomaterials and since then it has embarked on a new journey to “shed its skin.” “More than two thirds of our business was linked to paper up until 11 years ago – continues Birmoser, showing us around the biomaterials research laboratory in Stockholm, the new industrial strategy –.

Today, a little less than a third. And innovative biomaterials now represent 14% of our business.”

The company’s approach to biomaterials revolves around one of the key issues of its production: using waste more efficiently.

The extraction process of pulp, uses less than 50% of trees, with 35-45% of cellulose, 100% coming from certified and tracked supply chains, while the remaining 50% is represented by 20-30% lignin and 25-35% hemicellulose,

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renewablematter 20. 2018

We are convinced that it is already possible to do with trees what we are doing with oil.

Stora Enso, www.storaenso.com

which are normally incinerated for energy purposes. And here technological innovation comes into play. Stora Enso uses it to improve the extraction of lignin, hemicellulose and sugars so as to use them as a base for new materials. An almost textbook example of upcycling, where waste becomes resource, or more specifically a new supply chain, thus creating value both for the company and the environment. For the business the value is represented by biomaterials (formerly waste) as raw materials, which saves money thanks to the non purchase of raw materials from the outside and the development of new markets; while on the environmental front, new supply chains of innovative materials characterized

by neutral climate change emissions are developed.

The idea behind is focusing on a biorefinery with the same functionality as the oil ones, near to the resource “extraction� location: biomasses. This is not a new concept, since over the last decades in the fossil sector this is precisely what has been happening. Refineries dealing with fossil-based chemistry have moved near the deposits because oil-producing countries realized that it is a lot cheaper to sell intermediates than crude oil. But there is room for improvement. Today with the development and technological innovation of supply

World chain processes it is possible to use existing infrastructure and change it for the new productions based also on biomaterials.

“We are sensitive to technology – continues Birmoser –. And we are convinced that the introduction of new supply chains into existing structures is also an element to lower the investment risks.”

In Finland, Sunila is a good case in point where Stora Enso has produced 50,000 tonnes of lignin a year since 2015, through the kraft process, normally used for the conversion of wood in pulp. With such supply chain innovation, Stora Enso has become the world’s largest lignin producer and recently launched a new product called Lineo. Besides being very versatile from an industrial point of view, new applications beyond the original one are being studied, i.e. the replacement of fossil-based phenol.

In order to achieve such result, Stora Enso set up a series of pilot projects begun with the acquisition of a US startup in 2014 and with a set of tests in its own plants, but basically it has been the development of internal research. Indeed, of late the company completed a research centre in Stockholm devoted to biomaterials: 4,900 m2 of which 1,600 are laboratories where over 70 researchers work, worldwide almost 50% of Stora Enso’s staff works in research and development. For instance, one of the product lines being currently studied is the possible manufacturing methodologies for carbon fibre starting from the combination of lignin and cellulose, thus debunking the still quite popular myth according to which biomaterials, since they are organic, are not able to generate highquality products.

Lignin can thus be a pervasive matter within several supply chains since it is a renewable substitute for oil-based phenolic materials used in resins for plywood, for oriented strand boards (OSB), laminated veneered lumber (LVL), paper lamination and insulating material.

Lignin, compared to phenol, besides having a much lower environmental impact, is easier to keep, since it is dried. But it also has another characteristic, highlighted

by Markus Mannström, Stora Enso’s executive vice-president of the division for biomaterials, during the announcement of the new product: price stability. Indeed, biomaterials are not affected by geopolitical crises that have been crippling the world of fossil energy for over half a century and their quotation stability over time makes for a more efficient and accurate planning. Performance being equal, such characteristics make it cheaper than phenol.

An almost textbook example of upcycling, where waste becomes resource.

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renewablematter 20. 2018

The Lazarus’ Effect:

The Second Life of Patagonia Clothes Interview with Mihela Hladin Wolfe

by Emanuele Bompan, from Denver

Mihela Hladin Wolf has managed Patagonia’s sustainable initiatives and projects since 2015.

She also manages the company’s environmental grants in Europe and deals with environmental footprint reduction.

Previously, Mihela founded Greennovate, a non profit consultancy company focused on environmental education initiatives in Chinese schools and universities.

Learning how to mend our own clothes, exchanging them with something different, recycling them when they can no longer be used: this is the philosophy behind the Worn Wear Project by the Californian brand Patagonia, a concrete example of circularity.

It also teaches us to become responsible for what we buy.

Product Life-Extension is an oft-talked pillar of the circular economy, many talk the talk, but less walk the walk. Patagonia, the famous outdoor fashion brand from Ventura, California, has a different take on it.

Since they have invested heavily in repairing and upgrading products through their Worn Wear Project: from producing repair & care

World

guides to trade-in for repair. Buy it. Wear it.

Return it for credit. Then buy a different used garment. That is Patagonia’s Worn Wear philosophy. This project uses Patagonia’s $20 Million & Change investment fund, to support new business models that revolve around extending the life of stuff we already own. For example, Patagonia partners at Yerdle make it easy to give away things you don’t need, and get something useful in return. Or they sell used Patagonia clothing at the Portland retail store through an innovative trade-in program. They have even arranged a 50-stops, five-countries European tour to encourage people to make clothes last a lifetime – regardless of brand. At each stop, the Patagonia team offers free repairs on broken zips, rips, tears, buttons, pulls and more, while also teaching people how to fix their own ski gear.

But nothing lasts forever, so Patagonia continues also to offer easy ways to recycle Patagonia products – 100% of what they make – when jackets, trousers or fleeces finally reach the end of their useful lives and can no longer be repaired.

To better understand how Worn Wear initiative works, we have discussed with Mihela Hladin Wolfe, Environment and Social Initiatives Manager of Patagonia.

Worn Wear Project, wornwear.patagonia.com

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renewablematter 20. 2018 What has been the reason that pushed Patagonia to launch the Worn Wear initiative and tour?

“Collectively the actions that make up Worn Wear – investing in quality products, repairing them and reusing them – create an environmental program that helps to reduce the footprint of Patagonia products and encourage consumers to change their relationship with stuff. This is important because there is nothing we can change about how we make clothing that would have more positive environmental impact than simply making less. Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) research shows that every nine extra months a piece of clothing is used there is a 20% to 30% saving in carbon, water and waste. Simply put, Worn Wear helps people to get more use out of Patagonia products by making them last longer through repair or by passing them on to a new owner.”

You state that Repair is a radical action.

How does this make Patagonia different from other outdoor brands?

“We live in a culture where we can easily replace most of the things that we buy.

We do routinely fix big-ticket items, such as cars and washing machines, but often it’s easier and cheaper to go and buy something new. There are other reasons to avoid repair, including labels warning that repairing a product on your own will invalidate the warranty, or the lack of access to the information and parts necessary to repair something ourselves.

“At Patagonia, we are empowering people to take responsibility for their purchases – from proper cleaning to repairing, reusing and sharing.”

How do you make repairing old damaged clothes profitable?

“We run Worn Wear tours across the globe where we fix stuff – not only Patagonia products, but also those from other brands.

We do so in order to encourage people to keep their gear longer and to repair it when needed – rather than throwing it away.”

“In the US, we have gone a step further and we are running an online shop selling

Every nine extra months a piece of clothing is used there is a 20% to 30% saving in carbon, water and waste.

World

worn Patagonia gear. We accept Patagonia clothing that functions perfectly and is in good conditions. Customers can bring used Patagonia gear to a store and we give them a Worn Wear Merchandise Credit valued at up to 50% of the price we will sell it for. We clean all items before they are sold – usually with CO2 technology that doesn’t use water. We accept most Patagonia garments including Men’s, Women’s, Kids’ and Baby, in both sportswear and technical styles. We also accept Patagonia luggage.”

evolved into Worn Wear, where we are continuing asking customers to not buy what they don’t need, and to repair what they have by providing them the tools, online and offline.

“Worn Wear products are Patagonia items that basically come from closets and garages.

Some pieces have been used by people already and others were collecting dust in our distribution center – they are all functionally good, but may have a cosmetic flaw.”

How do you engage with your customers to bring back used clothes?

“We’ve been engaging with our customers since the beginning on the return policies.

All our products are covered by our Ironclad Guarantee, which means if you are not satisfied with one of our products at the time you receive it, or if one of our products does not perform to your satisfaction, you can return it to the store you bought it from, or to Patagonia, for a repair, replacement or refund. We also repair damages due to wear and tear at a reasonable cost. So this is not a new thing for us.

“The next step then came when we ran the Common Threads Initiative, to encourage customers to return clothes to our stores for repairing and recycling, and this initiative

Why are you training customers to repair clothes by themselves?

“We, of course, want our customers to get the most out of their gear. If you think of it, for most of us, the repairing is a skill that we don’t have anymore, so we need to learn it again.

We provide guidelines in different languages to help people to repair their stuff locally.

This means not everything needs to be shipped to our centers to be repaired.”

How will this program expand?

“We have just launched WornWear.com and looking into the next steps for it internationally.”

We want our customers to get the most out of their gear. If you think of it, for most of us, the repairing is a skill that we don’t have anymore, so we need to learn it again.

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renewablematter 20. 2018

The Need for a

PERSPECTIVE CHANGE

www.publicdomainpictures.net

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In Europe, the missed collection of plastic waste represents an economic loss that can amount up to €105 billion per year. Thanks to new optical sensor technologies able to recognize all polymers, companies such as Norwegian Tomra Sorting Recycling are changing the way plastic is recycled, increasing its value. Their aim is 100% recycling.

by Rudi Bressa

“All packaging plastic must be recyclable by 2030.” This is the appeal launched

by Brussels at the beginning of 2018.

A strategy aimed at drastically reducing plastic waste while creating a new market capable of guaranteeing competiveness to the industry while helping it to transition towards a circular economy.

The demand for recycled plastic must be implemented if not incentivized, making secondary raw materials competitive on the market. Economically and qualitatively.

We must increase the amount of recycled plastic, but we must also improve and strengthen recycling plants through innovation and technologies.

Last year 25 million tonnes of plastic waste were produced in Europe. Only 30% of this is collected and recycled. And the rest?

It becomes waste, it ends up in landfills or ever worse in the sea, entering the food chain of many species, including our own.

But it is not just a purely environmental issue, albeit extremely important due to the impact plastic has on ecosystems. The amount of plastic that we are still unable to capture represents also an economic loss: according to European Commission estimates, only 5% of the value of packaging material stays in the economic cycle, meaning that losses vary between €70 and €105 billion.

But to reduce this hefty bill, recycling must become profitable for companies and involve the whole supply chain, from raw material producers to designers, all the way to recyclers.

Different Waste, Same Perspective This is the sector where Tomra Sorting Recycling operates, an Asker company (Norway) that designs and produces technologies for sorting and process control for plastic recycling companies.

Present in 50 countries around the world with over 4,900 installed systems, this group manufactures optical sensor machines able to collect the different fractions of the waste flow, improving purity and consequently the sorting process performance.

Having developed the first infrared sensor in the world for the waste sector, the Norwegian company is now a benchmark in the field of plastic recycling.

This also happens at Montello SPA, near Bergamo, one of the biggest waste

World selection and sorting centres in Italy. Here they use 40 sorting Tomra Sorting Autosort machines equipped with NIR (Near-Infrared) sensors and VIS (Visibility) sensors.

The former operate in the near-infrared spectrum and are able to recognize materials according to light reflection, the latter, on the other hand, recognize all the colours of the visible spectrum; thus plastic is divided according to the polymer it contains and its colour at a speed of 3 m/s. This selection cycle produces secondary raw material, divided in PET flakes, HDPE granules and LDPEE granules made of mixed polyolefin deriving from film-like bags and packaging. In numbers, this means 150,000 tonnes of post-consumer plastic packaging recovered and recycled each year.

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The recycling sector is driven by technological evolution. The island of Majorca is a case in point. During the year, it must manage extremely variable waste flows. In summer, the quantity and the quality of waste change dramatically. Tirme, the island’s environmental technological park, dealing with solid urban waste treatment, has thus decided to invest in four new Autosort machines, capable of selecting PET bottles, milk and juice packaging and plastic bags. More versatile machines compared to the previous ones, that can be configured according to the needs and different characteristics of materials entering the plant. A choice that has led to a more efficient selection and has increased considerably the quantity of waste collected and sent for recycling.

2 3

4

1 Feeding of non selected material 2 NIR 3 Laser 4 Electromagnetic sensor (on demand) 5 Sorting camera

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renewablematter 20. 2018 Interview

by R. B.

“The Secret? Investing in Research & Development” Fabrizio Radice, Tomra Sorting Recycling Global Sales & Marketing Director

Over the years, waste quality and quantity have advanced by leaps and bounds.

Your innovations have made a decisive contribution. How did this process happen?

“Over the last 50 years, Tomra has developed new sensors and technologies that have changed the way waste is managed. The ‘resource revolution’ means transforming the way in which we produce, use and reuse raw materials to achieve sustainable economic growth while improving the quality of life for all. In order to do this, every year Tomra invests between 8 and 10% of its revenue in Research & Development to help all our customers, partners and system integrators achieve their plastic sorting targets in a better and more efficient way.

Thanks to the new sensors able to recognize all types of polymers.”

Tomra, www.tomra.com/en

How has this technology developed over time and what are the challenges to overcome?

“The whole world, led by Europe and North America, would like to better recycle and reduce undifferentiated waste compared to the past, and the recycling economy is moving much faster than before. Tomra’s advantage lies in the fact the sensor technology was developed by our R&D team. Moreover, we develop software, data management systems and sensors, we have

over 80 registered patents on our machines already available on the market. 20% of our employees work in R&D and we will strengthen our collaboration with universities, increasing our relationship with our clients and integrators, to obtain feedback on their needs in order to improve our collaboration by designing new products.”

At global level, you are present in many countries. What countries and communities are better prepared in waste management and recycling? And those who still have a long way to go?

“European countries are the more mature and prepared for recycling, led by a respectful approach to the environment and by EU objectives. The least mature countries of Eastern Europe are prodded to improve their policies by European funds, while in the emerging markets such as MEA (Middle East and Africa), South America and South East Asia, we are trying to lead them through a consultative approach and by teaching communities through feasibility studies the importance of a new ethical world driven by the circular economy and by explaining the crucial importance of preserving our planet. A planet with a better waste management and where plastic is recycled is a better place for our children and for all.”

The Landfill, a Model for Economic

PARTICIPATION

Belvedere SPA is quite possibly a unique case: a private public company that deals with waste management in the municipality of Peccioli, in the province of Pisa. Generating biogas with waste so as to produce thermal and electric energy. Some of the shareholders are even local residents.

by Rudi Bressa

The story of Belvedere SPA started in the past century. Founded in 1997, for the last 20 years, it has managed the waste disposal site for the Municipality of Peccioli, in the Province of Pisa. A unique landfill, which on the one hand gathers waste from the provinces of Pisa, Florence, Prato and Massa Carrara, and on the other generates economic surplus and positive effects for the entire region.

The landfill was opened in 1978 and expanded for the first time in 1988. In 1997, after the

rehabilitation and regularisation of the site, the conditions for the establishment of the Belvedere SPA were put in place.

Today this company manages the entire dumping site, in the locality of Legoli, where non dangerous waste is conferred. It also manages the mechanical and biological treatment facility (from the Italian TMB, “Trattamento Meccanico Biologico�) and provides services tied to environmental hygiene, such as the gathering of bulky waste and the sweeping of public areas.

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renewablematter 20. 2018 The landfill consists of an area of 24 hectares, characterised by a terrain of clay loam soil.

The 10-meter-high steps hold a stocking volume of 3 million cubic meters, which means that around 4 million tonnes of waste can be handled. Currently up to 1,000 tonnes a day and around 300,000 a year are processed. The plant, signalled by the Tuscan region as a site “of regional importance,” has a use life of 10 to 20 years. According to the regional plan of landfill rationing, it will remain one of the three operating sites of the twenty currently in operation.

Belvedere SPA, belvedere.peccioli.net

Turning biogas into electricity since the 90s Biogas generated from waste is intercepted through a dense network of micro-fissured tubes and aspiration wells distributed across the entire area. The gas, composed for at least half its parts of methane, is then sent to a cogeneration power plant for the production of electricity and heat: 13,000 MW of electric energy. This results in a closed energy circuit: the gas gathered fuels the entire site. Today the site is the last link in the chain of solid urban waste management: non recyclable waste is treated here. According to the ISPRA (Waste Report 2017) recycling in Tuscany is at around 51.5% with a 5 percentage point increase when compared to the previous year, taking into consideration a 1.4% increase in total waste generated (616 kg per capita). The Tuscan region is often cited as a prime example of virtuous management of organic waste through household composting, as this grew by 4% from 2015 to 2016.

To improve the quality of the waste conferred, reducing the disposal of organic waste in landfills (Directive 99/31/EC), Belvedere established a mechanised system for biological waste treatment in 2015. Here, solid urban waste is put through a mechanical selection that shreds waste matter, and then separates it by particle size. The next step is to recover the metals present in the waste and

A timeline of the initiative 2007: The pianist Charles Rosen celebrates 10 years of the company’s existence by playing an open air opera of Chopin on dump site.

2008: Organizing of a convention on the correct use of the planet’s resources with the participation of the Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff.

2010: The “Fashion Tour 2010” fashion show.

2011: Simone Stefanelli, professional photographer, realizes a photographic report by mingling amongst employees.

2011: Lectio magistralis held by Dale Mortensen (Nobel prize for economics in 2010) with the title “What can politics do to increase employment.”

2016: Sergio Staino, together with his son Michele, create a large fresco mural entitled All’altezza delle margherite (“At the height of the daisies”) at the mechanical and biological treatment site.

send them on for recovery. The remaining waste is then moved on to aerobic digestion, whereby a natural process of fermentation which takes place over three to four weeks prepares the waste for its transfer to the landfill.

The economic implications for the region That which makes Belvedere SPA the renowned “Peccioli model” is its company structure, which sees it founded as a community public company. It is in fact composed of a distributed shareholder model (the public company is composed of 900 citizens, of which 500 are residents of Peccioli), that control around 36% of the social capital and actively participate in the management of the company, as well as the awarding of benefits. The remaining 64% is withheld by the municipality. In a territory of 5,000 inhabitants this means a reduction in tariffs and taxes, as well as an improvement in the services offered to the community, obtained by keeping economic resources in the area.

Belvedere SPA – which has an estimated value of €60 million, and a net worth of €40 million – has produced a direct impact on the territory that amounts to €20.2 million in 2016 alone, reaching 60% of the total volume of business generated in that year. Of these: €13.7 million went to the municipality; €3.6 million to the companies spread across the region; and €2.8 million to the citizens, between stocks, interest on dividends and wages for workers. In the time spanning between 2004 and 2016, the direct impact of Belvedere has been of €174.7 million.

Over the years the company has become an instrument for generating value at local level, with visible effects on the entire social fabric. In this way the Gross Value Added, an economic indicator that measures the effects generated by the Belvedere management and therefore the amount of wealth created, amounted to €15,4 million in 2016. Significant figures that have contributed to the creation of important infrastructure such as: a nursery, a school, a multi-storey car park, some museums and also sports facilities. This is without taking into consideration the numerous cultural events organised over the course of the years in the area, some of which extremely original, due to the fact that they were held at the landfill and treatment site.

In 20 years the municipality of Peccioli and Belvedere SPA have managed to create a perfect example of economic participation, whereby the waste “problem” has been transformed into an opportunity. Certainly, it was born out of a political desire, but it has developed thanks to a long term vision that favours the collective and places the community’s wellbeing at the forefront.

The company has been able to generate value for the region and establish a model for wellbeing that makes the “Peccioli model” something to be aspired to and which can be replicated in many domestic realities, and even abroad.

World Interview

by R. B.

“Why Belvedere is a Functioning Model” Renzo Macelloni, Mayor of Peccioli

Mayor Renzo Macelloni, president of Belvedere SPA, is one of the minds behind the “Peccioli model.”

Here he explains how this objective was reached.

The story of Belvedere SPA started years ago.

How has the concept of a landfill evolved over time and what have been the toughest challenges?

“The idea of a landfill has changed radically over the years. When we started at this landfill waste would be disposed of as it was, today – instead – only processed waste, and all special waste arriving from the treatment of municipal solid waste, is handed in. Therefore, a more selective and better treated type of waste is received: as of consequence even its management becomes simpler. The toughest challenges we have had to face include the relationship with our citizens and the environmental management of the site.”

Behind the success of Belvedere there is a precise political ideology. That by which even citizens are an active part in the decision making and management of such an important issue as the disposal of waste. What is the secret of this success?

“Without a doubt, on top of the attention to environmental management, another decisive factor for our success has been the involvement of citizens in the management of Belvedere SPA through shareholder participation. In this way we wanted to establish a tight relationship with direct responsibility in planning, environmental sensitivity and economic participation.”

The Peccioli landfill is the final link in the waste management cycle. Here you only receive waste that is not longer recyclable. What is your idea with regards to the concept of a zero landfills?

What is the future of this type of waste disposal?

“The landfill is a site that is residual and strategic at the same time. Residual because only those materials that are residual to a waste processing and therefore are no longer useable are sent here; strategic because the absence of these types of sites doesn’t close the cycle of integrating waste, but rather creates waste emergencies. Zero waste sounds like something we should aspire to, but the reality today is quite different. The future of this site is first and foremost the maintaining of the landfill, this is the reason why it was enlarged, and the perfecting of the mechanical and biological waste treatment process.

Furthermore, we are working towards important investments so as to acquire machinery that is on a par with the need to improve the recycling of waste.

If properly managed, the landfill can become a temporary stocking unit: a true mine to be recovered in the future.”

Are the Peccioli model and Belvedere SPA – in your opinion – replicable in Italian and also international contexts?

“Everything is replicable: in this case there have to be some pre-conditions which are not always easy to find in a single context.”

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The Indian Way towards

ZERO WASTE

by Antonella Ilaria Totaro, from Bangalore

The Saahas Zero Waste model comes from Bangalore, India’s technological capital. It concentrates on partnerships with large companies, Extended Producer Responsibility and recycling to formalize waste management in Indian metropolises while guaranteeing better working conditions for sector employees.

30 tonnes of waste treated daily, with the aim of managing 300 by 2021.

This is one of the results obtained by the decentralized end-to-end collecting and separation waste model conceived by a Bangalore based company.

Saahas Zero Waste, saahaszerowaste.com

A city that has seen its population double in a little over 15 years is inevitably encumbered with a waste management problem which is all the more difficult to manage if such growth occurs uncontrollably in a city that was not meant to host so many people from neighbouring villages and surrounding countryside. This is what is happening in Bangalore, officially Bengaluru, capital of the Indian State Karnataka, also known as India’s Silicon Valley. Here, the population exploded from 6,769,000 inhabitants of 2005 to almost 11 million in 2017.

Today, Bangalore is a huge building site, new high rises are being built every day, works for the extension of the underground drag on day and night and the adoption of Western lifestyles is slowly taking root with the images of the latest smartphone models and the sparkling saris worn by models on the huge billboards dotted around the city.

Precisely here in Bangalore, in 2001, the nonprofit organization Saahas was born from an idea of Wilma Rodriguez. The founder is a former tourist guide appalled by the growing problem of incorrect waste management.

Refuse is scattered around every corner of the city centre and the suburbs, spoiling Indian landscapes. The year is no coincidence. During the previous year, in 2000, for the first time in India a national policy on waste was put in place.

The approved law on waste is the spark that gave Rodriguez the idea to create an association dealing with raising awareness within the public on pollution issues and to create pilot projects on corporate social responsibility and environmental education.

In 2013, alongside the non-profit association, the social enterprise Saahas Zero Waste was born.

Since then, Saahas Zero Waste has focused on waste collection in the private sector.

It developed its own business model, signed agreements and offered customized solutions to private companies, in particular to large waste generators such as office buildings and technological companies.

In order to do business, Saahas needs an empanelment by the municipality of Bangalore. After that, wherever large amounts of waste is produced, in the back of the office of large companies such as, Microsoft, General Electric, Shell Saahas Zero Waste puts in place an end-to-end decentralized model of waste collection and separation. The service allows also Saahas Zero Waste to collect data on waste produced that are shared with companies on a monthly basis to facilitate reduction and

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better segregation of waste generated. All the biodegradable waste is composted on-site to produce good quality organic manure.

The non-biodegradable waste is sent to a Material Recovery Facility for further sorting into 15-20 categories before it is baled and sent to respective authorized recyclers.

The activity of the Bangalore’s business represents a huge step forward in a country where informal waste recycling up until now has never allowed data collection on waste so as to asses its status quo.

Today, Saahas Zero Waste manages over 30 tonnes of waste per day, with the ambitious goal of reaching 300 tonnes per day by 2021.

Alongside waste recycling, the company has also started a line of recycled and upcycled products including books, toilet paper, copybooks, pens but also pen holders, chairs, writing desks and shelves. Upcycled products in particular are obtained from Tetra Pak carton recycling with no glue added, simply using heat as a sealant.

The choice to focus on stationery and furniture production allows the manufactured objects to be used in Indian schools and to raise awareness and educate new generations to assess the positive impact of correct waste management.

Unlike informal waste collection where final destinations of materials are unknown and low-value waste is burnt or landfilled, Saahas Zero Waste endorses recognized and formal collection, known recycling partners and channelize low grade waste to cement kilns for co-processing.

In 2016 India adopted a law on waste management providing for waste separation in six different categories: solid waste, hazardous waste and of other kind, construction and demolition waste, electronic waste, plastic and biomedical waste. Also, according to the new law, the responsibility of setting up reverse logistics for post consumer waste collection is the producers’ (see interview with Vishal Kumar). Packaging producers, in particular, must equip themselves with a collection system. Last, source waste separation is mandatory.

Saahas Zero Waste’s model – which after Bangalore was also adopted in Chennai, a 7 million inhabitants city – aims at reaching Delhi and Mumbai, two metropolises with almost 50 million inhabitants combined.

With total Indian population exceeding one billion and three hundred million, by far higher than the inhabitants of Europe and the United States together, working on a zero waste India is crucial both for the country and the entire planet.

Immages ©Saahas Zero Waste

Legal framework

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renewablematter 20. 2018 Interview

by A. I. T.

That’s How we Help Companies Manage Waste Vishal Kumar, E-Waste Programme Manager at Saahas Zero Waste

Alongside the Zero Waste Programme carried out on-site for the bulk waste generators, Saahas Zero Waste has started for a few years now, even before the 2016 law, the EPR programme – Extended Producer Responsibility.

How difficult is it to collaborate with companies when talking about waste and responsibility of material management?

“There is room for a strong impact with both programmes: extending producer responsibility with regard to materials, I believe, is very important. Zero Waste Program is our flagship vertical by which we promote decentralized waste management and segregation at source. EPR has a huge potential to improve waste recycling in India. We set up the entire reverse logistics mechanisms of collection, segregation

Informal recycle channels would pay us materials up to ten times more than formal ones, but they are not authorized, so we avoid them.

and aggregation before channelizing to authorized recycling partners. The producers pay us a service fee for covering the cost of operations to comply with the EPR regulations called out in the 2016 Rules.

“We have set up pilot projects with producers of multi-layered packaging to collect large volumes of this non-recyclable material and channelize it to cement kilns for co-processing. Over the last few months, we have been able to scale up these projects from collecting 15 tons per month to over 300 tons per month.”

Does Extended Producer Responsibility include electronic goods in India?

“Yes, in India there has been a law about e-waste since 2011 which was modified in 2016 to include stipulated collection targets. Saahas Zero Waste also collects end-of-life E-Waste on behalf of the producers and channelize the same to the State Pollution Control Board authorized e-waste recyclers.

The Central Pollution Control Board is the Indian institution overseeing correct implementation of the law with regard to e-waste. Recycling electronic waste is a really complex subject. Informal recycling channels would pay us up to ten times more than formal ones, but they are not authorized, do not comply with labour laws and do not have the appropriate technology to handle the hazardous chemical present in electronics, so we avoid them.”

How popular is informal recycling in India?

“Very much so. Recycling rates in India are extremely high, much more than one could imagine. The problem is that most of this recycling occurs thanks to the informal sector, which is difficult to monitor and brings along problems such as child labour and poor security for those collecting recyclable or reusable components from landfills. Everything that has a value – from electronic to medical devices, to copper and plastic – is informally collected and sent to informal recyclers. The problem is multifaceted because in theory the individual collecting materials is doing well in that he/she avoids them being burnt or scattered along water bodies. However, those collecting waste informally do so with no protection, with no shoes or suitable gloves, with a high risk of getting diseases and being paid little money, despite working between 15 to 20 hours a day. The informal sector manages to be extremely profitable for managers also because they don’t pay minimum wages and dump/burn all the low grade waste materials instead of handling them safely.”

As Saahas Zero Waste, what do you do to combat informal recycling?

“We are striving to formalize the informal sector.

In our staff we have around two hundred full-time people in the field who sort waste in the appropriate recycle channels. They receive protective equipment, uniforms, provident funds, insurance, beyond minimum wage and they work between 9 to 5 with a lot of dignity. They are employed by us and are a huge cost, but this allows us to solve the waste problem even from a social point of view, it is part of our mission. We want to show that it is an economically viable model. Showing that the model is working for the environment, the people and the economy is a daily challenge.”

It seems as if the informal sector acted as a hindrance against correct and secure recycling of waste in India. What do you think of the law passed in 2016?

“Informal channels, despite being banned by law, are really difficult to monitor. Working in the formal sector is very expensive, while there are no strong disincentives to informal channels.

The 2016 law on waste – regulating six types of it – is a huge step forward in its management.

It is a rather progressive law, but its implementation is very slow and truly gradual. Informal sector cannot be overhauled completely as many livelihoods are associated with it. What is required is setting up of systems where the informal sector is integrated into the collection system and the recycling is incentivized for the formal authorized recyclers with strong monitoring and compliance from the Pollution Control Boards. At the end of the day, it is now the Producers responsibility to set up collection and recycling systems in place.

Only time will tell how well these policies get implemented.”

Immages ©Saahas Zero Waste

Can regeneration of electronic devices be a better solution than recycling, for example?

“Regeneration too is very popular in India with a rate of around 80%. Suffice it to think that a phone has, on average, three or four lifecycles, i.e. three or four owners. The first owner sells his/ her own phone to informal channels where it is reconditioned and resold. Two or three years later the same phone comes back, it is reconditioned and repurchased and so on for other cycles.

Eventually, when it can no longer be used, the components still working and of some value are extracted. In this phase, for instance, gold is extracted from the motherboard in the informal sector, it is molten with acids releasing toxic and chemical substances into the environment and water that further pollute and complicate the situation.”

UPCYCLING our Buildings

We still have to construct 60% of the buildings necessary to accommodate the current rate of growth and urbanisation. Yet we do not have sufficient material resources: for this reason, it is necessary to re-use and re-imagine buildings. Starting with decommissioned manufactured goods: true mines of cement, timber and bricks.

by Antonella Ilaria Totaro, from Copenhagen

In architecture it is possible to combine aesthetics, sustainability, quality and harmony with the surrounding environment. Out of Denmark emerges the example of Lendager Group, an architecture firm that uses upcycled cement, timber and bricks obtained locally, whilst also ending the year 2017 with 29 new employees.

It all began with architect Anders Lendager’s revelation and subsequent founding of Lendager Group, in 2011. The revelation – or rather the gaining of consciousness – was and is rather simple, almost banal: we do not possess the material resources for the construction of the buildings and cities of the future.

In fact, it is estimated that around 60% of the buildings necessary to accommodate the current rate of growth and urbanisation have yet to be built. In just 3 years, from 2011 to 2013, China used more cement than that used by the United States throughout the whole of the 20th century.

Material resources are no longer available, unless we re-imagine existing materials and their uses.

This is exactly what the Danish Lendager group has been doing for over five years, pioneering circular economy and energy efficiency in architecture.

One of the first projects brought forth by the architecture firm was Upcycled House, a singlefamily house constructed with upcycled waste materials. By performing a lifecycle assessment on the house it emerged that altering the materials used helped save up to 82% of carbon dioxide when compared to a normal house. The upcycling element that most represents the Upcycled House is the use of shipping containers. Due to a disparity in trade, between the West and Asia’s imports and exports, a large amount of empty shipping containers are parked in European harbours, and can therefore be purchased at a low cost. This and other intuitions allow for the saving of resources as well as offering a product that is economically competitive, if not even cheaper, than standard buildings.

From focusing on single buildings the attention of the Danish firm has shifted to larger constructions.

Commercial complexes, ranging from 10,000 to 20,000 square meters, with projects that rely on the large amounts of waste materials derived from consumers and the construction industry. Cement, bricks and timber are upcycled and used in new buildings.

Empty suburban buildings are seen as potential banks or deposits of materials and represent the

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Upcycle Studios – Lendager Group

Lendager Group lendager.com/en

Upcycle Studios – Lendager Group

starting point for new constructions. Agreements, with demolishing companies and the owners of the old manufactured resources, allow Lendager to intercept and stock up on materials that would otherwise be destined for a process of sub-cycling.

In this innovative process demolishers, in the measure by which they are the owners of the resources, become creative partners with the firm.

Project after project, Lendager group is demonstrating how the upcycling of materials is economically viable, both in terms of cutting costs and increasing business opportunities. In fact, out of the lack of suppliers of upcycled materials emerges Lendager Up, an independent company that develops products that optimise the use of resources found locally and creates upcycled materials. Some examples include: soundproofing panels obtained from plastic bottles, old sails used as separating units, waste timber employed as protective material against fires, and even double glazed windows born out of old windows.

Innovation is therefore born together with the development of the architectural projects.

The projects become generators of sustainable innovation, which is then used in upcycled buildings at the same cost of traditional buildings.

The scarcity of material resources is a challenge for architecture. Lendager is rising to that challenge by looking at materials and resources from a different perspective. At the same time, they are creating jobs at the local level and enabling new business models that can be scaled up outside of the traditional models of architecture.

Upcycle Studios – Lendager Group

Stedsans In The Woods – Lendager Group

Stedsans In The Woods – Lendager Group

World

renewablematter 20. 2018 Interview

Cities Will Be Resilient and Regenerative

by A. I. T.

Anders Lendager, architect, founder and CEO of Lendager Group

in internal spaces it has the potential to create oxygen and break up carbon dioxide. There are many interesting ways in which nature can be used as a part of our strategy, so as to create a better and healthier environment.”

The Settlers

Photo by Rasmus Hjortshõj, COAST Studio

Can circular economy business models in architecture spread globally?

“At the moment it is crucial to create some examples of this circular approach so as to prove that these are economically viable and scalable. Today there are many projects that need to be developed. When we can prove that it is possible to build in an alternative and circular way, then it will certainly be possible to accelerate and change the way in which cities across the world are built. The only thing we know for certain is that we do not have the resources with which to construct the buildings of the future. The black hole in resources, whereby we want products but do not have materials, will only be fully comprehended once we are obliged to think about how to change the way we use materials, in the hope that it will not be too late. Today we can begin to think in a different way,

Photo by Rasmus Hjortshõj, COAST Studio

How important is nature in your vision of architecture?

“Biodiversity is essential for a healthy city. In the development of the city nature makes buildings act in a different way, it allows for the saving of energy and materials. Nature gives a lot back also in terms of liveability, it brings sustainable architectural solutions and regenerates the earth that has been polluted. Whilst in external environments nature can be the instrument with which to tackle food scarcity,

The Settlers

The scarcity of material resources is a challenge for architecture.

How do you imagine the cities of the future?

“I see cities as a living organism, in which different parts are connected and vital for the survival of the entire organism. The city will be regenerative and resilient, able to maintain healthy and balanced elements and to regenerate itself both in terms of materials and energy, without forgetting about people, their health and their social wellbeing and employment. Buildings and cities increase the quality of life of people and are central to climate change mitigation. Urbanisation, sustainability, quality of life and growth have to be prerequisites, not opposites.”

Photo by Rasmus Hjortshõj, COAST Studio

Photo by Simon Birk

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Is there a limit to that which can be recycled in a building or can everything be recycled?

“No, I do not think there is a limit. There are some materials, used in different parts of the world, that are very advantageous; in the measure by which they ensure durability and functionality over time.

There are, on the other hand, new materials that need to be developed so that they adapt to different climates. Currently, I believe the upcycling of the bricks, cement, steel and glass with which we construct the buildings of today, to be the best method with which to build.

However, in time we will develop new materials which we had not considered before, such as biocomposite materials.”

The Resource Rows – Lendager Group

a way that allows us to cut down on CO2 and create regenerative buildings and circular cities.”

Upcycle House – Lendager Group

Photo by Rasmus Hjortshõj, COAST Studio

Upcycle House – Lendager Group

Upcycle House – Lendager Group

Photo by Rasmus Hjortshõj, COAST Studio

Does Danish law incentivise the reuse of materials?

“Certain Danish laws attempt to reduce these opportunities. This is a problem that we have to face because they limit the use of certain materials.

At the same time, there are many opportunities in areas which are not regulated and also in ones where the government incentivises the owners of buildings to reuse and treat materials so as to ensure that they do not pollute when disposed of. Through a combination of non regulation and incentives for reuse we have lots of materials available locally that can be used for different aspects of upcycling.”

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renewablematter 20. 2018

Startup

Name:

Stuffstr, an App to put Unused Things into Circulation Stuffstr

Plus:

The American app Stuffstr gives a new life to objects that are no longer used

Field:

Online platform

Features:

by Antonella Ilaria Totaro

Stuffstr, www.stuffstr.com

Stuffstr is recognised as being the circular economy digital disruptor. Working in cooperation with partners such as Amazon, The North Face and H&M, the company’s striking power is based on digital applications designed to donate, repair or sell unused objects.

According to John Atcheson, one of Stuffstr founders, in every American home there are $7,000 worth of unused objects, or objects that are used no more than once a month: clothes, furnitures, sports equipment, kitchen tools and so on. Basically 80% of what families own.

Stuffstr, a Seattle based American company, was born with the aim of helping people to get rid of unused objects. That’s exactly where Stuffstr’s founders John Atcheson and Steve Gutmann have shifted their attention, after working in car sharing.

The company is considered to be the digital distruptor of circular economy, and its striking power is based on digital applications.

Simple actions like selling objects through

Facebook, donate to charities or organising a garage sale don’t always guarantee that objects are reused or put back into circulation, whilst through Stuffstr app it’s easy to manage an object library and simply click on the screen to donate, repair or sell things. The objective is making the creation of a library as easy as possible, by automating it, by using existing resources and getting information on what has been purchased by single users through partners like Amazon.

Other partners like The North Face and H&M allow Stuffstr users to find collection centres in their areas where they can bring used clothes of any brand and get a discount voucher in exchange. Its partnership with the non-profit American organisation Goodwill, allows users to donate unwanted objects easily.

Thanks to this app, which is designed so that suppliers and producers have easy access to data on the life-cycle of objects once they get sold, owners manage to add value to any object they have bought, but don’t use any longer.

Stuffstr is a member of Ellen MacArthur Foundation Circular Economy 100 and is actually working on developing the new up Sellalong, that at the moment is available only in Seattle. Sellalong allows the immediate sale of used tools, that get picked up for free on the same day from the seller’s house.

Startup

Startup

Name:

Vegea: Leather from Wine Vegea

Plus:

Vegea it’s a vegetal biomaterial, 100% made from by-products of wine making

Field:

New materials

Features:

by Antonella Ilaria Totaro

Vegea, www.vegea company.com

Winner of the 2017 H&M Global Change Award in 2017, Vegea is an Italian startup specialising in the search of innovative textile solutions for fashion and design, making use of biobased materials, compatible with the fashion and design industry.

The production of Vegea requires no water, whilst it takes 240 litres of water to produce a square metre of leather.

Moreover, Vegea needs no chemicals and acids that are typical of traditional tanning, and therefore does not have side effects on the environment and on workers’ and consumers’ health. The production process of this ecological biomaterial is based on the machinery that is already used in tanneries.

Since the world yearly production of wine, which is around 26 billions litres, originates 7 billions of grape marc, the potential

Vegea was born in Milano in 2016, thanks to Giampiero Tessitore, architect, and Francesco Merlino, chemist. Its objective is the creation of valid alternatives to leather of animal origin. Winner of the 2017 H&M Global Change Award, Vegea is an Italian start-up specialising in the search of innovative textile solutions for fashion and design, making use of biobased materials.

Besides being the name of the company, Vegea is the first biomaterial it has produced, 100% of plant origin and made in Italy.

It’s derived from plant fibres and oils that are found in grape marc, and it’s an ecological material with the same mechanical, aesthetic and sensory characteristics of animal skin.

production of this vegetal biomaterial is of 3 billions square metres per year.

Today around 18% of the world wine production takes place in Italy, and therefore this country is the ideal place for the production of Vegea.

However, this process that turns by-products into resources, could be of interest for all the big international wine-producing areas.

After a transitional period of product development, last Autumn Vegea launched its first collection to test the material, used to create shoes, bags and clothes.

At the moment the company is located in Rovereto within the Progetto Manifattura business incubator, the Italian clean-tech and circular economy centre by Trentino Sviluppo.

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renewablematter 20. 2018

Startup

Name:

RiceHouse: Architecture from Rice Waste RiceHouse

Plus:

Bioplasters produced from rice straw, husk and bran

Field:

New materials

Features:

by Antonella Ilaria Totaro

RiceHouse biocomposite materials are made of by-products from rice cultivation, and when employed in architecture they guarantee energetic and acoustic efficiency, living comfort and salubrity of the living areas where they are used.

RiceHouse, www.ricehouse.it

Rice represents the main source of nourishment for more than half of the world population. However, there are three substances that are left from the process of rice cultivation, and that remain unused: straw, husk and bran.

The innovative start-up RiceHouse and its founder, architect Tiziana Monterisi, want to exploit and upgrade these by-products of rice cultivation, and use them in the architectural field.

According to this company from Biella, Italy, it’s possible to build houses with rice straw and wood, using natural materials coming from short supply chains. Husk and bran instead can be transformed in premix and become RiceHouse bio-palsters (RH 100, RH 200, RH300). High-performance materials of high technological value, obtained through a multi-annual research project, that have been awarded in January 2018 at the Klimahouse fair in Bolzano.

RiceHouse biocomposite have high energetic and acoustic efficiency and guarantee living comfort and salubrity of the living areas where they are used.

According to RiceHouse, the use of straw and husk as building materials triggers a virtuous process from the social, economic, environmental, agricultural and architectural point of view. Straw, for example, is more economic than bricks and concrete, and it’s also an excellent means to achieve a higher energetic efficiency. Husks instead is very rich in silica, and is an interesting material for natural architecture, because of its impermeability and its resistance to atmospheric agents.

RiceHouse aims at representing a central gateway in the production chain, coordinating the raw material production, as well as dealing with the logistic side and the storage of materials. Moreover, RiceHouse aims at becoming a front-end for the main names in the world of sustainable building.

Startup

Startup

Name:

Circular Headphones with Gerrard Street Gerrard Street

Plus:

Modular headphones, easy to repair and pay per use from Netherlands

Field:

Product as a service

Features:

by Antonella Ilaria Totaro

Gerrard Street, gerrardstreet.nl

High range headphones, delivered in the mailbox as a kit, easy to repair, update and disassemble, available by paying a monthly fee. The potential market for this service is that of customers who usually buy low-cost headphones and earphones.

The Dutch start-up Gerrard Street rents design and high quality headphones (with a market value of around €250) for €7.50 a month. The idea of product as a service enters the world of headphones, through its totally modular models of headphones that can be delivered in the mailbox as a kit.

The headphones are designed to be assembled and disassembled: If any part breaks, the customers receives within 96 hours the new part for free, since the cost is included in the rental. Broken parts are repaired or recycled. The objective is to make things as easy as possible for customers, establishing their brand loyalty even trough the constant upgrade of the headphone parts.

The first 1,000 Gerrard Street headphones have been produced in 2016. So far 875 customers have subscribed to these modular headphones, and 500 new headphones have been produced at the end of 2017. The company is developing a wireless model, as well as one that gets rid of noise.

The first issue the two founders of Gerrard Street – Tom Leenders and Dorus Galama – took into account was the huge problem of electronic waste, that brings 40 billions kilos of electronic products to landfills, 15 millions of which are headphones. This great amount of broken headphones does not enhance quality, since music lovers are reluctant to buy expensive headphones exactly because they break so easily.

However, services like Netflix and Spotify have proved that when it comes to audio and video, accessibility is more important than ownership.

And the market for tablets, smartphones and other portable devices is growing constantly.

Headphones are now to be found everywhere, whether it’s to listen to music, watch TV series or work in shared spaced.

In the headphone market there’s a high competition with big brands, but Gerrard Street is not focusing on the market of premium customers, but on customers who buy low-cost headphones, offering them a quality they are not used to. In a saturated market, they offer not to buy, but to rent high quality headphones with a monthly rate.

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Columns Circular by Law

Emissions, Energy and Circularity: Good News from the EU Francesco Petrucci,* environmental legal expert and a member of Edizioni Ambiente’s legal editorial staff.

In cooperation with the Magazine Rifiuti – Bollettino di informazione normativa (“Waste – Bulletin of regulatory information”) and Osservatorio di normativa ambientale (“Environmental law observatory”) on www.reteambiente.it

“Final Report by the High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance,” ec.europa.eu/info/ publications/180131sustainable-financereport_en “Report on the impact of the use of oxodegradable plastic including oxo-degradable plastic carrier bags, on the environment,” ec.europa.eu/ environment/circulareconomy/pdf/oxoplastics.pdf

In order to reach the 2030 objectives that have been agreed during the 2015 United Nations climate conference (Paris Agreement – COP21), and specifically the 40% reduction of greenhouse gases, €180 billions of additional resources are needed. That’s the result of a report by a group of high level experts on sustainable finance that the European Commission submitted on 31st January 2018. The Commission will take care of finding tools to direct considerable amounts of private capital towards sustainable investments.

The EU reform of ETS (Emission Trading System), approved by the Parliament on February 6, 2018, could help reducing emissions. The formal vote of the European Union Council will give the final green light to this reform. This measure amends Directive 2003/87/EU, and strengthen the ETS system efficiency in order to reach the target of a 40% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2030.

However, the 2016 Eurostat data on primary energy consumption in the EU published on February 5, 2018 have come as a cold shower. The target of a 20% reduction in energy consumption by 2020 is not going to be met: the EU exceeds it by 4%.

Therefore it’s good news that the work on the package “Clean Energy for All Europeans,” presented by the Commission on November 30, 2016, is progressing. Between December 2017 and January 2018 both the Parliament and the Council stated their positions on the proposals for directives on the energy market, renewable energy and energy efficiency, opening the way to the negotiation of a shared text. An agreement was already reached on January 31, 2018, on the proposal for a directive on energy efficiency in the building industry, and now the only step missing is the formal vote of the Parliament and the EU Council.

In the meantime there’s good news for companies working in circular economy. In mid December both Commission, Parliament and EU Council have reached an agreement on the “circular economy package” (the proposals for directives on waste, packaging, landfills, electronic waste, batteries, end-of-life vehicles). The proposal, voted by the EU Environmental Committee on February 28, 2018, will be voted in the Plenary by mid April 2018 and in the EU Council probably by June 2018 (we will talk further about it when the new rules will be in place).

The change of perspective deriving from the new rules is clear: the emphasis is on prevention of

waste production, to reduce drastically landfilling or incineration. According to the Eurostat data referring to 2016 published on January 22, 2018, the EU rate of landfilling is of 24% (in 1995 it was 64%), whilst in the same period of time there was a 105% increase in incineration.

After reaching the “circular economy package” goal, on January 16, 2018 the EU Commission introduced the European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy, whose aim is encouraging innovation, impacting the way products are designed, constructed, used and recycled in the EU. The goal to be reached before 2013 is the recyclability of any packaging on the market.

In the meantime the Commission will introduce a directive on single use plastic, and a proposal to amend the packaging directive.

On the same day the Commission presented its Report on oxo-degradable plastic. The conclusions of the report are quite clear: since there’s no evidence that this kind of plastic is not harmful for the environment, the Commission will ensure legislative proposals to restrict its use.

On the matter of plastic, with Regulation (EU) No 2018/79 the Commission has increased the number of chemical substances that can be part of the plastic materials coming into direct contact with food.

The EU Regulation 2018/2103, that will apply from September 6, 2018, places further restrictions on the use of “bisphenol A,” as a substance contained in plastic materials coming into contact with food.

From January 31, 2010, octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4) and decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5) will be forbidden in cosmetics products due to the REACH regulation 1907/2006 on the registration and authorisation of chemicals.

We remind that May 31, 2018 is the deadline for the registration of all companies that produce or import one or more substances subject to the socalled transitional period in quantities between 1 and 100 tonnes per year, and have pre-registered these substances before December 2008.

Lastly, two information concerning certifications.

With Regulation (EU) no. 2018/59 the criteria in force to obtain the EU Ecolabel for televisions have been extended to December 2019, whilst with decision 2017/2286/EU the Commission has acknowledged the Norwegian System Eco-Lighthouse to be “equivalent” to the Eco-Management and Audit scheme EMAS.

Columns

The Media Circle

If Nature is Poised Between Enigma and Dream Roberto Giovannini, journalist, writes about economy, society, energy, environment, green economy and technology.

The film industry has discovered the environment, and it deals with it is sometimes within a “catastrophe” scenario, sometimes through science fiction and sometimes in a fantasy style. This time we will talk about two films: one has been released in cinemas (Body and Soul) and one on television through Netflix (Annihilation). In both cases the environmental dimension is interpreted and offered in a surprising dreamlike and fictional tone, that leaves one amazed and confused.

Body and Soul, by Hungarian director Ildikò Enyedi, has already won the Golden Bear at the last Berlin Festival. The plot is simple and almost trivial: Mária and Endre work in the same slaughterhouse. She is in charge of quality control, and he is the financial director.

They are both lone and slightly sad characters, but at a certain point they discover they have a recurring dream: in their dream they are two deer, a male and a female, that meet in a snowy Northern forest. Mária and Endre have already met in the workplace canteen, and have tried to get to know each other, but only after they share their dream they realize that something important has already happened between them, and that there’s no way back. At this point their relationship with the deer is not so relevant any longer, because the animals themselves that have entered the icy ground of human beings, and they now speak a new language.

An enchanting and unconventional love story, described through the psychic relationship between humans and animals. The director’s theory, expressed gracefully in a minimalist style, is that the animal “space,” which is wilderness unaltered by humans, is in itself the space of love, home to what’s more intimate and deep in human nature.

Annihilation, the last film by the American director Alex Garland, has a different slant. Garland is the author of Ex Machina, another successful film that deals with the major and complex issue of the relationship between humans and robots. Annihilation has an all-female cast, and is inspired by a successful book with the same title, written by Jeff VanderMeer.

The plot is the following: a group of women scientists is sent on a mission to the so called “X Area.” This is a sinister and mysterious area of Florida that has been placed in quarantine

after an alien spaceship has apparently crashed on it. Within this swampy, wooded area, very difficult to cross, an incredible process of fauna and flora biotransformation is taking place.

From the outside this can be perceived as a sort of multicolour and fascinating “air sparkling.” What’s worst, the contaminated area is gradually but relentlessly expanding.

The head of the mission, played by Natalie Portman (other leading actors are Tessa Thompson, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Gina Rodriguez) is a biologist and a former military officer who has decided to join this risky mission to find out what has happened to her husband, a member of the special forces who was badly wounded in one of the many, unsuccessful attempts to enter the X Area to uncover its secret. The women scientists will discover a beautiful, ethereal world full of deadly dangers, with changing landscapes inhabited by strange creatures that are both animals and plants.

A place where men are turned into plants, and “something” is giving life to something new and incomprehensible, using human and alien genes. A place where it’s very easy to die, or loose your mind.

In Italy we could see this film only on Netflix, due to a conflict between producers and director.

The first reviews have been enthusiastic: some critics think that the film is bound to become a science fiction “classic.”

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Innovation Pills

Today’s Mistakes, Yesterday’s Horrors Federico Pedrocchi is a science journalist.

He directs and presents the weekly programme Moebius broadcast by Radio 24 – Il Sole24 ore.

I am working on plastic recycling thanks to a research call launched by COREPLA (an Italian consortium dealing with plastic packaging collection, recovery and recycling) with the objective of gathering new ideas on how to transform packaging, how to recycle it better, how to use it in new application, how to act beforehand when the packaging is designed.

Working closely on this subject I was deeply surprised by the irrationality of the times we are living in, and its distinctive superficiality. However, I want to make clear that I am far from regretting the past. If we talk about environmentalism, in the film Goodbye Again, a heartbreaking love story dating back to the beginning of the ‘60s, Ingrid Bergman comes home one evening, upset because her love story is not working, and her lover is messy and lazy, she smokes one cigarette after another and fills many ashtrays with cigarette butts. Then she takes one of these ashtrays, and empties it out of the window. The setting is the city of Paris. I also remember a television commercial of an olive oil, that said the oil was “Clear as water,” and sure enough the oil was shown as being totally transparent.

Obviously we can find good things in the past, but we can find horrors as well. Things are better today. But I still find incomprehensible that in the context of the overheated discussion on plastic bags and their raising cost, nobody point out that biodegradable plastic degrades only if the temperature is higher than 60 °C. A while ago I had a conversation with an Iranian geologist who told me that if you travel by helicopter to the Lut Desert, in the south-east of Iran, carrying four geranium plants, after 15 minutes the plants are dead. The temperature is 70 °C, with no humidity at all. And in 20 minutes the people carrying the geraniums are dead as well. But it’s difficult to find a supermarket there.

Than I discovered another surprising aspect.

99% of the population, which means all the non-experts, is sure that plastic is plastic.

But if you buy packaged ham, the top sheet of the packaging is recyclable, whilst the bottom part is not. The reason is that recycling is an industrial precess with its own technicalities: that is, it’s possible to chip wood, but not metal.

And the paradox does not end here.

The top sheet could also be recycled if it was possible to separate it from the bottom easily, but this does not happen because people opens the top sheet just enough to get the ham out.

The sheet should have a label saying that it’s possible to remove it from the bottom, but it’s never there.

Finally, when packaging ends up in recycling centres, it gets analysed to identify the different kinds of plastic. This happens through instruments that use light emissions that are able to draw the proper distinctions, because of the different absorbing qualities of matter.

But if the packaging is black, this obviously does not work! Since we have a lot of complex problems, we should not let the easy ones runadressed. But why does this happen anyway? Probably the reason is intellectual sloppiness, a shallowness that somehow manages to look authoritative. Does anybody have an economic interest in all this? I doubt it’s possible to make money painting packaging in black. Instead if we talk about the problem of plastic being not degradable if the temperature is lower than 60 °C, I came to the conclusion that this must be profitable for somebody.

The issue of packaging who has a recyclable top sheet and an unrecyclable bottom part comes from pure sloppy laziness.

I want to stress again that it’s not a question of lack of understanding or knowledge.

Actually in the history of technology many passages seem to be characterized by such a dramatically silly vision of things.

At the beginning of 20th century for example X rays had just been discovered, and everywhere in Europe and in the United States beauty saloons used them to depilate ladies. Tragically, Madame Curie herself had not properly understood what radiations were, and paid a high price for it.

That’s the way things go. On the other end, if there’s people who think that the way to solve the problem of students using gun machines in schools is having armed teachers... well, this tells us we are living in strange times.

Even if this may lead us away from the subject of this section, I take this opportunity to point out that on Facebook there’s a video of an American girl of about ten who gets a Beretta gun as a present. She receives it wrapped in gift paper, but she understands straight away that she is going to get her hands on the dream of her life, just as if she had just heard that a friend was willing to donate her a kidney. She cries, sobs, she can hardly talk, and then finally she picks up the gun, whose recoil could probably rip her shoulder off.

The RadiciGroup way to Circular Economy

Performance Plastics Synthetic Fibres & Nonwovens

Post-industrial recycling Post-industrial and post-consumer recycling

Mechanical recycling of plastics and fibre scraps back into plastics for new, high performance and value-added products. This is the way we work.

Il riciclo meccanico degli scarti di plastica e fibre per la realizzazione di nuovi prodotti, ad elevate performance e alto valore aggiunto. Questo è il nostro modo di operare.

At RadiciGroup we measure the impacts of this strategy through Life Cycle studies for a sustainable and sound approach to circular economy.

Presso RadiciGroup misuriamo gli impatti di questa strategia attraverso studi di Life Cycle Assessment per un approccio sostenibile e rigoroso all'economia circolare.

RadiciGroup: Specialty Chemicals, Performance Plastics, Synthetic Fibres and Nonwovens

www.radicigroup.com

Focus: ++ Bio-based Building Blocks & Platform Chemicals ++ Lignocellulose ++ Innovation Award ++

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WORLDWIDE BIOECONOMY Feedstocks for the Bio-based Economy Bio-based Building Blocks & Polymers Lignocellulose – Lignin & Cellulose Environmental Solutions Yeast as Platform Technology for Bio-based Chemicals • Innovation Award „Bio-based Material of the Year 2018” The 11th International Conference on Bio-based Materials is aimed at providing international major players from the biobased building blocks, polymers and industrial biotechnology industries with an opportunity to present and discuss their latest developments and strategies. The conference builds on successful previous conferences: 250 participants and 30 exhibitors are expected. bio-based-conference.com

Dominik Vogt

Contact

• • • • •

Conference Manager +49 (0)2233 4814-49 dominik.vogt@nova-institut.de

VOTE FOR the Innovation Award “Bio-based Material of the Year 2018”!

Organiser

Innovation Award Sponsor

www.nova-institute.eu

www.infraserv-knapsack.de Pictures: J.Rettenmaier & Söhne, BASF, nova-Institute

More information at: www.bio-based-conference.com

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