T he sustainability movement received yet more encouragement and took another baby step as students at Princeton University led a campus-wide adoption of 100% post-consumer-waste paper (PCW) for the New Jersey campus’s use in copiers and information technology printers. “Leave it to the young,” an uncourageous mantra of many in the environmental movement, may be beginning to actually pay off as...

One of the biggest obstacles to recycling consumer goods is the high cost of material separation. The recovered value from recycling increases as the disassembly of the discarded product is easier. For example, recovery of high-value reusable components from a car, television set or cell phone may be too labor-intensive, making recycling companies forgo that option and simply “grind the product...

The meeting of phosphorus recycling organised in the frame of the ANR Phosph’OR research project by MidiPyrénées Innovation brought together scientists, industry, water companies and agricultural organisations to exchange on perspectives for recovery of phosphorus from waste streams, and market and agronomic criteria for distribution and reuse of recycled phosphorus as fertilisers according to ...

E-waste currently represents a portion of global waste problem; nevertheless, e-waste quantities are continuously fast rising all over the world. As the waste problem increases, new business opportunities related to their reuse and recycling could be evaluated. The paper focuses on a particular type of e-waste: mobile phones as they are the most ubiquitous electronic equipment. By analysing mar...

The need for effective apparel waste management is motivated by the increasing cost and decreasing availability of landfill space and the dwindling of natural resources. The aim of this study was to identify the current solid waste disposal and recycling practices of the apparel industry in South Africa and to determine their attitude and willingness towards recycling, their perception of the f...

Long-term estimates make clear that the amount of solid waste to be processed at landfills in the Netherlands will sharply decline in coming years. Major reasons can be found in the availability of improved technologies for waste recycling and government regulations aiming at waste reduction. Consequently, market size for companies operating landfills shrinks. Among the companies facing the pro...

Keywords bar codes electronic tags optical tags product life-cycle management radio-frequency identification (RFID) recycling Summary In this article, we explore several options for linking information technology to materials and products through the use of bar codes and radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags, and the implications for product life-cycle management. We also describe tests wi...