Brave New Supermarket
Since its very onset, over a century ago, the supermarket model has had only one purpose: to make us buy as much as possible. But nowadays, a more responsible approach to consumpti...
Giorgia Marino – Chief editor of Materia Rinnovabile | Renewable Matter. Freelance journalist and web editor, her writing is focused around the environment and innovation. She has been the editor-in-chief of Greenews.info and now writes for various magazines, including the Italian edition of The Huffington Post and the national newspaper La Stampa. In recent years she realized some multimedia reportage projects financed by European journalistic grants, in particular in Haiti (sustainable reconstruction) and Nepal (climate change).
Architects of Ecosystems: Will Fungi Shape Our Sustainable Future?
Using fungi and their extraordinary characteristics to “grow” construction materials and degrade pollutants: this is the vision underpinning many studies that soon may lead to real...
(Un)sustainable fashion: H&M is being sued for greenwashing
Swedish fast fashion giant H&M has come under indictment for greenwashing. The plaintiff was American marketing student Chelsea Commodore, who took the case to federal court in Ne...
This is how algae-produced cement could avoid 2 billion tons of CO2
Growing cement instead of manufacturing it. The idea comes from a team of U.S. researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, who, inspired by coral reef algae, have come up wi...
How to develop a textile recycling industry in Europe: Euratex's plan
The end of 2024: meaning, two and a half years from now. This is the deadline that the states of the European Union have set for organizing and implementing mandatory separate coll...
From recycled wood, a material that is stronger than steel
Recycling wood waste, including wood chips and sawdust, to turn it into a building material even more durable than steel. Phrased that way, it almost sounds as incredible as the di...
Superworms like styrofoam, and that's great news for plastic recycling
The gastronomic preferences of a beetle larvae open new avenues for the circular economy of plastics. From Australia has come news that the larvae of the Zophobas morio beetle, als...
50 years of Environment
World Environment Day is turning 50 years old. It was established by the United Nations on June 5th, 1972, at the first Conference on the Human Environment, which opened at that ti...
Tomra at the plastics challenge
Optimizing the use of resources by recovering, enhancing, reusing and recycling them. This has been the mission of Tomra, the Norwegian giant of the circular economy with offices a...
Does the Devil Wear Rentals?
The rental of clothes is one of the circular business models that could make the fashion industry more sustainable. However, a Finnish study aimed at calculating the carbon footpri...
Circular economy and digital passport for batteries: Battery Pass launched in Germany
At the intersection of the energy transition and the sustainable products revolution, the battery supply chain is one of the strategic hubs of the green revolution in the economy. ...
Sustainable packaging: Walmart launches the Circular Connector
"We don't have time to waste." With this imperative tagline, American retail giant Walmart launched its Circular Connector last April 11th. The goal: to accelerate innovation in t...
IPCC: climate action works, we can halve emissions by 2030
It’s not too late. Reaching the goals of the Paris Agreement and limiting global warming to 1.5°C by the end of the century is still possible. Provided, however, that we act now, m...
The Sustainable Products Revolution: the New European Commission Proposal
Ecodesign, circular textiles, regulations for construction products, greenwashing, and consumer power. These are the main points addressed in the new set of proposals presented on ...
Climate, war, transition: from IPCC to Fridays For Future, the climatologist Caserini's perspective
Climate is back in the news. Under the motto “People Not Profit”, the folks at Fridays For Future have called on March 25th the first real global strike (almost) post-pandemic. Thi...
Six actions everyone can take to fight the climate crisis
It's time to take responsibility for the climate. This line may sound ominous, but it is actually good news. If in fact, as individuals, it's easy to feel powerless and surrender t...
Stakeholder Conference 2022: the European circular economy under the mark of a double emergency
Talking about circular economy has never been more pressing. If the conflict in Ukraine and the international crisis seem to have put the climate and environmental emergencies of t...
Terra Next: an Innovation Accelerator in Napoli for the Italian Bioeconomy
The Italian bioeconomy restarts from the South. The new Terra Next accelerator for start-ups has been launched in Napoli and will become an innovation hub for the entire sector. Pr...
Let’s re...play! Ideas for a circular economy of toys
How short is the life of a toy? From The Steadfast Tin Soldier to Toy Story, many storytellers have sung the tale of the ephemeral, however shiny, existence of dolls, puppets and s...
Circularity Gap Report 2022: only 8.6% of the global economy is circular
Five hundred billion tons. That's the amount of resources consumed globally over the past six years, between COP21 in Paris in 2015 and COP26 in Glasgow. The sum was calculated by ...
Europe: a crackdown on waste exports is on the way
“Our waste is our responsibility. Letting waste pollute the environment, end up in illegal dumpsites or in our oceans is a real loss of resources, which are precious for the EU’s t...
Climate: will plastic be the new coal?
“If plastic were a country, it would be the world’s fifth largest greenhouse gas emitter." Thus begins Judith Enck, president of the American NGO Beyond Plastics, in presenting a r...
Plastic waste from Covid-19: over 8 million tons generated worldwide
The fight against single-use plastic consumption has never been harder than in the past two years. With the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, the (human) world's hunger for plastic ...
Reusable packaging: the Loop system conquers supermarkets all over the world
The Loop system is a great idea, and it was clear from the start. Large retailers are finally starting to understand it now. The platform for reusable packaging invented by Tom Sz...
The Slum Economy: an alliance between circular and informal
According to the United Nations, today, over a billion and a half people live in informal settlements and by 2030 that figure could soar to 3 billion. So, the issue of future circu...
Sustainability in two dimensions: it’s time for graphene and 2D materials
The future may be two-dimensional. At least, the future of materials. Since 2004, when the two Russian physicists Gejm and Novosëlov succeeded in isolating the first monoatomic la...
How a holistic waste management system could cut CO2 emissions
The optimization of the waste management system worldwide could cut down 2.76 billion tons of CO2 per year, or 5% of total global emissions. It’d basically be as effective as groun...
Circular cities and the informal economy: Africa is now hungry for data
The spread of circular economy practices and principles in developing countries often runs up against the obstacle of a lack of data. The problem grows even bigger when working in ...
World Environment Day: conservation is no longer enough, it’s time for restoration
The year 2021 started with some news that mostly went unnoticed, as, after all, did many other things in a pandemic-dominated year-long news cycle. A study published in Nature esti...
WEEE: illegal trade of electronic waste must be stopped to achieve EU goals
Countries in the European Union collect and recover more end-of-life electrical and electronic devices than the rest of the world. This work, however, is still not sufficient to ac...
Turkey like China: stop to the import of plastic waste
It’s Turkey’s turn to be tired of accepting plastic waste from Europe. With an amendment published on May 18th in the Official Gazette, the Turkish Ministry of Commerce has banned ...
What We Waste: 41 billion bottles and cans are littered every year in Europe
There are over 41 billion plastic and glass bottles and beverage cans that every year, in Europe, escape the recycling circuit and end up in landfills, incinerators or, worse, in r...
To face complexity, we need to rediscover awareness of the limitations
Embracing complexity implies widening one's field of vision and learning to understand and consider the interconnections between phenomena, even those that seem too distant to matt...
Clothing recycling: the first automated plant for textile waste is in Sweden
Textile and fashion industry have a huge circular potential that has yet to be developed. One of the main issues currently holding back the application of the circular economy in t...
International Atomic Energy Agency: this is how nuclear decommissioning becomes circular
We’re back on the topic of nuclear power. 2021 may mark the tenth anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, which on March 11th, 2011 rekindled the fear of the risks of atomic energy ...
The Right to Repair comes into force, but only for certain products
Spring brings a lot of news for the household appliance sector in Europe. Starting from March 1st, new energy labels have been introduced and, above all, the long-awaited and much-...
How to recycle a nuclear power plant
From Italy’s point of view – a country that stopped the production of nuclear energy in its territory after the 1987 referendum – nuclear decommissioning is an old story that is st...
In Sydney, the harbor pavilion will be made of recycled oyster shells
New frontiers for circular architecture: in Australia oyster shells become building materials.The new Sydney Harbor Pavilion, designed by architects Jessica Spresser and Peter Besl...
Bioplastics: Novamont Acquires Norway-Based Biobag
From Novara to Norway, and then to the whole world. Novamont, the Italian bioplastics giant, has taken an important new step in its international expansion with the acquisition of ...
Enough Is Enough: Overpackaging in the Food System
In Europe alone, the demand for plastic is close to 50 million tonnes a year, 40% of which is packaging. And almost entirely single-use. This is too much. Examples of overpackaging...
Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestlè named the world’s top plastic polluters for the third year
Coca-Cola has conquered, for the third year in a row, the unenviable podium of the top plastic polluter in the world. This was stated in the latest report by the Break Free From Pl...
Contaminated Earth. FAO: no more pristine soil on the planet
Food security, water, monitoring the greenhouse gas cycle, maintaining biodiversity: all these ecosystem services depend on the health of the soil. And yet, there is no land on the...
Europe: another step toward the right to repair
The war is not yet won, but there has been another successful battle. With a vote in the European Parliament on 25th November, the campaign for the right to repair scored an import...
The Stakeholder Conference: a place to discuss the future of the European circular economy
“It’s all about you”. With these words, on 3rd November, Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal Frans Timmermans inaugurated the 2020 Circular Economy Stakeholder Con...
Plastic packaging: in the EU, Covid boosts the single-use and pushes recycling targets away
Europe is far from the plastic packaging recycling targets it set for itself. Take this step forward, and it will not reach those of 2025 nor those of 2030. This is the conclusion,...
The responsible return of trade fairs. Ecomondo in the time of Covid
The purpose of travel is not just leisure and exploration. People also move around for business and work, and the business travel sector took a heavy hit due to the Covid-19 pandem...
The Atlantic Ocean contains more plastic than we thought
Plastic, or rather microplastic is added to plastic. And the Atlantic Ocean is even more contaminated than we feared. This is demonstrated by a new study by Katsiaryna Pabortsava a...
Germany wants to charge suppliers of throwaway items for abandoned waste
Packaging, cigarette butts, plastic cups and all sorts of throwaway items carelessly abandoned on the street or in parks. How much does it cost to collect and dispose of them corre...
Desertification: Is Europe on the Brink of a Soil Crisis?
Desertification, spurred by soil exploitation and climate change, is today an increasing threat also in Europe. Measures to prevent it are not enough. A coordinated strategy is lac...
Future Water. Evolution and Revolution of the Water Service
Over half a billion euros for the next five years. Gruppo Cap, the 100% publicly-funded company managing the integrated water service in the Metropolitan City of Milan and currentl...
The Museum of the Non-discarded
Some define it as the Sistine Chapel of the poor, a humble Louvre, a Divine Comedy of work tools, of waste and worn out shoes. Famous critics regard it as an extraordinary and uniq...
Oil and bicycle: in Siena the recovery starts from sustainability
The post-Covid recovery will have to start from the territories, from the communities and from sustainability. The initiative launched by Sienambiente for a green recovery of the P...
Amazon, Do not destroy
The first law in the world banning the destruction of returned or unsold products has been passed in France. This happened following the wave of indignation unleashed after the rel...
Rethinking the Chinese Economy
When was the circular economy idea first introduced in China? “As far as I know the idea of circular economy (CE) was first introduced in China in the late 1990s, by research...
The Circular Republic of China
In Shanghai, the city’s administration excels in its commitment to electronic waste recycling, an ongoing ordeal that emerged from China’s digital boom. Urban mining potential is b...
There's Good in CO2 (If You Know How to Find It)
The area of Turin known as “Innovation Mile”, between the Po and Dora Riparia rivers, is home to a large number of innovative companies and technological institutes. The newes...
The Right to Repair
A washing machine is not forever, there’s little doubt about this. But, if buying an appliance used to be a long-term investment, nowadays this is no longer true. Whether obsolesce...
A Tyre's Sense in Music
Music is born out of silence. And silence can stem from a discarded tyre, after years spent squealing on tarmac. The project for the acoustic improvement of Parma’s Toscanini Audit...
Power to Imagination. The Radical Green Future of Ecotopia 2121
Radical, visionary, eccentric, ironic, and firmly outside the box. Shamelessly, boldly and irreverently utopian. You can love it or hate it, but you can surely not remain indi...
REbuild: To Decarbonise Construction We Need to Close the Loop
We need a paradigm shift, even in the construction sector. Deep, fast and pervasive. In one word, ground-breaking: or better “disruptive,” as the innovator’s jargon calls it. Innov...
An (Almost) Perfect Circle: Paper Recycling in Italy
Making a virtue of necessity. This has always been the mantra in the Italian paper industry. A Country of “poor” forests that are not particularly productive in terms of biomass, t...
The Plastic Route no Longer Leads East
A little girl plays among heaps of packaging and plastic waste coming from every corner of the world. She “fishes” for dead fish in a polluted stream, whilst sheep graze on bubblew...