Lakshmi Raghupathy

Lakshmi raghupathy has worked in environmental impact assessment, which included environmental clearances (EC) for industrial projects and specifying ecologically sensitive areas (ESA). She is an environmentalist, and works as a visiting faculty member in the TERI School of Advanced Studies.She represented the Government of … Read More

Construction & Demolition Waste in India – Challenges & Way Forward | With Brajesh Kr Dubey

This webinar discusses the challenges in collection and transport, concerns about finances, complications in addressing pricing of recycled C&D waste products, collaboration between institute, industry and government & most importantly how from Indian context, there is a need for robust estimation and characterisation of C&D waste to design systems for material recovery.Read More

Does Recycling Create More Waste? – A Tweetchat

Recycling must not become only “R”. Education is needed on the Reduce & Reuse parts Read More

Future of Waste Recycling Technology

Watch Bridget Croke (Closed Loop Fund) and Doug Woodring (Ocean Recovery Alliance) discuss the Future of Recycling Technology with Prof. Margaret Bates (Northampton University) . This panel was organized under the theme “Future of Waste” curated by Prof. Margaret Bates as part of the 2016 Global Dialogue on Waste.Read More

Results from the 2015 Global Waste Survey

In April, be Waste Wise conducted the 2015 Global Waste survey. The survey asked our community members to choose the waste topics they wanted to hear about. Readers chose from a long list of nuanced topics ranging from questions about … Read More

The Father of Waste Hierarchy Talks About the Current Status of Waste Management Worldwide

Ad Lansink is a former Dutch politician and the father of the waste hierarchy. Isonomia’s Steve Watson conducted an interview with Ad Lansink based on questions submitted by be Waste Wise’s community. This is the first of two installments of the interview. In the second installment, which will be published on 28th, November, Ad and Steve talk about circular economy and zero waste.Read More

Compatibility Between Recycling and Waste-to-Energy

This panel addressed the role of waste-to-energy (if any) in the waste management hierarchy of North America and Europe, provided international experience on the degree of compatibility between recycling and waste-to-energy, analyses the arguments for the juxtaposition of waste-to-energy and recycling, and discusses the policies adopted in some communities to build successful sustainable waste management systems, with the general aim of moving away from landfills.Read More

Why are Recycling Rates Higher in Communities with Waste-to-Energy?

The major reason why you see higher recycling rates in areas with waste-to-energy compared to those that don’t is basically the state and local policy environment. To just make the decision to move to waste-to-energy facility there has to be a lot of studies of feasibility, including understanding the waste stream, thinking through what the different streams of waste you have. How can you best maximize those streams? The kind of planning that goes into this type of a facility really engages the whole gamut of the waste management stream. So, those localities, and solid waste districts that have sited or are looking at moving to waste-to-energy as one part of their waste disposal strategy are also engaged in an integrated waste policy initiative.Read More

Plastics and Green House Gas Emissions from Waste-to-Energy

“After doing the material and energy balances for waste-to-energy in the city of Vienna, we found that by providing both district heating and electricity, waste-to-energy in Vienna reduces the equivalent of 1.4 tonnes of CO2 emissions compared to landfilling with recovery of some landfill gas for electricity generation. So, 1.4 tonnes of CO2 can be saved by 1 tonne of municipal residual waste going into the waste-to-energy facility in Vienna.”Read More

Environmentalists’ Opposition to Waste-to-Energy

A lot of it has to do with U.S. history around science and the birth of environmental science in the 1970’s with Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring and the revelation that chemicals in the environment maybe poisoning us without our knowledge. That caused a political split in our conversation between environmentalists on the political left and the chemical and petroleum industries which moved to the political right. And, we see that alignment existing even to this day.Read More

Correlation Between Recycling Rates and Waste-to-Energy

In the last 15 years, waste-to-energy as the percentage of waste generated has come down. Starting from 19% in 1995 down to about 12% of the waste now. So, we’ve actually gone backwards in terms of waste-to-energy. Recycling has gone up, from about 25% to about 34% from 1995. But that’s not a huge increase either in 15 years! If you add these two rates, the waste that’s converted to energy and waste that’s recovered by recycling hasn’t changed in the last 15 years. We’re still landfilling about 54-55% of waste.Read More

Waste-to-Energy in the Waste Management Hierarchy

Waste-to-Energy is a strategy that many cities with dense population, have issues with landfilling, and want to decrease waste transportation distances are using and continue to look at. Waste-to-energy is also a technology that has been evolving over the years and there are many new developments in this technology, moving in mainly one direction – to be able to applied to smaller size waste streams. Not only is it a strategy that has real importance for the current public policy, it is a strategy that will definitely present itself to additional areas.Read More

Commercial Waste Recycling Policy in the United States

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How can Businesses Encourage Recycling?

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Single Stream Recycling and Dirty MRFs

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Educating Citizens about Recycling

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Pay As You Throw Policy in the United States

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Methods to Increase Participation in Recycling

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Focus for Municipal Policy to Increase Recycling

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Are there drawbacks to Curbside Recycling?

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Integrating the Informal Waste Recycling Sector in Latin America

“When designing solutions for inteftrating informal waste recycling, we need an adequate understanding of how the overall system is currently working including both formal and informal elements”. – Jane Olley
This panel explored how solid waste management is different in the Global South, and in particular in Latin America and the Caribbean, and considers the benefits of integrating the informal sector into municipal waste management strategies.Read More

Compatibility Between Recycling and Waste-to-Energy

Click here to read the full length article based on this panel

Recycling and/or Waste-to-Energy is probably one of the most controversial topics in … Read More

Recycling in North American Cities

The panel addressed recycling in North American cities, and how to improve the collection and processing of recyclables at the municipal level. Additionally, it will provide insights into the opportunities and trends for recycling within waste management in the North … Read More