A waste treatment plant in Waterbeach, UK, is now being powered mostly with solar energy. Lightsource Renewable Energy Limited and Solarcentury have jointly developed the photovoltaic (PV) 5MW project that will provide 70 percent of AmeyCespa’s Mechanical Biological Treatment plant in the small village in the region of Cambridgeshire. (more…)

From reducing mobile source emissions, to connecting households to drinking water and wastewater services, to clean-up efforts of streams and canals, the United States and Mexico have made a joint effort to protect both human health and the environment in their shared 2,000 mile border region. (more…)

Deutsche Bank, which translates to German Bank, is an international banking and financial services company. Headquarters are located in Frankfurt, Germany and the bank has a very large presence throughout Europe, North America, South America, Asia Pacific, as well as a number of emerging markets, in a number of major financial centers, including New York, Paris, (more…)

Nokia Siemens is a European based telecommunications and data networking equipment provider. It is a joint venture partnership between Finland-based Nokia and Germany-based Siemens that was created in June (more…)

Waste Management Inc., the largest hauler of waste in the U.S., next week a will add its 1,000th truck fueled by natural gas, a landmark that reflects a trend toward new trucking fleets powered by alternative energy sources.

About half of those trucks, including the newest, run (more…)

A UN report says that less than one-third of metals are recycled at a rate of more than 50 percent worldwide, and many are hardly re-used at all, a trend that could jeopardize the emerging green technology sector.

In a study of how 60 “inherently recyclable” metals are collected, processed and re-used, the report by (more…)

Loowatt, a cleverly named company from the UK, is testing a revolutionary waterless toilet system that could help create vibrant local economies around waste treatment.

The toilet uses a unique sealing mechanism to package feces and urine into an odorless cartridge, (more…)

I wasn’t thinking about my plastic diet, when I walked into the store and bought a chocolate bar yesterday. Obviously eating chocolate is not the healthiest thing to do for your body, but today I learned that the packaging material of chocolate bars is also not the best for the environment. It’s tricky because it is difficult to determine what materials were used in the production of the chocolate and candy wrappers.

Similar to milk and juice cartons or potato chip bags, the candy wrappers are generally laminated foils which are prepared by coating a paper base with wax, bonding a thin metal foil layer with an adhesive and dampening with a plastic solution. (more…)

We are living in a world where high consumption has been relentlessly praised, suggesting that we should buy, consume and dispose more stuff than our grandparents used to do. With some nations consuming more than others, the quality and quantity of waste varies across borders. And so does the way it is managed.

A conventional method for waste management is to dump the waste into designated landfill areas where it is left for years without being monitored. Landfill activity remains the most commonly used organized waste disposal method in the world. It is also the easiest and the cheapest. However, brimful landfill sites, hazardous waste and uncontrolled greenhouse gases cause greater environmental and economical impacts. As a simple example, part of the carbon content of the waste when it is dumped into a landfill site, is emitted into the atmosphere in the form of methane, which has a greenhouse effect 20 times greater than that of CO2.

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The Netherlands has a reputation for being progressive, from the environment to social initiatives.  About twice the size of New Jersey, a large proportion of its landmass is below sea level.  Protected (at least for the moment) by an elaborate system of dikes, the country is a center of creativity, efficiency, and diversity.  It’s a place that is open-minded and broad thinking on everything from social programs to wind energy.  A recent trip to Amsterdam also unveiled it is equally creative with its approach to waste management and water reclamation.

Waste management in the Netherlands is tricky.  With limited land area available to landfill, conventional waste is either incinerated to produce energy or exported elsewhere for disposal.  In the way of waste-to-energy (W2E), Amsterdam has created an incredibly efficient Afval Energie Bedrijf (AEB) plant capable of producing 1 million MWh of electricity annually.  Beyond the energy factor, the plant is also being used to create district heating for several communities around Amsterdam, and produces 300,000 gigajoules of heat annually.

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