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In New Zealand, Waitakere and North Shore City Councils are making local government and business history by commissioning the country‘‘s largest-ever waste collection contract and by proposing a waste by-law aimed at reducing the region‘‘s rubbish. The new waste collection contract signed by two of New Zealand‘‘s largest cities is …

Increase of packaging use is growing by less than 1% per annum while Member States look to be on track for achieving the 2008 Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive targets. Those are the main conclusions of an ASSURRE analysis of official Packaging and Packaging Waste statistics from 2002. Following its …

International Wastenews, Waste Centre Denmark no. 2, 2005 reports that Sweden is considering the introduction of a tax on waste for incineration. The Swedish BRAS committee has presented an extensive report proposing that the fossil part of the waste should be subjected to both an energy tax and a CO2 …

The Aluminum Association, Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI), and Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries (ISRI) has released statistics indicating that Americans and the can recycling industries recycled 51.5 billion aluminium cans in 2004, for a beverage can recycling rate of 51.2 per cent. This reflects a 1.2 per cent increase over …

The Commission announced in the Communication on Integrated Product Policy (COM(2003) 302 final) the intention to launch a work with the purpose of identifying products with the greatest potential for environmental improvement from a life-cycle perspective. This work started in 2004 and is being led by the Institute for Prospective …

TAMOUNG, Cambodia – Nget Loun’s rickety old thatched house is typical of Cambodia’s impoverished countryside, but it holds a surprise inside: a state of the art, environmentally friendly gas stove. Link to full article

Japanese Fujitsu Limited announced in January that they have jointly developed the world‘‘s first large personal computer cases made of environmentally friendly bioplastics. Japan for Sustainability reports that the plastic is used in Fujitsu‘‘s spring 2005 model FMV-BIBLO NB80K notebook computers. The material contains polylactic acid and is a bioplastic …

Alcoa Aluminio, Tetra Pak, Klabin and TSL Ambiental have inaugurated the world‘s first carton packaging recycling facility located in Piracicaba, Brazil. The plant uses ground-breaking plasma technology, which enables the total separation of aluminum and plastic components from the cartons. This innovative process constitutes a significant enhancement to the current …

Nanotechnology has been significantly increasing its impact on the food and beverage packaging industry during last three years, according to a new market study developed by Helmut Kaiser Consultancy. The sales of the nano-related packaging products have been rising from US$150 million in 2002 to $ 860 million in 2004 …

"The process of returning a used product to at least Original Equipment Manufacturer performance specification and giving the resultant product a warranty that is at least equal to that of a newly manufactured equivalent."