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Mumbai launches Kanjurmarg landfill green buffer plan with large scale plantation and pollution control measures to improve urban resilience.....

by Silvia Martelli (Il Sole 24 Ore), Gianpaolo Sorgi (Voxeurope, France), Ana Somavilla (El Confidencial, Spain) and Ieva Kniukštienė (Delphi, Lithuania) For decades, the symbol of tobacco consumption was the cigarette butt: small, ubiquitous, difficult to dispose of. Today, however, a new, more complex and potentially more dangerous type of waste is appearing in European cities: disposable electronic cigarettes. Coloured, cheap and designed to be consumed quickly, so-called 'puffs' contain plastic, electronic circuits, chemical liquids and lithium batteries. A combination that turns them, at the end of their use, into real electronic waste. And while the public debate focuses mainly on the effects of vaping on health - particularly among teenagers and the very young - environmental alarm is growing in parallel. Many devices end up in municipal bins or directly in the street, instead of being disposed of in dedicated e-waste circuits. The consequences range from the dispersion of polluting materials to the risk of fires in waste treatment plants caused by damaged lithium batteries. Faced with the rapid spread of single-use e-cigs, several European countries are starting to take action. Some, such as Belgium and France, have chosen the path of a ban. Others are strengthening collection and producer responsibility systems. In the background, a common question remains: how to handle technological products designed to last a few days, but destined to leave a much longer environmental footprint? France is one of the countries that has taken the hardest line. With a law of 24 February 2025, Paris banned the sale, distribution and even possession for commercial purposes of pre-filled and non-refillable disposable electronic cigarettes. However, the measure does not introduce a specific collection system for these devices: e-cigs remain covered by the general legislation on electronic waste and batteries. In practice, the devices have to be delivered to the normal col...

New York’s new symbol could be a rotten apple. The city’s nastiest table scraps — from old coffee filters to spoiled spinach bunches and greasy boxes — are being recycled back into food and flowers, as residents across the five boroughs have collected some 5 million pounds of decayed waste produced under New York’s controversial composting law. An estimated 10,000 urban farmers have used the recycled scraps — which they dub “Black Gold” — to nourish their home gardens and grow what they say are “unbelievable” crops. “This compost produces great vegetables. My fig trees love this stuff. I got four fig trees and they grow so many figs — I can’t keep up. You taste the difference in your fruits and vegetables using this compost. Oh, my word, it’s unbelievable,” said Dominick Rondinelli, 76, who says he takes as many bags of compost as he can grab from the Staten Island Compost Facility’s free giveaways. “It’s not horse manure. It doesn’t give off an odor. Your neighbors can’t complain, or your wife. I was here last year as well. I take all of the bags they will give me, and what I don’t use, I give to my friends. Who would give someone a gift of a bag of dirt? Only me!” Of the five boroughs, Queens has returned the majority of the “black gold” crafted by the Department of Sanitation through its intense composting program. The World’s Borough has passed out more than 1,375,200 pounds of compost between its two collection sites so far this year — making up roughly 28% of the recycled food scraps that the city has passed out for free. The borough itself collects more than the impressive 1,237,200 pounds of compost that the DSNY has handed over directly to community gardens, schools and other nonprofits throughout the city. Staten Island is the only other borough that could give Queens compost lovers a run for their money — 1,135,200 pounds of claimed compost have been picked up from the Staten Island Compost Facility so far this year.

Researchers from India's Homi Bhabha National Institute and Bhabha Atomic Research Centre have demonstrated an efficient route for converting high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic waste into high-quality turbostratic graphene using flash Joule heating (FJH), while directly validating its performance in supercapacitor electrodes. The approach relies on rapid capacitive discharge to drive extremely fast resistive heating of the polymer precursor, reaching temperatures above 2500°C within milliseconds. This ultrafast thermal spike induces carbonization and graphitization in a single step, eliminating the need for external furnaces, catalysts, or solvents. Compared to conventional graphene production routes such as chemical vapor deposition or chemical oxidation, the FJH process is significantly simpler, avoids hazardous chemicals entirely, and reduces both energy consumption and environmental impact. HDPE, a widely used thermoplastic found in packaging and consumer products, represents a major fraction of global plastic waste. Its chemical stability and high molecular weight make it persistent in the environment, contributing to long-term pollution and microplastic formation. Traditional recycling methods often downgrade its value due to polymer degradation, and only a small portion of the more than 400 million tonnes of plastic produced annually is effectively recycled. Converting such waste into graphene offers a compelling upcycling pathway, transforming a low-value pollutant into a high-performance nanomaterial. Material characterization confirms the high quality of the synthesized graphene. Raman spectroscopy shows a high I2D/IG ratio of 1.22 and a low ID/IG ratio of 0.05, indicating well-ordered graphitic domains with minimal defects. Complementary analyses using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) further validate the formation of turbostratic graphene structures. Th...

... FILE - Compost made from decomposed green kitchen scraps, yard litter and garden waste, appears in New Market, Va., on March 8, 2009. (AP ...

During a visit to the Jindal Waste-to-Energy Plant at Kondaveedu in Palnadu district, the Deputy Chief Minister emphasised the need to convert waste into a resource through segregation, processing and energy generation.

Launched in 2021 with support from WWF-Norway and WWF-Vietnam, the "Hue – Plastic Smart City" project is transforming central Vietnam's historic city into a model for plastic reduction. The initiative targets the protection of Hue's rivers, wetlands, and coastal ecosystems from plastic pollution, setting a blueprint for sustainable urban development across the region.

Howard County, Maryland has made history as the home of the first human composting facility on the East Coast. Earth Funeral, the company behind the operation, offers an eco-friendly alternative to traditional burial methods, transforming human remains into nutrient-rich soil. The milestone marks a growing shift toward greener end-of-life options across the United States.

A new publication is championing a fundamental shift in how we handle waste, pushing for people-centered approaches that prioritize source separation, recycling, and composting over conventional disposal methods. Rather than treating waste as a problem to be buried or burned, the report argues that communities should be empowered to actively participate in sorting and recovering valuable materials. This human-first philosophy places residents at the heart of sustainable waste solutions.

A landfill collapse in Davao City, Philippines, killed one trash picker and left two elderly women missing, as heavy rains destabilized the massive garbage mountain in Barangay New Carmen — displacing around 100 families who called the site home. The disaster is the latest in a string of deadly landfill failures across the Philippines, following collapses in Cebu City and Rizal that killed dozens earlier this year. Experts point to decades of failed waste segregation enforcement, improper landfill operations, and lax government oversight as the root causes, echoing the catastrophic 2000 Payatas collapse that killed at least 218 people.