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Necessity is the Mother of Invention

One of the biggest barriers to more efficient recycling is that most products were not designed with recycling in mind. Remedying this problem may require a complete rethinking of industrial processes, says William Mc Donough, an architect and the co-author of a book published in 2002 called “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things”. Along with Michael Braungart, his fellow author and a chemist, he lays out a vision for establishing “closed – loop” cycles where there is no waste. Recycling should be taken into account at the design stage, they argue, and all material should either be able to return to the soil safely or be recycled indefinitely. This may sound like wishful thinking, but Mr McDonough has a good pedigree. Over the years he has worked with companies including Ford and Google.

An outgrowth of “Cradle to Cradle” is the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, a non-profit working group that has developed guidelines that look beyond the traditional benchmarks of packaging design to emphasise the use of renewable, recycled and non-toxic source materials, among other things. Founded in 2003 with just nine members, the group now boasts nearly 100 members, including Target, Starbucks and Estee Lauder, some of which have already begun to change the design of their packaging.

Sustainable packaging not only benefits the environment but can also cut costs. Last year Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, announced that it wanted to reduce the amount of packaging it uses by 5% by 2013, which could save the company as much as $3.4 billion and reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by 667,000 tonnes. As well as trying to reduce the amount of packaging, Wal-Mart also wants to recycle more of it. Two years ago the company began to use an unusual process, called the “sandwich bale”, to collect waste material at its stores and distribution centres for recycling. It involves putting a layer of cardboard at the bottom of a rubbish compactor before filling it with waste material, and then putting another layer of cardboard on top. The compactor then produces a “sandwich” which is easier to handle and transport, says Jeff Ashby of Rocky Mountain Recycling, who invented the process for Wal-Mart. As well as avoiding disposal costs for materials it previously sent to landfill, the company now makes money by selling waste at market prices.

Evidently there is plenty of scope for further innovation in recycling. New ideas and approaches will be needed, since many communities and organisations have set high targets for recycling. Europe’s packaging directive requires member states to recycle 60% of their glass and paper, 50% of metals and 22.5% of plastic packaging by the end of 2008. Earlier this year the European Parliament voted to increase recycling rates by 2020 to 50% of municipal waste and 70% of industrial waste. Recycling rates can be boosted by charging household and businesses more if they produce more rubbish, and by reducing the frequency of rubbish collections while increasing that of recycling collections.

Britain, for example, is struggling with a mountain of green glass. It is the largest importer of wine in the world, bringing in more than 1 billion litres every year, much of it in green glass bottles. But with only a tiny wine industry of its own, there is little demand for the resulting glass. Instead what is needed is clear glass, which is turned into bottles for spirits, and often exported to other countries. As a result, says Andy Dawe, WRAP`S glass-technology manager, Britain is in the “peculiar situation” of having more green glass than it has production capacity for.

Britain’s bottle-makers already use as much recycled green glass as they can in their furnaces to produce new bottles. So some of the surplus glass is down – cycled into construction aggregates or sand for filtration systems. But WRAP`S own analysis reveals that the energy savings for both appear to be “marginal or even disadvantageous”. Working with industry, WRAP has started a new programme called Glass Rite Wine, in an effort to right the imbalance. Instead of being bottled at source, some wine is now imported in 24,000 – litre containers and then bottled in Britain. This may dismay some wine connoisseurs, but it solves two problems, says Mr Dawe: it reduces the amount of green glass that is imported and puts what is imported to good use. It can also cut shipping costs by up to 40%.

Meanwhile a number of cities and firms (including Wal–Mart, Toyota and Nike) have adopted zero-waste targets. This may be unrealistic but Matt Hale, director of the office of solid waste at America’s Environmental Protection Agency, says it is a worthy goal and can help companies think about better ways to manage materials. It forces people to look at the entire life-cycle of a product, says Dr Hale, and ask questions: Can you reduce the amount of material to begin with? Can you design the product to make recycling easier?

If done right, there is no doubt that recycling saves energy and raw materials, and reduces pollution. But as well as trying to recycle more, it it also important to try to recycle better. As technologies and materials evolve there is room for improvement and cause for optimism. In the end, says Ms Krebs, “waste is really a design flaw”.

(The Source: adapted from www.economist.com/node/9249262 )

D. Make notes of the following information and present it in a coherent and logical form using linking words:

1. Efficient ways of managing materials

2. Higher recycling rates

3. Bottled in Britain

4. Sustainable packaging

E. Draw your conclusion by making a summary of the main points. You may add your own viewpoint, if it is appropriate. Make use of the notes of the previous exercises. Use the vocabulary like this:

1. In my opinion /In my judgment

2. From the information it can be seen / shown

3. From the figure it can be estimated…

4. From the data it may be calculated…

5. On this basis / thus it can be deduced that …

6. As far as I am concerned,…

7. To me / As for me…

8. I gather that…

9. In conclusion, it can be said that…

10. Finally, I can say that…

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