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Category: Waste

Raising the Bar: Brewing a Greener Future with Concentrated Beer, with Gary Tickle

Concentrated beer formulas that minimize water content and transportation emissions are reducing the carbon footprint of the beer industry. This groundbreaking approach presents an opportunity for both producers and consumers to make more environmentally responsible choices when consuming beer.

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Tackling the Plastic Crisis, with Martin Bourque

In an effort to combat the increasing use of non-recyclable plastics, Martin Bourque and the Ecology Center in Berkeley advocate for laws and programs that reduce plastic consumption. Their strategies, including a bag reduction initiative and a disposable foodware ordinance, have been adopted at state levels and by other cities.

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Optimizing Food Waste Recovery through Algorithms, with Maen Mahfoud


Both food waste and hunger are big problems, but connecting extra food to the people who need it most is often a challenge. In today’s episode, Climate Break talks to Replate, a platform making it easier for businesses to donate their food rather than throwing it out.

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Transforming Food Waste Into Vegan Leather with Polybion’s Axel Gómez-Ortigoza


Over the last two decades, vegan leather has grown in popularity. The catch? It’s usually made with polyesters that can’t be recycled. In today’s episode, we speak to the cofounder of biomaterials company Polybion about their carbon neutral leather alternative Celium, which is produced by feeding agricultural waste to bacteria.

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Bringing Local Textile Recycling to the US with Material Return’s Bobby Carswell


The textile industry produces up to 10% of global emissions and 20% of global wastewater, according to EU estimates. Mechanical recycling can reduce that impact by keeping textiles out of landfills — and in the circular economy — for longer. In this episode, Climate Break spoke to Bobby Carswell about Material Return about how locally based mechanical recycling can help make the US textile industry more circular and less polluting.

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Using Solar Energy to Power Large Scale Compost with Chris Seney

In an attempt to reduce methane emissions, California’s SB 1383 has mandated municipalities dramatically increase the amount of organic waste they compost. But responsibly composting at such a large scale takes energy. We spoke to Chris Seney of Republic Services about how their first of its kind solar powered compost facility in Chula Vista, California, could provide a carbon emissions free way to power composting’s expansion.

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Recycling with Deborah Raphael

Many “recyclable” materials are not recycled or even recyclable. While papers and metals are recycled at relatively high rates, recycling rates for plastic are below 10 percent. Most plastics display numerical codes, purporting to denote a standardized and elaborate recycling system. But the system is convoluted, sometimes confusing even recycling facilities and identifying recycling processes that are not used.

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