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From Waste To Wealth: How One Pet Product Innovator Is Shaping A Sustainable Future

Posted on by dishanth
From Waste To Wealth: How One Pet Product Innovator Is Shaping A Sustainable Future

Founded in 2009 on the humble yet profound idea to make life with dogs simpler and better, Canadian company Earth Rated has evolved from being known just as a company that sells dog waste bags to now offering a diverse range of products that address the needs of dog owners worldwide.

The company now has a presence in over 40 countries, and is focused on product innovation and using business as a force for good. I recently caught up with Earth Rated CEO, Abby Gnanendran, to delve into these topics and how the company, which is also a certified B Corp, is shaping what it means to be sustainable in the pet product industry.

Abby Gnanendran: Back in 2009, we recognized a common issue faced by dog owners – the inconvenience of using large, flimsy, and wasteful grocery store bags to pick up after their dogs. That’s when we set out to create affordable, leak-proof, and high-quality poop bags, along with a handy dispenser. Since then, we’ve continued to innovate and launch new products to make life with dogs simpler and better. Today, Earth Rated bags are used by over 4.5 million people daily and can be found in over 20,000 stores in 40+ countries. We now have a new toy collection, a line of wipes and even more exciting things in the pipeline. We couldn’t be prouder of our humble beginnings and we’re grateful for what we’ve been able to achieve to date.

 

Marquis: It seems a big focus of Earth Rated is on innovation, in a product category that is not known for innovation. Can you say more about your innovation process?

Gnanendran: Our sharp focus on innovation is largely due to our community of loyal customers. Their keen observation of the details that our Innovation Team works tirelessly to bring to life, motivates us to continue creating thoughtfully designed products. For instance, their reaction to the convenient ‘3-bags-left’ sticker on our poop bag rolls, as well as our new toy line, has been nothing short of amazing. Innovation is so important for our company that in 2023, we unveiled our new Innovation Centre. This creative and inspiring space is on an entirely new floor at our Headquarters in Montreal, Canada, and serves as the primary hub for our Innovation Team to bring new products to life. We strive to make sure every detail of our products are carefully thought out, reliable and beautifully designed with our customers in mind. This centre’s open-plan layout, and flexible workspaces, create an environment that fosters innovative thinking. The space is intentionally designed to inspire and facilitate the flow of ideas, enabling the Innovation Team to push the boundaries of what’s possible in dog product development. Whether it’s the thickness of our poop bags, the signature hook on our dispenser, or the durability of our plant-based grooming wipes, we’re always evolving in order to tackle the most pressing consumer pain points from our valuable Earth Rated community so that we can offer the products pet owners wish they had.

 

Marquis: How do you think this approach to innovation and new products will affect the overall dog product industry?

Gnanendran: We began with a humble foundation, primarily centred around providing an essential dog product: poop bags. We’ve since evolved towards an approach steeped in innovation, recognizing that incorporating customer feedback into our daily operations is really our way of helping to propel the industry forward. We believe our company stands out in the pet industry because we actively listen to consumer feedback. By soliciting and valuing input from our community of dog owners worldwide, we ensure that our products not only meet their needs but exceed their expectations.

 

Marquis: How does your B Corp certification play into that impact? Why is B Corp certification important to Earth Rated?

Gnanendran: We’re incredibly proud to be a certified B Corp. For us, transparency is key. At the end of the day, anyone can claim to be sustainable, but having a third-party certification that can actually back it up, makes your brand more trustworthy. We also joined GreenCircle’s #BrandsYouCanTrust initiative by undergoing their Recycled Content Certification. By participating in initiatives that promote ethical business conduct, we’re not only elevating our own standards but also encouraging a collective industry-wide commitment to integrity and responsibility.

 

Marquis: What is the next set of innovations and plans you have in store for consumers?

Gnanendran: Overall, 2023 was such a pivotal year for our company as we revealed a new brand identity, a new innovation centre, a better poop bag, and a new collection of toys. It’s hard to believe we could ever top it, but 2024 is gearing up to be an exciting year! Looking ahead, we plan on continuing to push boundaries, challenge the status quo, and innovate for a brighter, more responsible future, for us and for our dogs. Stay tuned!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source    Forbes

Canada’s Sustainable Jobs Plan Will Become a Law Next Year

Posted on by dishanth
Canada’s Sustainable Jobs Plan Will Become a Law Next Year

Canada’s Sustainable Jobs Plan is intended to train workers for new roles in preparation for the future of a green economy. The government has presented a sustainable jobs bill that will provide the workforce needed for what is called a “just transition” to a new green economy. The country aims for a 40-45% reduction in emissions by 2030 and net zero by 2050.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hopes the Sustainable Jobs Plan will help attract billions of dollars in investment by creating a skilled clean energy workforce. The bill, which will become law early in 2024, will publish an action plan every five years to put in place measures to invest in the net-zero emissions economy and skills of the future. From 2025, the government plans to release a new sustainable jobs plan every five years.

This new legislation has been ongoing for over two years of consultations and conversations with provinces and territories, Indigenous Peoples, workers and unions, industry, environmental and civil society organizations and interested Canadians. Based on these conversations, the creation of the Sustainable Jobs Plan put forward ten concrete actions to advance the creation of sustainable jobs and support workers in every part of Canada. These actions include:

  1. Establish the sustainable jobs secretariat: This will ensure federal policies and program coordination among Government departments.
  1. Create a Sustainable Partnership Council: This council would advise the government on job creation and support workers.
  1. Develop economic strategies through the Regional Energy and Resource Tables: These tables will work with provincial and territorial governments, Indigenous groups and other partners to identify a set of concrete actions and develop economic strategies.
  1. Introduce a sustainable jobs stream under the Union Training and Innovation Program: This will provide workers with training, equipment and materials that meet industry standards and investments that support a low-carbon economy.
  1. Advanced funding for skills development for sustainable jobs: This will be achieved by working with universities, colleges, union training centres and employer groups to help workers succeed in a net-zero economy.
  1. Promote Indigenous-led solutions and a National Benefits-Sharing Framework: This will be achieved by continuously supporting Indigenous-owned clean energy projects across Canada.
  1. Improve labour market data collection, tracking and analysis: These improvements will help the council provide advice and identify new measures and actions that must be taken.
  1. Motivate investors and draw in industry leaders to support workers: The money will be used to support green infrastructure, clean technologies, climate action, and environmental protection.
  1. Collaborate and lead on the global stage: Canada is committed to ensuring that their best practices and lessons learned are shared globally.
  1. Establish legislation that ensures ongoing engagement and accountability: The overall goal is that all Canadians are involved in the decision-making process and that everyone adapts to new changes to help achieve our goals.

Canada’s Sustainable Jobs Plan will train people in jobs that are compatible with Canada’s path to a net-zero emissions and climate-resilient future. These include:

  • Clean energy: This includes jobs in solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal power generation, as well as energy efficiency and conservation.
  • Green infrastructure: This includes jobs in building and maintaining sustainable infrastructure, such as green roofs, rainwater harvesting systems, and electric vehicle charging stations.
  • Low-carbon transportation: This includes jobs in electric vehicle manufacturing, public transit, and active transportation (e.g., walking, biking, and rolling).
  • Sustainable agriculture: This includes jobs in organic farming, sustainable forestry, and aquaculture.
  • Recycling and waste management: This includes jobs in recycling, composting, and waste-to-energy.
  • Environmental monitoring and remediation: This includes jobs in monitoring air and water quality and cleaning up contaminated sites.

The Sustainable Jobs Plan will help to ensure Canada has the skilled workforce it needs to build a clean, healthy future for the country.

Think-tank Clean Energy Canada expects jobs in this sector will grow by 3.4% annually over the next decade, nearly four times faster than the Canadian average. With the commitment from the Canadian government to the Sustainable Jobs Plan, there is hope that the country can meet its environmental goals and that sustainable jobs will become the new normal across the country.

 

 

 

 

Source  Happy Eco News

Growing Food with Human Waste

Posted on by dishanth
Growing Food with Human Waste

Growing Food with Human Waste is Needed

A few projects are looking at growing food with human waste, including researchers from the Laboratoire Eau Environnement et Systemes Urbains just outside of Paris. They are switching out harmful synthetic fertilizers from being used on their wheat crops to urine-based fertilisers. And they are seeing positive results as the waste-based fertilizers provide organic matter that improves the soil.

Farmers in a small town in Tepetixtla, Mexico, use fertilizer made from human excrement to fertilize their crops. Growing food with human waste requires a composting process used to be hygienic and better for the soil and biodiversity. Moreover, growing food with human waste also saves water and reduces pollution because the excrement isn’t flushed into the sewage system.

In Vermont, the Rich Earth Institute runs a community program that turns human urine into fertilizer. The Institute conducts original research to examine the safety and efficacy of urine-derived fertilizers in agriculture. The program encourages community members to donate their urine to help them further their research. In 2021, 180 people donated their urine to the Rich Earth Institute.

In Kenya, the organization Sanivation developed a fecal sludge treatment plant. The plant can serve 10,000 people and produce 350 tons of fuel per month. This can be used as a cooking and industrial fuel, a sustainable option for charcoal made from fallen trees. Each plant ensures that water is safely managed, creates local employment, prevents environmental pollution and saves trees through their innovative biofuels.

In Switzerland, a company called Sanitation 360 developed a urine cassette that collects, contains, treats and concentrates the urine inside the toilet. The urine is then stabilized, dehydrated, and used directly as a fertilizer. The fertilizer includes the same type and concentration of plant nutrients in commercial fertilizers. By converting urine into a dried fertilizer, the flow of polluting plant nutrients to the environment can be minimized, which can help limit nutrient overload and dead zones in aquatic ecosystems.

Human excrement is one of the world’s most natural things, and it’s a shame that much of it is going to waste. While we may get queasy thinking about fertilizing our crops with human excrement, do we know what is in the currently used fertilizers? What is more natural and less environmentally damaging than something from our bodies? With more organizations and researchers finding new sanitary ways to use human excrement as fertilizers, this may become the new normal and the new way of food production.

 

 

 

 

Source  Happy Eco

Cigarette butts are turned into mosquito repellent and stuffing for soft toys at this Indian factory

Posted on by dishanth
Cigarette butts are turned into mosquito repellent and stuffing for soft toys at this Indian factory

An Indian factory is recycling cigarette butts into stuffing for soft toys.

An estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are littered worldwide each year, 90 per cent of which contain non-biodegradable plastic filters.

Reprocessing them into a range of products, including toys and pillows, is the brainchild of businessman Naman Gupta.

“We started with 10 grams (of fibre per day) and now we are doing 1,000 kilograms… Annually we are able to recycle millions of cigarette butts,” he says.

At his factory on the on the outskirts of New Delhi, an all-woman team manually separates the butts into fiber, paper and leftovers.

 

Women workers make soft toys using recycled fibre separated from cigarette filter tips at a cigarette butts recycling factory in Noida, India.

 

The paper is converted into a pulp, mixed with an organic binder and turned into burnable mosquito repellant.

The fibre is cleaned and bleached with organic chemicals that neutralise its toxins. The resulting white stuffing is used in soft toys and pillows.

At Gupta’sfactory on the outskirts of the Indian capital, workers also separate out the butts’ tobacco, which is turned into compost powder.

His company – Code Effort – has recycled over 300 million cigarette butts from the city streets so far.

 

Recycled fibre made from cigarette filter tips is seen in a cotton gin machine at a cigarette butt recycling factory in Noida, India.

 

The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 267 million people, nearly 30 per cent of India’s adult population, are tobacco users, and butts litter urban streets where general cleanliness standards are poor.
“(So) working here also helps keep our environment clean,” says Poonam, an employee in Gupta’s factory.

Cigarette butts are the most discarded waste item worldwide according to the UN Environment Programme.

Many of these end up in our oceans and on our beaches with disastrous consequences for marine environments.

Cigarette filters are made out of non-biodegradable cellulose acetate fibres, which break down into microplastics and end up being consumed by marine life and birds.

In 2019, 5.9 per cent of the EU population aged 15 years and over consumed at least 20 cigarettes per day, and 12.6 per cent consumed less than 20, according to Eurostat.

In Europe, companies like France’s MéGo! have also found inventive ways to reuse cigarette butts, recycling them into furniture like tables and benches.

 

 

Source  euronews.green

Reduce food waste with processing and packaging solutions

Posted on by dishanth
Reduce food waste with processing and packaging solutions

It’s not hard to make the case for why tackling food loss and food waste is important to sustainability. About one-third of food produced globally never gets consumed. And food waste accounts for about 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The food and beverage industry has a role to play by reducing food waste in companies’ operations, and by giving consumers products that are less likely to lead to waste. There is good reason (beyond sustainability) for the industry to pay attention — whether you’re a retailer, a manufacturer or a food brand — because consumers care about this issue. According to the Tetra Pak Index 2020, 77 percent of consumers say food waste is a concern, putting it on par with climate change.

Before we get to the role of industry, it’s important to understand the difference between food loss and food waste. Food loss is caused by inefficient growing, processing or preservation — in other words, food that fails to make its way to retail. A number of considerations in food manufacturing can reduce food loss. Increasing efficiencies can reduce product loss before food even leaves the factory, in addition to a number of other sustainability benefits.

Food waste occurs at the stages of distribution, retail and consumption by consumers. Because it’s driven by the short shelf life of food, we can ensure food is packaged to optimize shelf life. A variety of factors can protect and extend the life of the product.

Let’s take a closer look at these solutions.

 

Implementing a methodology like Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) will help improve the overall productivity of a plant, including mapping the sources of food loss and waste. Image courtesy of Tetra Pak.

 

Understanding where food loss happens in manufacturing

Once raw ingredients arrive at a plant for processing, there are many reasons those ingredients don’t make it out of the factory. The first step in tackling food loss at the factory is understanding where it is happening.

Modern automation systems, such as Tetra Pak PlantMaster, enable food and beverage manufacturers to track all product movements within their facilities. This data allows them to build a baseline to understand where and why food loss is happening, and where investments can be made for improvements.

Another way to understand and reduce food loss at the plant is by implementing a methodology such as Total Productive Maintenance (TPM). TPM is a holistic approach to working and equipment maintenance that aims to reduce stops and breakdowns. This method will not only help improve the overall productivity of a plant, but also help in mapping all the sources of waste and loss. For example, plant operators may find they are having a lot of starts and stops in the packaging process, which leads to liquid food loss. By implementing TPM, one food and beverage manufacturer was able to reduce its food loss by 3.6 million pounds.

Another pain point in processing with a significant amount of liquid food loss is the mix phase when the processing system switches from water to product and vice versa. This mix phase transition occurs between every batch, typically with numerous batches per day, per processing system. Recently at one of my customers’ sites, we implemented a solution that lessens the duration of the mix phase without compromising on product quality. This resulted in a 20.5-gallon reduction in product loss per transition, saving the company more than 24,500 gallons of product per system, per year. These savings can add up quickly.

Quality loss is another area to look at, and which would a focused improvement project under the TPM methodology would address. When manufacturers conduct internal quality sampling, they are de facto creating food loss. And some manufacturers are sampling up to 2 percent of their finished product. Once a sampling plan can be standardized, the sampling rate is reduced from 1 percent to 1.2 percent without compromising on quality or food safety.

 

Minimize food waste with packaging

Once food has escaped being lost during the production process, ample other opportunities can prevent it from becoming food waste. While food and beverage manufacturers don’t have much control over what logistics operators, retailers or consumers do, they can determine the packaging. The right packaging can extend shelf life and increase the odds of being consumed.

At the most basic level, good packaging must keep food safe to eat and free from bacteria or other contamination. A package is a physical barrier that keeps oxygen, water vapor and other particles out. Some packages protect from light, and others are used with processing techniques that extend shelf life.

A package should also protect the quality, integrity and taste of the product to ensure consumers don’t throw it out. Especially if your products contain functional, value-added ingredients, such as omega-3 fatty acids or vitamins, you need a package that will not compromise their effectiveness, bringing benefits to the consumer.

One final packaging consideration: Does it need to be chilled throughout the supply chain? Packages that require refrigeration are susceptible to spoiling if something goes awry during chilled transportation and storage to retail, or if consumers fail to get them into their fridge at home. However, a package that is shelf-stable will be perfectly fine unopened even if the power goes out. As an added bonus, a package that doesn’t require chilled transportation will cut down on transportation-related energy needs, while still maintaining the quality of the product and preventing food waste.

Having sound, thoughtful approaches to food processing and packaging is the entry point on the road to preventing food loss and waste. By optimizing processing, you’re ensuring more food makes it out the door and on its way to consumers. And by making smart packaging choices, you can ensure that products have a higher success rate of making it through the supply chain and being enjoyed by consumers.

 

 

Source  GreenBiz 

Carbon Innovation Fund: Co-op to allocate £3m to projects creating low-carbon food systems

Posted on by dishanth
Carbon Innovation Fund: Co-op to allocate £3m to projects creating low-carbon food systems

Announced today (23 November), the Carbon Innovation Fund will run for three years, offering £1m in grant funding annually to community environmental causes, social enterprises, charities, start-ups and collaborative projects working on solutions for a more sustainable food system.

Ten projects will be awarded each year by the Fund and each successful applicant will be entitled to a share of up to £100,000. Applicants will need to be UK-based but their projects could help decarbonisation at any point in the food system globally.

Co-op said in a statement that it will only support projects that contribute to “real systems change” for food. The company has also said the fund will support the preservation and dissemination of ancient and indigenous knowledge as well as supporting emerging technologies and processes.

“With the Carbon Innovation Fund, we’re looking to do something different; rather than ideas for individual commercial benefit, we want innovations that can be freely shared and can be of benefit to society in general,” said Co-op Food’s chief executive Jo Whitfield.

“It’s this type of co-operation that we believe we need to help accelerate our response to the climate crisis.”

The Fund is being provided with money allocated from the Co-op; the retailer allocates 2p from every £1 of sales to its charitable foundation. Applications are open until 12pm on Friday 10 December 2021.

Earlier this year, the Co-op Group built on a commitment to reach carbon neutrality for all own-brand food and drink by 2025 with a detailed 10-point climate action plan. The firm’s long-term climate goal is net-zero across all scopes, for all Group activities, by 2040.

Then, at COP26 in Glasgow this month, the retailer joined competitors Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose & Partners and Marks & Spencer in signing a new joint commitment to halve the nature and climate impacts of food systems by 2030. This initiative is being orchestrated by WWF.

The news on the Carbon Innovation Fund comes on the same week that John Lewis & Partners, in partnership with environmental charity Hubbub, launched a new £1m fund for innovative projects that help to reduce waste across the food, textiles and technology sectors.

 

 

Source Edie