#industrial ecosystems

[solarpunkbusiness]

Role models: circular economy examples in manufacturing

Circular manufacturing or circular economy is a means of production, distribution, and consumption where producers bring materials from end-of-life goods back into the economy through reuse, recycling, and recovery instead of disposing of them as waste. 

1. Stora Enso Sunila Mill: a pulp-based refinery plant

Stora Enso Sunila Mill in Finland was the first in the world to extract lignin in a pulp-based refinery plant. The pulp and paper industry is one of the largest manufacturing sectors in the world. It uses 12-15 percent of the wood from forests, which could double by 2050, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

To make the most of the wood they use, Stora Enso Sunila Mill, which owns one of the most extensive private forests in the world, has adopted the circular economy by reusing, recycling, and recovering materials at the mill.

The business sources pulp from their sustainably managed private forests to make paper and packaging to replace plastic. They also produce circular industrial products that are alternatives to fossil fuel-based non-renewable products

2. ReSolved Technologies: Closed-loop plastic recycling

A Dutch startup, ReSolved Technologies, has developed a closed-loop recycling solution for engineering plastics in electronic devices and automobiles. 

Engineering plastics are complex and contain additives that make recycling difficult. 95 per cent of these plastics are downcycled, incinerated, or landfilled.

ReSolved Technologies’ solvent-based recycling technique removes additives like fillers, flame retardants, and colourants, and separates different types of plastics. The recycled plastics are good quality and they can be used to make engineering plastics again. This technology can be used to complement existing mechanical recycling facilities for plastics.

ReSolved Technologies closes the materials loop by turning electronic waste into new electronic devices. Their plastic recycling technology prevents the extraction of fossil fuels for new production and reduces plastic waste and pollution problems.

3. Batch.Works: Smart and circular manufacturing

Another Dutch startup, Batch.Works, offers 3D printing for “Circular Manufacturing as a Service (CmaaS)” using AI-driven factories.

The company uses circular materials like recycled plastics or agricultural waste from traceable sources to make new parts for the manufacturing industry. They offer smart 3D printing to meet on-demand digital production for just-in-time manufacturing, thus reducing overproduction and waste.

The company has a take-back policy for its products to recycle materials and leverages digital warehousing services from third parties for flexibility and scaling. Its novel manufacturing model creates short supply chains to reduce transportation costs and increase agility. 

The short supply chain and digital warehousing cut transport pollution and emissions, and small-batch production makes manufacturing sustainable and cost-effective for client firms.

And many more examples in the link:

[distractionactivated]

Resolutely not reblogging a post about the UK biodiversity crisis to point out that drastic declines in biodiversity in the last 20-100 years do not, necessarily, mean that the entire history of human cultivation of nature here is catastrophic. Like, I get the point the person was making and I also think that the 'we made this green and pleasant land' rhetoric is usually thinly-veiled nationalist chauvinism, but also please think about the statistics you're using.

If your stats all point to the major damage being in the last century or two, this relates to industrialisation, industrial farming, power consolidation, and un/deregulation, not the activities of ordinary farmers 500 years ago or whatever. Therefore, it's not actually countering the points the 'green and pleasant land' chuds are talking about.

[nando161mando]

"#Greece is still burning. An Air Force munitions depot near Nea Anchialos caught fire and all the bombs and missiles are exploding. Perimeter of 3 kilometers is evacuated #wildfires"

[trans-yllz]

"wearing leather/fur or eating animal products is unethical" SHUT UP SHUT UP WE ARE PART OF THE ECOSYSTEM!!!!

[commiepinkofag]

[Greenhouse 100 Polluters Index, 2023 Report/Based on 2021 Data]

#6 US Military/Government

[padawan-historian]

During National Adoption Month (November), we acknowledge the histories, memories, and afterlives of those adoptees who were once children and those who are still adopted into environments where their ancestral identities, languages, and kinship connections are erased, shamed, and disregarded.

We recognize that the multinational and multicolored families who were brought together through colonial adoption agencies and for-profit trafficking have potential and power to disrupt these systems by growing in fellowship and family-ship by nurturing antiracist learning + practices at home and decolonized politics into their community gardens.

But keep in mind, dear neighbors, that the adoption industrial complex is not rooted in community building or ancestral childraising practices. It is not an act of "saving" children from Palestine or Ukraine or Haiti.

The adoption industrial complex rips apart communities through war, through apartheid, and (yes) through settler-colonialism. The agencies and agents of adoption retain structures of environmental racism, probirth politics, and ugly feminism that allow white folks and white-aligned skinfolk to purchase Black, brown, beige, indigenous, and impoverished kids and across the Global South. You "save" a vulnerable child just to reinforce the same apartheid praxis that made them vulnerable in the first place . . . all in the name of what?

Children have a voice, and children have a right to remain, reclaim, and return to their communities.

[queen-boudicca]

Me when doing my environmental science homework, at every available opportunity:

[letterbombbreakdown]

i didnt really realise there was multiple routes it was just obvious to me to go for ecosystems 😭 leave it to spring to automatically go the nature route who couldve guessed. guy who named kemself after plants and wants to be a botanist, likes plants. shocking

[eywaseclipse]

To mitigate the impact of climate change is to help improve our future. Now read that again. 🌱🌎

[always-a-slut-4-ghouls]

I think someone put the brain of a mouse or maybe a squirrel inside my head at some point because all winter I was like “I crave nuts and seeds” and now that it’s getting warmer and brighter out my brain keeps going “it’s fruit time”

Like, modern transportation has made it possible to move many fruits all over the world (in theory) all the time! But the primal early plesiadapiform part of my brain is like “you must eat what is available this season”

[solarpunkbusiness]

Manufacturing in a Circular Economy

Under a circular economy, materials are not discarded after they are used but rather brought back into the economy through a variety of means. This vision is challenging manufacturers to rethink how they design, produce, and ship products away from the old way of the linear economy (take, make, waste) to a more regenerative process. Consumers want products that are produced using more sustainable practices. Industries are responding by finding ways to better and more efficiently use resources. This comes in the form of products made from recovered materials, less packaging, and design and manufacturing practices optimized to reduce energy use and waste.

According to the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS), a circular economy in manufacturing can be achieved by 2030 through the use of disruptive business models and technologies that will improve resource productivity by 30 per cent. Using secondary materials will secure raw materials supply and reduce import dependency and vulnerability to price volatility.

Developing a circular economy in manufacturing would make it less necessary to extract new resources. This would result in biodiversity protection, reduced pollution, less marine littering, and mitigation of climate change. The EPRS also predicts that circularity in manufacturing can create two million jobs in the EU and increase the GDP by 0.8 per cent.

LINK to PDF

Other sources

[nando161mando]

"Yikes.

‘Giant new oil and gas wells that require astonishing volumes of water to fracture bedrock are threatening America’s fragile aquifers.’

#Water #Fracking #OilAndGasIndustry #OilAndGas #OilIndustry

[enement]

Baby Discovered

[kimludcom]

Journey Beyond Year 3000 - A Glimpse Into The Future @Kimlud

[padawan-historian]

There are so many adoption agencies and family-saturated programs connected to the settler-colonial (i.e. laissez-facism) structures that seek to "straighten out" our (eco)systems in order to erase our histories, erode our community spaces, and exploit our cultures and our labor.

I ain't gonna say the big R-word (cause apparently is the equivalent of radioactive kryptonite to certain folks of a . . . lighter complexion) but #ParentsRights are fundamentally antiblack, anti-indigenous, and antiqueer in nature. Not only do they miseducate our young and grown folks across colorlines and cultures, but Parents Rights programs fundamentally displace and disposses the personhood and human rights of our young scholars who are growing up behind the veil of bigotry (both the intimate and the institutional)

By claiming children and classrooms should not be politicized, these mama bears and ugly feminists reinforce both the colonization and [R-word] color-codes of our identities, histories, lived experiences, memories, and magic.

There is a sharp difference between being concerned and being a colonizer, especially one with a [white] savior complex ~

This season's series is open to all + free for:

*Incarcerated folks & returning citizens

*Transracial & transnational adoptees

*Patrons of the Antiracist Liberation (www.patreon.com/antiracistliberation)

As we continue our decolonized, community work, we want to nurture an accessible garden space for our community members all while supporting the labor and scholarship of those cultivating our community programs, workshops, and resources. For those of you interested in engaging in this season's series where we dive into the underground railroad of Black history (+ its ever-present rebel afterlives) grab your activist journals, your antiracist notebooks, and get ready to upRoot your miseducation this season ✨️🖤📚

[quaranmine]

my job is so funny because it's just recognizable enough that people are like OMG COOL when i tell them where i work and then when they ask me what i do i always get to watch the light drain out of their eyes as they realize it is, in fact, a fairly "boring" topic sldfjslfjslfj