Ecobatt by Ecocycle

Woolworths has joined the campaign to keep batteries and mobile phones out of landfill, ensuring they remain in the product loop for another round of the manufacturing cycle.
A Battery and Mobile Phone Recycling Unit receival box (picture at left) is located at the front of each store.
This is in addition to light weight plastic under the REDcycle scheme operating in every Woolworths supermarket.
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Chuckers extraordinaire

Each year Australians throw ‘away’ 2.5 million whitegoods – that’s 100,000 tonnes of steel. (Geoff Ebbs, AG, Issue 167)  Most of these products, washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, dish washers, ovens, are still intact except for a small component that’s worn out. Many could be refurbished and brought back into service.  When we shift to sales-of-service, rather than product sales, a lot of these won’t end up being chucked out, but remain in circulation.
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There is no more – the Ray Anderson realisation
There is only one Earth and circular is the only way to achieve sustainability – no ifs or buts.

At the heart of Ray Anderson’s first book, Mid-Course Correction, is a complicated series of diagrams with lots of loops and arrows – illustrating what he called, “The Prototypical Company of the 21st Century.” When the book was first published in 1998, the idea of sustainability in business was in its infancy. The thought that industry, in particular, would move away from its linear, extractive past — where materials were mined, manufactured and disposed of — and toward what we now call the circular economy seemed like a lot of wishful thinking.

But if you know Ray Anderson’s story, you know that he could be powerfully persuasive in his ability to establish a future vision not just for his company, Interface, but for all of business and industry. In Ray’s words, “If we get this right, we’ll spend the rest of our days harvesting yester-year’s carpets and other petrochemically derived products and recycling them into new materials; and converting sunlight into energy; with zero scrap going to the landfill and zero emissions into the ecosystem.  And we’ll be doing well … very well … by doing good.  That’s the vision.”

Flash forward over a quarter of a century later and the circular economy is no longer wishful thinking. It’s the basis for innovation that has the potential to unlock $4.5 trillion of value, according to the World Economic Forum. Ray’s original illustrations are no longer confounding; they are the blueprint for dozens, even hundreds, of other illustrations that seek to capture the potential – and the reality – of what it looks like to design circular products and systems.
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Making the invisible visible, one straw at a time
The need to become ecologically restorative

The circular economy movement seeks to make the invisible visible by illustrat-ing, not just with diagrams, but also with actions. These seemingly little actions, not only add up, they also help us understand the bigger ideas.

One of those little actions that helps illustrate a bigger idea is the one of drinking straws – ubiquitous, useful, and made of plastic most of the time. Over the past few years, straws have entered the zeitgeist as a symbol of all that is wasteful and avoidable. Bamboo and paper straws have emerged as an alternative; stainless steel, reusable straws – once impossible to find – have become commonplace and even hip.

Some environmentalists roll their eyes – straws, really? This is the thing we’re going to focus on? But as John Lanier says, straws open the door to the realisation that there’s no such place as “away.”   Where is ‘away’ on a map?

MMM … Issue 28, April 2022