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Recycling

Lego says making bricks from recycled bottles produces more carbon than new plastic

by Stephanie Hughes
Sep 25, 2023
Another example of how hard it can be to recycle polymers.
It takes a lot of energy and money to recycle plastics.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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How do waste plants pick through all our unsorted recyclables?

by Caleigh Wells
Aug 14, 2023
Single-stream recycling is convenient for consumers, but difficult for recycling companies. It requires a long and complicated process to make trash valuable.
The pile at the beginning of the day represents some of the recyclables from roughly 5 million daily consumers.
Caleigh Wells/KCRW
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How companies commodify your recycled waste

by Kai Ryssdal and Maria Hollenhorst
May 3, 2023
We tour a materials recovery facility in California, where the stuff consumers toss into recycling bins is sorted.
Athens Services, a Southern California waste collection an recycling company, is just one part of a global system that recycles waste into new packaging and products.
Antoinette Brock/Marketplace
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How one company is tackling the tricky — and expensive — task of recycling clothing

by Caleigh Wells
May 1, 2023
Diverting textiles from landfills is more difficult and more expensive than doing so for paper and glass. A group of formerly incarcerated workers is paving the way.
Companies send in unsold stock and returned clothes to divert their waste from landfills.
Caleigh Wells
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My Economy

The origins of a glass recycling empire

by Sarah Leeson
Aug 19, 2022
The sand Glass Half Full creates from processed bottles is repurposed for flood disaster relief and mitigating coastal erosion, among other things.
Glass Half Full turns the glass it collects into a sand product that can be used in anything from art to disaster relief.
Courtesy Glass Half Full
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Will “deprinting” reduce the paper industry’s carbon footprint?

by Stephen Beard
Aug 17, 2022
A new device will allow the same sheet of paper to be erased and reprinted 10 times, cutting waste and carbon emissions.
The cycle of felling trees, transporting them and using fossil fuel-based processes to turn them into pulp for paper is highly polluting.
rustycanuck/Getty Images
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Here's how HP recycles its ink cartridges — and works on climate pledges

by Kai Ryssdal and Andie Corban
Aug 2, 2022
We visit an 80,000-square-foot facility in La Vergne, Tennessee, where the cartridges are taken apart and readied for their next life.
James McCall, left, and Kai Ryssdal stand next to one of the hundreds of boxes filled with used HP ink cartridges.
Andie Corban/Marketplace
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"Refilleries" give consumers a way to reuse plastic bottles and cut waste

by Emily Jones
Jun 13, 2022
Businesses are reviving an old model to reduce single-use plastic in an effort to curb plastic pollution and fight climate change.
Samantha Keough browses the plastic-free products at Lite Foot, a mobile refillery that helps customers reuse containers instead of throwing out plastic.
Emily Jones/WABE
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French company is recycling used face masks into useful objects

by John Laurenson
Jun 10, 2022
The company takes used and discarded symbols of the pandemic and turns them into items such as coat hangers and classroom rulers.
Plaxtil co-founder Jean-Marc Neveu with used face masks in the factory where they are transformed.
John Laurenson
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Garbage collection slows in many cities as COVID-19 hampers staffing

by Savannah Maher
Jan 13, 2022
Municipalities around the country have had to delay or reschedule trash pickup days.
Cities across the country are seeing trash pile up as omicron spreads.
Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images
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