The plastic pollution crisis meets the underlying criteria necessary to classify the issue as a threat to global security, yet it lacks a legally binding global treaty.

The potential long-term detrimental health effects of plastic pollution remain contentious while environmental implications are wide-ranging and globally devastating. Investigatory research demonstrates genuine cause for concern and evolving consequences when evaluating the effects of mismanaged plastic waste. When defining matters of global security using a plastic pollution lens, traditional definitions of security are widened to include matters of environment, health, and civil rights. These matters are increasingly being considered politically important and, as matters of security, as they take the center stage of many political agendas globally.

Defining security and plastic pollution

When defining matters of global security, research demonstrates that specific criteria must be met, which include:

• Threat to preservation of international peace
• Transboundary threat
• Political action has been taken
• The issue has “real-world” consequences
• Drastically threatens or degrades the quality of life of state inhabitants over a brief time span

These underlying criteria are found in other significant environmental crises that are well established as threats to global security such as global climate change, biodiversity and species loss, invasive species, ozone depletion, and persistent organic pollutants (POPs). These recognized threats have extensive binding global treaties which catalyze global action to minimize or eliminate their effect. What is alarming, however, with the issue of plastic pollution is that, although it meets all the same criteria, the world has not yet developed a globally binding treaty to curb the devastating effects and serious risk of this ubiquitous pollution. To make matters worse, plastic pollution contributes to many of the existing recognized ecological threats to global security, worsening their cumulative effects such as atmospheric carbon.

Finding solutions among the disparity

There are no proven formulas which provide one solution to ending the plastic pollution crisis. Solutions must be localized, diverse, accessible, and as equally complex as the issue of plastic pollution itself. Over the last decade, Ocean Legacy has been creating a plastic pollution emergency response program called EPIC, a strategic platform which integrates Education, Policy, Infrastructure, and Cleanup. This program was designed to educate a global population around the effects of plastic pollution, to build advocacy tools, and identify policy gaps that build effective practices which manage plastic wastes, to give plastic waste an economic value and stimulate the plastic circular economy with infrastructure development, to provide training to facilitate cleanups, and to develop immersive learning tools to steward the natural environment.

The future of plastic is circular. Circularity is a founding ideology that I believe will become the accepted norm which sustains the very basis of humanity’s survival. Circularity is where humanity learns to harmonize its behaviour with nature and provides the opportunity to reevaluate and redesign our current state of affairs. To move forward into a life-supporting reality, establishing the following will be critical:

• We need a coordinated globally binding treaty to catalyze world-wide action and to harmonize patch work policy
• We must teach our children the importance of building a meaningful relationship with the natural planet and educate the general population on the threat of plastic pollution
• The need for more long-term research on the human health effects of plastic pollution is urgent
• Mandating recycled content standards in manufacturing and redesigning products with their full life cycle in mind must become common practice
• Capital investment to build new systems which foster behaviour change and develop infrastructure are paramount

The post Plastic Pollution is a Threat to Global Security appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Keurig Dr Pepper Canada’s commitment to using post consumer recycled materials makes it a company that Canadians are proud to support.

Recycling is important, but when it comes to smart waste management practices and taking steps to ensure longer-term viability for products, it is just the beginning.

“The recyclability of our products is the first stepping stone for a circular economy which means shifting towards a model that optimizes the use of materials and products and keeps them in use for a longer period of time, thus, aiming at reducing or eliminating waste,” says Cynthia Shanks, Senior Director of Communications and Sustainability at Keurig Dr Pepper Canada (KDP Canada).

For KDP Canada, recyclability of our products means rethinking how they are manufactured and packaged. This translates into ensuring that all the packaging is recyclable or compostable and includes post consumer recycled (PCR) materials, with the aim of achieving 30% across their packaging portfolio by 2025.

“In 2018, we transitioned from a multi-layer pod to a cup made entirely from polypropylene, which is a highly desirable material to recyclers,” reveals Shanks. “This allowed us to shift away from the traditional linear ‘take, make, waste’ model to one where we can try to optimize the use of resources.”

KDP worked with various partners in Canada to further its mission. “We’ve worked with the recycling industry, to better understand the recycling landscape,” explains Shanks. Those partners were also instrumental in helping choose the right material to create value in the recycling supply chain. Polypropylene was chosen for its wide acceptance in Canadian recycling programs, its high value for recyclers and its existing, stable end-market – all of which made it the perfect option to become the base material for recyclable K-Cup pods.

KDP created a testing methodology using radio-frequency identification to track the course of its pods through facilities and confirm that the pods are capable of being properly sorted. Twelve tests conducted in North American recycling facilities yielded positive results.

Since the launch of the K-Cup pods made of polypropylene, KDP has worked extensively with recycling stakeholders, stewardship agencies and municipalities to support their official acceptance in blue box programs across the country. As recycling guidelines can differ from one municipality to another, consumers should verify whether they can recycle their coffee pods locally. “We have made a lot of progress over the past few years, but we know from experience that recycling facilities are all different. This is why we invite consumers to check with their local municipality to confirm K-Cup pod acceptance”, adds Shanks.

KDP is unique in that it manufactures not only coffee pods but coffee brewers, too. KDP has embarked on a journey with a Canadian plastic processor, Lavergne, who supplies the high-quality recycled plastic used in Keurig coffee makers.  

“Last year, we launched a coffee maker made with 30 percent post consumer recycled (PCR) plastic,” says Shanks. “In 2022, we will raise the bar to 50% in certain models and expand the use of PCR to other coffee makers.” The use of recycled plastic in the K-Mini family of brewers allowed KDP to avoid the use of one million pounds of virgin plastic since 2020.

The post Keurig Dr Pepper Canada Promotes a Circular Economy for Plastics appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Li-Cycle is a fast-growing business tackling a fast-growing problem. The Mississauga-based company recycles the lithium-ion batteries that power smartphones, laptops and electric vehicles. Founded in 2016, the company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, is valued at $1.5 billion USD and plans to build two new recycling facilities by 2023.

A few years ago, this would have seemed impossible. Venture capitalists saw clean technology companies as too capital-intensive and too slow-growing to hit billion-dollar valuations. But with the world facing a lengthening list of crises, investors, potential customers, and the government are realizing the value of our homegrown solutions.   

There is a growing realization that social purpose and solid profits are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they go hand in hand. Last year, MaRS Discovery District created the Momentum program to support Canada’s future economic stars. We work with 70 scaling companies that are all on course to make $100 million in annual revenues. Collectively, these ventures are working toward addressing the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. 

Social purpose is not a sidecar project for these companies, it is fundamental to their business models. In Southwestern Ontario, NRStor has partnered with the Six Nations of the Grand River to build one of the world’s biggest clean-energy storage facilities. It could eliminate up to 4.1-million tonnes of carbon emissions and provide employment opportunities for the Indigenous community. Ecopia is creating incredibly detailed 3D maps to enable more accurate modelling of floods and stormwater runoff, as well as better planning for disaster relief efforts and vaccine delivery programs.

Meanwhile, Precision Biomonitoring is helping businesses reopen with rapid on-site COVID testing, and companies such as Altus Assessments, which provides evidence-based screening tools for university admissions, are helping address long-standing inequalities.

When COVID struck, there were concerns that a wave of closures would hit Canada’s startups, setting back progress on vital issues. Instead, the collision of a pandemic, economic crisis and climate emergency has focused investors’ minds on what matters. The past year has seen record activity in health care, with Canadian firms AbCellera, Repare Therapeutics, Fusion Pharmaceuticals and Dialogue all going public. Money is also flowing into other sectors that offer innovative solutions to ongoing issues. Prodigy, which helps improve math outcomes by gamifying education, recently began hiring 400 more staff after raising $159 million in one of the largest-ever funding rounds for a North American education technology company.

Being a good corporate citizen used to be the benchmark — now it’s the baseline. Consumers want companies to focus on more than just profit. Recent research shows that 80 percent of people expect businesses to act on issues like climate change and inequality. Some firms have even appointed chief purpose officers to guide their efforts. 

This change is good news for Canada. Our tech sector excels at creating businesses that use deep technological expertise to solve big, important problems. And those are exactly the companies the world needs right now.   

The post The World Has Problems; Canadian Companies Have Solutions appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Mediaplanet recently spoke with Candice Batista, an award-winning Environmental Journalist, the Editor-in-Chief for The Eco Hub, and one of Canada’s leading eco advocates for her thoughts on mindful living.

You have passionately advocated for “mindful living” what does this term mean to you, and how can those who are not well-versed in sustainability apply this principle to “clean up” their lifestyle?

Mindful living can mean many different things to many different people. Right now we see the term used in the self-care space. But for me, in the eco-space it means being connected to the things I buy at a deeper level. Mindfulness is the understanding that everything that I bring into my home has an impact on the natural world, from how it’s extracted, manufactured, used, and ultimately discarded at the end of its life. 

The slow food movement is a good example. It’s all about connecting to the food we eat, connecting to the people (farmers) who grow the food, talking to them about how/where the food is grown. Is the food organic? Are the farmers being paid for their work? Are they working in safe conditions? Are they being treated fairly?

The concept of mindful living is applying these types of questions to every facet of your life. Asking yourself, who made my clothes? What kinds of materials were used? What am I going to do with this when I am done with it? It’s being mindful of the full cycle of those items. We live in a consumer-based society and it can be a real challenge to make more mindful or sustainable choices, but if we take a moment to think before we buy, we actually have more power than we think!

If you are just getting started, be patient, this kind of lifestyle takes time and energy, and there is no perfection. It’s work, and you have to find what works for you. 

Something which you have specifically highlighted as an area for improvement within the greenspace is inclusivity – in your opinion, what changes need to occur to ensure greater BIPOC representation?

We live in a very connected world. Most of us have access to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok where information is created and shared by all types of people from different backgrounds, all educating and informing us on issues related to social justice, environmental racism, and racial justice. Traditionally, the green living or zero-waste movements have been represented in the mainstream media by mostly white women (and men) and have completely ignored the voices and views of Black, Indigenous, and people of colour as well as marginalized and minority communities.

We don’t have to look far to find instances where people of colour have been impacted by environmental racism here in Canada, for example: an open dump in Africville, landfill sites in Shelburne and Lincolnville, a pulp and paper mill in Pictou Landing First Nation, and a pipeline in Sipekne’katik First Nation. A pipeline also runs through Wet’suwet’en First Nation in British Columbia, while in Ontario there is mercury contamination in Grassy Narrows First Nation.

As a white woman in this space, I acknowledge my place of privilege and how it’s allowed me to profit. I see mostly people that look just like me. 

The environmental movement up to now has been focused predominately on conservation which, although important, has left out social justice, and that’s a major problem because it excludes BIPOC representation in the conversation.

We need to see more diversity and we need to hear from people whose experiences in the space are different from our own (the dominant group).

• Diversify your feed on social media, follow BIPOC influencers and creatives, listen and learn from their stories.

• Educate yourself about the lack of diversity in the green space and how it can become more inclusive. Here are some books you may want to read on the matter:
  • Engage, Connect, Protect: Empowering Diverse Youth as Environmental Leaders by Angelou Ezeilo.
  • Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger by Julie Sze.
  • A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind by Harriet A. Washington.
  • Indigenous Environmental Justice edited by Karen Jarratt-Snider and Marianne O. Nielsen.

• Learn from BIPOC in the green space, support them, share their work and show up for them as much as you can. 

These are just some examples of how you can help, but it’s by no means a comprehensive list. This is a very large subject and one that cannot be discussed in full without the voices of colour within this field. Collectively, we need to think about how we can make a difference. 

Food waste in Canada is higher than any other nation in the world, what role does the Canadian public have in mitigating this issue and what tips do you have for reducing food waste in the home?

The average Canadian wastes 79 kilograms of food at home per year. 61 percent of that food waste happens in households. 

Love Food Hate Waste drives this home with a list of how much food we are throwing out every year: 

• 1,200,000 tomatoes
  
  
• 2,400,000 potatoes
  
  
• 750,000 loaves of bread
  
  
• 1,225,000 apples
  
  
• 555,000 bananas
  
  
• 1,000,000 cups of milk
  
  
• and 450,000 eggs

There are many reasons why this is happening in my opinion. We are buying way too much of it when we shop, mostly because we are very disconnected from where our food comes from: who grew it, how it was raised, etc. 

We are not composting our food scraps, which mostly go to landfills, we are either too lazy or don’t have access to composting at home. 

We are not storing it correctly when we get it home. Your fridge and freezer have drawers and shelves for a reason. If you have a fridge where you can control the humidity make sure it’s set right. Set one drawer with higher humidity and the other with lower. High humidity is for veggies that will wilt such as salad, kale, etc. Low humidity is for items that tend to rot like mushrooms.

Some more easy-to-implement strategies include:

• Stop focusing on “best before” dates. These are for the grocer not the consumer and refer to the quality and its peak freshness. Use your judgement.
  
  
• Use what you have, find recipes for the foods you have left in your fridge or pantry. A quick search on Pinterest will yield a ton of ideas. 
  
  
• Put a basket in the fridge that says, “Eat Me First”, this tip comes from a food documentary “Just Eat It”. 
  
  
• Make a list before you go out to shop and stick to it. But the biggest tip is to preplan your meals and buy what you need for those.
  
  

The post Your Guide to Mindful Living with Candice Batista appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Mediaplanet recently caught up with sustainability entrepreneur and founder of The Zero Waste Collective, Tara McKenna for her insights on low-waste living and her own personal journey.

What are some key areas for improvement that people should be aware of when it comes to sustainable living and what steps can they take to get started?

Ultimately it comes down to improving our relationship with the earth – the thing is, that is conceptually really hard for most of us to even fathom, so it really needs to be broken down into tangible steps. Most people are aware of sustainable living but might not participate because it either feels overwhelming or unrealistic – so we need to make the suggestions for sustainable living more achievable to fit within people’s real lives.

In terms of those tangible steps, I think it begins with consuming less overall – that suggestion can be very broad so I like to break it down into objectives like trying to do a “no-buy month” or a “no-buy year” where you might only consume the essentials and track what you’re purchasing and consuming. When you are making purchases, try and consume better – instead of using credit to buy the latest fashions, maybe you enforce a rule that you don’t go into debt for purchases – then from there, you can focus on buying things that are better quality and longer lasting that you won’t be throwing out the next week.

I think the big elephant in the room when it comes to sustainability and our relationship with the earth is animal agriculture – eating less meat and animal products has a huge role in reducing our CO2 emissions. Facilitating animal agriculture globally results in a lot of deforestation and of course forests sequester carbon, so when we’re converting forests into land used for animal agriculture, we’re increasing the levels of CO2 in our atmosphere in multiple ways. I’m certainly in no place to tell anyone to go vegan, I’m personally not vegan, but I am quite mindful of the animal products I do consume – I think rather than telling the whole world to go vegan, it’s more realistic to advocate for everyone to try to reduce their level of animal product consumption.

Ultimately it comes down to consuming less, consuming better, skipping single-use when possible, and trying to eat fewer animal products.

In your experience, what is the greatest misconception that people hold about Zero-Waste lifestyles?

The greatest misconception is that it’s actually possible to go “zero-waste” – there’s no one who is truly “zero-waste” because we just don’t live in that kind of society and there are so many externalities out of our day-to-day control. For example, over the lifecycle of all the products we use and consume, from resource extraction, to manufacturing, to disposal, there is so much happening in terms of waste creation and that gets overlooked in the conversation of our own personal waste output.

The great opportunity with the idea of “zero-waste” however, is the conversation that ensues around what this lifestyle can actually look like in a more practical sense, and what we can really hope to achieve. Ultimately, I think it’s really “low-waste living” that we should be advocating for; low-waste within the context of your personal circumstances, your lifestyle preferences, and your budget.

Was there a particular moment or experience in your life that stands out as the one that motivated you to commit to this lifestyle and career or was the process a more gradual one?

For the most part, yes – there was a specific moment that I felt quite devastated – it was a trip to Bali a number of years ago. I have family that lives in Indonesia, and we were visiting them – I was snorkeling and saw a lot of trash intermingling with the fish and even as someone who grew up abroad and did lots of snorkeling and scuba diving, I had never seen this much trash amongst the corals before – it was really eye-opening to me just how devastating that was. It occurred to me how much negative human impact there was on this environment and it just didn’t seem fair, but in that moment, I thought “what am I supposed to do? I’m not a marine biologist, how am I supposed to fix this problem?” but I had this urge deep inside me that I just needed to do something – however it didn’t happen right away, I didn’t do anything right away, and I actually didn’t even immediately make the connection to my own lifestyle choices in that moment and at the time “zero-waste” was certainly not a mainstream idea – this was around the early 2010s.

Up until then, I didn’t think about the takeout order I was getting and how it was connected to ocean waste. But eventually I began to commit to a number of different lifestyle changes and embrace causes that were starting to gain traction. For example, there have been huge movements to reduce the toxicity of our personal care products, to clean up our diets, and all of these different but related lifestyle changes have become increasingly mainstream over the past 10 years. So, since that day in Bali, I have been working towards all of these different lifestyle changes as it became more and more clear to me that my waste was having a huge direct impact. I realized that in response to that, I could directly reduce my impact by lowering the amount of takeout I have or skip single-use items wherever possible instead of opting for the convenience of disposables.

Reflecting on it now, it was both a very specific experience that initiated the process, but it was also a very gradual lifestyle transition over the last 10 years or so.

The post Kick-Starting Your Low-Waste Lifestyle with Tara McKenna appeared first on HiveInnovates.

What is Sustainable Forest Management?

Sustainable forest management maintains the long-term health of our forests while supporting the wide range of economic, social, and ecological values we rely upon. Across Canada, sustainable forestry is guided by rigorous regulations that ensure all activities are based on sound science, extensive planning, public and Indigenous consultation, and continuous monitoring.

The role of sustainable forest management has been widely recognized as an important tool in mitigating climate change.  In 2019, the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change stated: “Sustainable forest management aimed at providing timber, fibre, biomass, non‐timber resources and other ecosystem functions and services, can lower GHG emissions and can contribute to adaptation.” It’s no surprise that all levels of government have embraced sustainable forestry as a key component of a carbon-friendly future.

How can Sustainable Forest Management Fight Climate Change?

Trees sequester and store carbon as they grow. Older trees can store a large volume of carbon (the average 80-year-old Canadian tree absorbs 200 kg of carbon over its life); however, as their growth slows, so too does their ability to absorb additional carbon. Conversely, younger trees that are still growing can sequester carbon at a much higher rate. Further, as trees age, they often become carbon sources rather than sinks, either through natural decay or as they become more susceptible to disturbances such as fire and pests.

The carbon implications of aging forests are evident here in Canada – today, our managed forests are net sources of carbon, owing in part to advances in fire suppression during the 1950s that resulted in an older forest than would naturally occur.

Sustainable forest management limits carbon losses associated with natural tree death. Harvesting trees allows sequestered carbon to remain locked up in the form of wood products for far longer than the natural lifespan of a tree. And, for each tree harvested, new trees take root, resulting in an additional carbon benefit. In Canada, forest renewal is required by law.

Additionally, wood products can displace carbon-intensive materials while still providing the range of products we rely on (toilet paper, books, furniture, television screens, renewable energy, etc.). Through innovation, wood is increasingly being used to replace single-use plastics and high-carbon construction materials.

As Canada moves towards a 2050 Net-Zero objective, one thing is certain: our forests, and their sustainable management, is a big part of the solution.

The post Sustainable Forest Management as a Nature-Based Solution appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Climate change and resource misuse are arguably the largest collective challenges we all face; solutions will need to be aggressive, thoughtful, and scalable in order to make a truly significant impact.

As large organizations face roadblocks on their journey to sustainability due to internal red tape and hierarchies, small businesses have an advantage – their ability to move quickly and act boldly. As we strive for an increasingly circular economy, Canada’s entrepreneurs will be forging the path.

Water security

As of today, the demand for clean water is projected to grow by 30 percent over the next 30 years. Fortunately, many startups across the country are contributing to Canada’s role as a global-leader in this space:

Based in Toronto, RainStick is a unique recirculating system that saves 80 percent on water and 80 percent on energy while still feeling like a high-pressure shower. The company is currently on a mission to save 10 trillion litres of water by 2030.

Birch Bark Coffee, founded by Mark Marsolais-Nahwegahbow, is a social enterprise helping to educate consumers about the water crisis in First Nations communities across the country. For every 100 bags of coffee sold in retail stores (and 50 bags sold online), the venture equips one home with a certified water purification unit, free of charge.

Food waste

Each year, 58 percent (35.5 million tonnes) of all food produced in Canada is lost or wasted. The good news? Experts believe about a third of this can be rescued, and Canada’s SMEs are forging the way:

Based in Halifax, Earthli is a producer of sustainably grown, zero-waste, hemp-based superfoods. Canadian-grown hemp, unlike other common protein products, doesn’t require pesticides, absorbs CO2 as it grows, thrives on minimal water, and grows tightly – decreasing total land use.

Founded by Scott McKenzie, Yukon Organics supplies a curated selection of organic foods, transported with the lowest possible footprint, which cannot be grown in the Yukon. With the product being sold in bulk, customers have the option of sharing their order with others in the community – helping to improve food accessibility and reduce food waste in the region. The venture’s proprietary sharing feature is a global first.

Out of Langley, British Columbia, CubicFarms offers a number of solutions to food waste and improving our food systems, including their automated vertical farming machines. The machine offers commercial-scale produce farming anywhere in the world, 12 months a year.

Striving for circularity

Circular economies – an economic system aimed at eliminating waste and promoting the continuous use of resources – are often seen as far-fetched and unattainable. Through their innovative solutions, a number of Canadian startups are already practicing circular models:

5.7 billion plastic amenity bottles (think the small shampoo bottles found in hotels) are sent to landfills across North America every year due to their small size, low quality grade of plastic, and soap contamination. Based in Kitchener, EarthSuds is on a mission to replace all single-use plastic bathroom products with their zero-waste shower tablets.

Based on Vancouver Island, Nyoka Design Labs is attempting to solve the problem of over one billion plastic glow-sticks being sent to landfill each year. The Nyoka Light Wand, powered by bioluminescent algae, is not only reusable and non-toxic, it also heals the earth where it biodegrades.

Textile production contributes more to climate change than international shipping and aviation combined. Nudnik produces kidswear exclusively from pre-consumer textile waste that would otherwise pollute the planet. Beyond this, all garments are made from fully compostable, 100 percent organic cotton and are shipped in zero-waste packaging.

As the world searches for solutions to the ongoing climate crisis, we should look to innovative entrepreneurial ecosystems for answers. Balancing sustainability, circularity, and profit is possible in today’s business landscape – and Canadian startups are proving just that.

Kayla Isabelle is the Chief Executive Officer of Startup Canada, the national rallying community supporting and giving a voice to Canada’s 3.5 million entrepreneurs. Kayla has dedicated her career to supporting entrepreneurs, both in Canada and internationally. Kayla is an award-winning strategic communications consultant and change management facilitator and is passionate about leveraging the power of storytelling in the entrepreneurial community.

The post Entrepreneurial Innovation: Leading the Way to True Circularity appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Jason Pelz

VP, Sustainability, Tetra Pak (Americas)

Tetra Pak is on a company-wide mission to create cartons that are more environmentally-sound than ever.

In the 1950s, Tetra Pak revolutionized food packaging with its paper-based, aseptic carton that can store liquids, including milk, for months without refrigeration.

Today, the company aims to transform the industry once again with a commitment to deliver the world’s most sustainable food package. Tetra Pak is working to create cartons made solely from plant-based or recycled materials that are responsibly sourced, fully recyclable, and carbon-neutral.

“Tetra Pak has long been committed to sustainability, but we’re now doubling down and taking this to the next level,” says Larine Urbina, Vice President of Communications (U.S. and Canada) at Tetra Pak. “The company is investing 100 million euros a year for the next five to 10 years in sustainable packaging solutions, working collaboratively across the value chain to ensure that we have innovative technologies and approaches to develop these new packages.”

Time for a better solution

Packaging plays the vital role of maintaining the nutritional value and taste of the product it contains while expanding access to food. Unfortunately, some materials in packaging contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, depletion of fossil-based resources, and waste in landfills and waterways. While recycling is part of the solution, only nine percent of plastic actually gets recycled. The packaging industry, along with food producers and consumers, realize that the world needs a better answer. And Tetra Pak intends to be a leader on this journey.

In addition to packaging liquid food products like milk, dairy alternatives, juice, and soup, Tetra Pak also provides processing technologies for products including ice cream, cheese, prepared foods, and more. Tetra Pak’s packages are made of an average of 70 percent paperboard from renewable wood fibres. However, they also contain thin layers of plastic and aluminum, both of which play a key role in securing food safety and extending shelf life.

“It’s a balance between protecting food and protecting the planet. Every layer in the package serves a specific purpose toward protecting the product inside,” says Jason Pelz, Vice President of Sustainability (Americas) at Tetra Pak. “For example, the thin aluminum layer plays a key role in food safety and long shelf life, so we can’t just remove that from the packaging. Instead, we’re working to find a more environmentally-sound solution.”

Sustainability throughout the supply chain

Pelz says that, in addition to the actual packaging, Tetra Pak’s commitment to sustainability focuses on the entire supply chain, which includes ensuring that materials are responsibly and sustainably sourced, replacing as much aluminum and plastic as possible, and increasing the efficiency of its manufacturing plants.

Already, all of its packages use paperboard from Forest Stewardship Council certified or controlled sources, meaning that the company sources raw materials from forests managed in a way that prevents biodiversity loss and ensures renewability. All of its sugarcane-based plastic is Bonsucro-certified, which means that it’s fully traceable to its origin, ensuring ethical business practices.​

In 2020, Tetra Pak committed to reach net-zero GHG emissions in its operations by 2030 and net-zero GHG emissions across the entire value chain by 2050. The company also educates consumers on recycling and works with customers, waste management professionals, recyclers, municipalities, and others in the value chain to expand the collection and recycling of packages.

Protecting food remains a priority

Pelz adds that the company won’t compromise on one of its founding principles—reducing food waste. Each year, 33 percent of food produced globally is lost or wasted, while many people across the world go hungry. Food waste also affects climate change. When we waste food, it wastes the energy and water it takes to grow, harvest, transport, and package it. And food rotting in a landfill produces the GHG methane.

Urbina says that to reach its goals, Tetra Pak is strengthening its valuable partnerships with food producers, raw materials providers, and recyclers. “We recognize that to truly make it to the next level, we can’t do it alone,” she says. “It takes collaborative innovation to drive change.”

Within Tetra Pak, Pelz says that the journey to creating the world’s most sustainable food package is a whole company effort, with employees who are passionate about their mission. “It’s not just one department,” he says. “It’s a much bigger movement within the company to really make this central to what we do.”

The post Tetra Pak Is Taking the Lead on Sustainable Food Packaging appeared first on HiveInnovates.

As we prepare for a post-COVID-19 future, we know that returning to “normal” is not an option. More action is needed to ensure a safe, equitable, and sustainable future for Canadians.

We can’t allow the COVID-19 crisis to make us blind to other massive challenges that we faced before it began and will still exist after it’s over: dismantling environmental racism, fighting climate change, ending plastic pollution, keeping our water clean, and removing toxic chemicals from the products we use.

A clean and just recovery for Canada means, above all, investing in a society that places people’s health and the well-being of natural ecosystems that sustain all species first. That means that any investments made must advance environmental progress, address environmental justice, and be consistent with Canada’s international environmental commitments.

A clean and just recovery for Canada means investing in:

• A transition to a sustainable low-carbon economy that provides opportunities for people that have often been left behind.
• The protection and restoration of land, freshwater, and ocean ecosystems along with the wildlife that call these places home.
• Banning many single-use plastics, and ensuring the rest don’t end up in our environment and our bodies.
• The replacement of toxic chemicals used in agriculture, consumer goods, and manufacturing with safer alternatives.
• The development of accessible, affordable, and healthy communities and transportation networks.
• A future that prioritizes social and racial justice, economic equity, and well-being, built in partnership with Indigenous peoples and the communities most exposed to environmental harm.

Investments in the Canadian economy cannot be at odds with our collective commitment to a clean and just recovery. With the right investments, we can build an economy and society that are stronger and more resilient than before the crisis began.

“Environmental Defence Canada is in no way affiliated with, or in endorsement of, any participants or sponsors of the following campaign or their messaging.”

The post A Clean and Just Recovery Depends on Your Voice appeared first on HiveInnovates.

Lithium-ion battery recycling is typically inefficient and unsustainable. Here’s how the pioneering Canadian company Lithion is changing the game.

As nations move to establish ambitious emissions targets — including Canada’s goal to shift towards 100 percent zero-emissions cars by 2040 — it’s becoming clear that electric vehicles (EVs) are a crucial part of an environmentally-viable future.

However, these vehicles face an important set of problems on the road to true sustainability. Their large lithium-ion batteries are notoriously difficult to recycle, and the mining and manufacturing process for new EV batteries is energy-intensive. Moreover, there’s a pending raw materials-supply bottleneck that threatens manufacturers — global demand for cobalt, lithium, nickel, and graphite is expected to far outstrip supply in the years between now and 2040, according to BloombergNEF.

Together, these problems deter some would-be EV buyers who worry that the life cycle of their vehicle’s battery — and the mining required to produce it in the first place — is more environmentally deleterious than the alternative.

The solution? A sustainable, economically-viable resource recovery and management strategy for EV batteries. The key is to repurpose old batteries by safely shredding, separating, and purifying them to efficiently harvest their finite raw materials without degrading their quality, which will allow them to loop back into the supply chain — a true circular economy. Lithion Recycling, a Canadian recycling company, has developed a disruptive patented process to accomplish just that.

Giving lithium-ion batteries eternal life

Most recycling for lithium-ion batteries relies on energy-intensive combustion, a highly inefficient method that recovers only between 40–50 percent of the battery’s raw materials. In contrast, Lithion’s method relies on a process called hydrometallurgy, which effectively separates lithium-ion battery’s valuable components without the need for combustion.

Lithion’s hydrometallurgy process is significantly more efficient than combustion since it recovers 95% of a battery’s raw materials like lithium, nickel, cobalt, and graphite without reducing their quality. The resulting components are on par with new materials that come from a mine. This means that batteries with recycled components won’t suffer a decrease in quality — which makes the process profitable, even at a small scale.

“We have to be able to produce more EV batteries to serve the adoption of emissions-free transportation technologies by society,” says Benoit Couture, Lithion’s President and CEO. “We designed our process to ensure that we can extract and generate a lot of value by producing battery-grade materials, which in turn ensures that they can loop back into the battery manufacturing supply chain. In doing so, we’ll ease pressure on the depletion of raw materials.”

On a larger scale, the widespread implementation of this process will significantly decrease the need for mined materials for EV batteries. And since the process itself is less greenhouse gas-intensive than both combustion and mining, the result is a net reduced carbon footprint for EVs. The process is also safer for workers than traditional approaches since it doesn’t require manual dismantling of toxic and dangerous components.

From pilot plant to worldwide deployment

Historically, hydrometallurgy wasn’t the first choice for lithium-ion battery recycling because it’s much more complex to implement than traditional combustion-based processes. Lithion relied on the dedication and expertise of its technical and engineering team to not only develop an innovative process but also to plan to implement it at scale in a way that’s both sustainable and profitable.

In 2023 Lithion is set to launch its first commercial recycling plant, drawing on data from a highly-successful Quebec industrial-scale pilot plant created in 2019. Its goal is worldwide deployment, through licensing agreements, with a target of 20 recycling plants. Leveraging the forces of its future licensee network in the automobile and recycling industries is what Lithion believes to be the most efficient strategy to tackle in time for the upcoming wave of batteries. These plants will be strategically located in areas with high EV-density, as well as near battery manufacturers, to further cut down on transportation emissions.

Safe, efficient recycling processes like the one Lithion is pioneering are crucial pieces of the circular economy puzzle, which experts say is humanity’s best bet for a sustainable future.

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