Page 13 from: November 2012

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13November 2012

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Teijin
Japan-based advanced fi bres and composites manufacturer Teijin provided the
2012 Tokyo International Film Festival with an unusual ‘red carpet’ – that was
made from the company’s Ecopet recycled polyester. The 1800 metres of sustain-
able bright green carpet supplied for the high-profi le bash contained the equiv-
alent to around 51 000 half-litre PET bottles. Various other recycled and fashion
accessories were created as well, such as specially designed ties for the ‘green
tie banquet’. www.teijin.co.jp/english

Coca-Cola
The US Coca-Cola Bottling Company in Winona, the last in the country to make the
old-school returnable 6.5-ounce Coke bottle, created its last batch on October 9,
thus putting an indefi nite end to production of the iconic drinks container. After 80
years of manufacturing the glass bottles, the brand is embracing a modern take on
drinks containers, as the required upgrades to sustain the well-known glass Coke
bottles are ‘no longer feasible’. www.cocacolawinona.wordpress.com

Levi’s
With its new line of jeans, called WasteLess, apparel powerhouse Levi’s has
unveiled new denim designs which incorporate a ‘minimum of 20% post-
consumer waste’ – predominantly discarded plastic bottles, brown beer bottles
and plastic trays. The recycled content will average eight 12- to 20-ounce bottles
per jean, the brand has stated. Collected through municipal recycling programmes
across the USA, the materials will be made into a polyester fi bre and woven
together with ‘traditional’ cotton yarn. www.levi.com

Beacon Climbing Walls/Centriforce
UK-based manufacturer Beacon Climbing Walls has designed a line of playground
panels that contain 100% recycled plastic bottles, carrier bags and fi lm, supplied
by recycler Centriforce. So far, two schools in Wales and one in London have been
decorated externally with the colourful HDPE and LDPE plastics, which would
have otherwise languished in landfi ll. Centriforce states that the plastics have
become a ‘viable alternative’ to plywood.
www.beaconclimbing.com and www.centriforce.com

Method
Method, a US-based manufacturer of naturally-derived and biodegradable
products, has launched a new soap that not only contains sea minerals but also
comes in a bottle made with a blend of recovered ocean plastic and post-con-
sumer recycled plastic. Method partnered with recycler Envision Plastics to
develop the sustainable bottles that are said to be equal in terms of material to
virgin high-density polyethylene. www.methodhome.com

Interseroh Slovenia
In order to help Slovenia’s disabled community, which purchases wheelchairs
and other useful devices using funds gleaned from collecting and selling recy-
clable plastic packaging caps, leading recycler Interseroh Slovenia has created
‘the world’s largest mosaic built entirely out of plastic waste’. The ‘Give a Cap’
project involved exactly 500 000 beverage, yoghurt and milk caps; from these,
120 volunteers built the ‘boy in the wheelchair’ mosaic in just two days.
www.interseroh.si/en/system-services

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In Europe, the recently-introduced
Commission Proposal on ship recycling
includes serious ‘loopholes and legal
contradictions’, NGO Shipbreaking Plat-
form Executive Director Patrizia Hei-
degger has warned EU member states in
an open letter. Her main concern is that,
once enforced, this would ‘unilaterally
remove’ end-of-life ships from the EU’s
implementation of the Basel Convention.
The Hong Kong Convention on ship recy-
cling is slated to be discussed during the
environment ministers’ upcoming meet-
ing on October 25. Mrs Heidegger hopes
that bringing the regulatory breach to
light will prevent ‘the illegal exercise of
removing ships from Basel application’,
hailing the latter as a ‘rightfully ratifi ed’
convention on hazardous waste ship-
ments.

In the open letter, the NGO Executive
Director remarks that it was the EU, a
‘Basel champion’ since 1989, that had
‘pushed the decision’ asserting that a ship
could be a ship and a waste at the same
time. Mrs Heidegger adds: ‘This proposal
is not legally possible. It does not yet
appear that the Commission understands
the gravity of this illegal act.’
According to the NGO, the Commission
is ‘conveniently ignoring’ the massive
and suffi cient capacity for green recy-
cling in Europe, Mexico, Turkey, Canada
and the USA. ‘Secondly, both regimes
can operate simultaneously and will
have to do so in any event, due to the
fact that Hong Kong does not, for exam-
ple, cover government-owned ships,’
Mrs Heidegger writes.
www.shipbreakingplatform.org

EU ship recycling
proposal dubbed ‘illegal’

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