Feature
Circular Economy: Leave No Waste Behind
To break away from the linear economy known also as the take-make-waste economy, industries worldwide are transiting towards a circular framework that reorganizes economic activities based on the principle of reduce, reuse, and recycle. Changing the way products are made and how resources are sourced is an effective approach to reduce carbon emissions while creating additional economic value.
“Obtaining materials and the subsequent manufacturing processes account for more than 70% of an end product’s carbon footprint,” pointed out Chiou-Chu Lai, Deputy General Director of Material and Chemical Research Laboratories at ITRI. “To effectively manage carbon footprints, the Institute is consciously assisting industry in minimizing material usage, waste generation, and promoting the creation of sustainable and recyclable products.” To achieve this, ITRI scrutinized product designs and recycling schemes in various areas, including plastic, carbon capture, furnace stone, metal slag, and agricultural products. These efforts gave birth to cutting-edge technologies such as plastic sorting and recycling, textile-to-textile recycling, and material tracking.
PET, a plastic material widely used in our daily lives and most commonly found in PET bottles, is one of the few recyclable plastic materials. Taiwan, as a country with one of the highest PET bottle recycling rates of over 95%, plays a crucial role in the advancement of plastic recycling technology. Far Eastern New Century (FENC), one of the world’s top three PET material suppliers, has been investing in innovative recycling processes for over 30 years. With internationally certified technologies for producing PET bottles using recycled ones, FENC has establishing a successful business model with closed resource loops. In addition to plastic bottles, FENC also utilized recycled PET fibers to create clothing and sports shoes for international brands, such as Adidas, Nike, and Lululemon Athletica. For example, in collaboration with Adidas, FENC produced tear-resistant sports jerseys made from plastic bottles retrieved from the sea and supplied them to nine national teams at the 2022 World Cup, including Germany, Japan, Spain, Belgium, and the champion team Argentina.
Circular economy has also been practiced in construction engineering. CTCI, one of the world’s top 100 engineering companies, implements ESG concepts and mindset to promote green technology, green contracting, and green investment, with an aim to minimize the environmental impacts during the whole project life cycle from engineering to operation and maintenance. Also, by introducing sustainable and circular approaches, such as water resources circulation, renewable energy, and local procurement, CTCI helps clients reduce carbon emissions and conserve more water resources.
Agricultural waste represents a significant untapped resource that can be converted into assets. Yongda Food Technology, specializing in 100% freshly pressed juice processing, generates approximately 8,000 tons of waste fruit peels annually. To transform these agrowastes into valuable resources, Yongda partnered with ITRI to turn lemon peels into silage for dairy cows. “Cows love this lemon peel silage! You can see this from the 10% increase in the amount of feeding,” said Yongda General Manager Yao-Hui Tsai. Moreover, the lemon peel silage also improves cow belching and flatulence, which contains methane, the second most abundant greenhouse gas after CO2. “We found the lemon peel silage very helpful for dairy cows’ digestion, resulting in significantly less gas release,” added Tsai. This lemon peel silage project is expected to have wider application in the livestock industry, enabling further utilization of recycled lemon peels.
Silages made from discarded vegetable and fruit peels, such as lemon, pineapple, and carrot, were showcased at the exhibition.
Online shopping has thrived during the pandemic, and to make deliveries more eco-friendly, PackAge+ has introduced a revolutionary reusable packaging service system. “We turn recyclable materials into reusable boxes and packets. After buyers receive their orders, they can simply return the package to one of the 4,500 partnered stores throughout Taiwan, including major convenience store chains like 7-Eleven and FamilyMart,” explained PackAge+ Development Director Chun-Ku Lai. So far, the company has successfully reduced 50 tons of carbon emissions and eliminated over 200,000 single-use packaging items. PackAge+ is actively promoting its sustainable packaging to international cities, further contributing to environmental preservation.