EcoExpo Asia 2014: Organizing to Recycle

Bertus Tulleners, a Netherlands-based sustainability consultant with TheRockGroup, says he is convinced the world is “going from a linear to a circular economy.”

 

Resource scarcity and preservation are key reasons for the shift he says, which means recycling is a critical component of the circular economy.

 

Tulleners, speaking at a seminar at EcoExpo Asia 2014 in Hong Kong, said many current barriers to increased recycling are not technical but rather logistical.

 

“Many people tend to see waste as a technical problem; we try to invent technical solutions,” he commented. For more recycling to occur, Tulleners suggested, “We need to organize the reverse logistics. It is more of an organizational question versus a technical question.”

 

The endeavor is worthwhile to society and to business owners, said Tulleners, because recycling adds value to commodities, trumping the older “linear” model where discarded materials were simply wastes with no value.

 

Tulleners gave five examples of pioneering work taking place to add value to waste streams, including an Amsterdam sewage treatment plant that is harvesting energy, bioplastics, ethanol and fertilizers from the human waste stream.

 

Other examples involved spent coffee grounds being used to cultivate mushrooms, old passenger rail car upholstery being used to fabricate handbags and 20- and 40-foot steel shipping containers being used as student housing and as playground equipment.

 

The perception of waste is evolving, said Tulleners, along with each new method to recycle discarded materials. “The end of the pipeline is just the beginning,” he stated.

 

EcoExpo Asia 2014, organized by Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd., was Oct. 29-Nov. 1 at the AsiaWorld-Expo convention center in Hong Kong.