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Key reports and studies

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Washing whiter without water
28/01/2013
Washing whiter without water
The future of laundry could be cleaning with plastic beads, rather than with water, according to Xeros, a small company based in the northern English town of Rotherham. Their bead cleaning technology was developed at Leeds University and Xeros is currently working to commercialise it. According...
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Socks from the sea
11/06/2013
Socks from the sea
Humanity faces many thorny environmental challenges, but one of the most difficult is how to clean up the seas, which have long been used as a dumping ground for waste. A pioneering initiative involving organisations in the Netherlands, Italy and Slovenia is showing how one type of waste –...
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Plan Bee creates a buzz
04/12/2013
Plan Bee creates a buzz
A small Scottish company is showing that a business can be built on biodiversity, by installing and maintaining bee hives on the premises of corporate customers. Plan Bee, based in the town of Motherwell, which sits between Edinburgh and Glasgow,...
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Clothing project to explore the circular economy for textiles  
18/03/2014
Clothing project to explore the circular economy for textiles  
The garment sector is becoming seriously interested in the recycling of textile fibres to make new clothing. A denim-recycling process was developed as long ago as the mid-1990s by Armani. More recently, the collection of old clothing as a raw material for new products has become highly organised...
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From rock to paper  
07/05/2014
From rock to paper  
People have been making paper in one form or another for at least 2000 years, and the art of paper-making has been through several technological shifts, most notably the switch from cotton and linen fibres as a raw material to wood pulp, a development that took place in the mid-nineteenth century...
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Social networking for green SMEs  
21/10/2014
Social networking for green SMEs  
A new European eco-innovation platform is hoping to create the foundations for what could become an eco social network for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The project, One aim of the project is to build up a database of SME “solutions” that other SMEs can access. These cover a...
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First commercial development of straw houses goes on sale following EU project
11/03/2015
First commercial development of straw houses goes on sale following EU project
A group of seven houses constructed from highly compacted straw has gone on sale in Bristol, United Kingdom, following extensive testing to prove the safety and environmental performance of the straw panels, which was carried out with assistance from a European Union-funded eco-innovation project...
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New innovations promise better results from rubber recycling
20/04/2015
New innovations promise better results from rubber recycling
An Israeli company has developed a rubber recycling process that results in a high quality recycled material that can be used to make a wide range of products. The method could help create new markets for recycled rubber, which can usually only be used for low-grade applications. The process,...
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Sustainable packaging from “mushroom materials”
22/05/2015
Sustainable packaging from “mushroom materials”
A US company has developed a successful line of “mushroom materials” that can be used as a compostable, biodegradable replacement for polystyrene and other packaging derived from hydrocarbons. The company, The company has developed a method of “growing” packaging materials from regionally...
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REBus project facilitates development of circular economy business models
22/09/2015
REBus project facilitates development of circular economy business models
A European Union-backed project working in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom is helping small and large organisations to make their circular economy ideas more concrete, by assisting them in developing new business models based on more sustainable principles. Most recently, the LIFE REBus...
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