reuse

4: Reuse Action – Reclaimed and Surplus Building Materials

Urban flight in America in the 1960s resulted in downtowns having empty abandoned buildings and structures. The city governments had to eventually demolish these structures and their debris ended up in the landfills. Our guests Michael Gainer and Ian MacDonald of Reuse Action, who live in Buffalo, NY, started thinking about the millions of dollars the demolishings would cost the city and the taxpayers and its impact on the environment. They believed that methodical deconstruction of the structures can create employment and be an economically viable business. They perform deconstructions and salvage floors, windows, doors, trims, kitchen cabinets, light fixtures and any other parts that can be resold, refurbished or transformed. They sell these articles in their store located on the Eastside of Buffalo, NY. Running a financially viable repurposed and salvage business is challenging with regards to understanding what to salvage, the customers wants and how much they are willing to pay. Learn about this truly sustainable business determined to make a difference in their community and the environment.

#reuse #salvage #mindfulbusinesses #recycle #environment
https://www.reuseaction.com/
https://mindfulbusinessespodcast.com/

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Our Sustainable Home
4: Reuse Action - Reclaimed and Surplus Building Materials
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107: FabScrap – Recycling and Reusing Textile Waste

Today we revisit a conversation with FabScrap about the textile waste that ends up in landfills and how they try to reduce this phenomenon. This episode is a re-air from May 17, 2023
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Majority of the conversation around fashion waste revolves around finished products that end up in the landfill. But around 12 % that is around 6.3 million tonnes per year is sent by brands to the landfill in the design and development stage. These would be sample booklets with swatches and unused fabric rolls and prior to Fabscrap they ended up in the landfill. We talk with Jessica Schreiber CEO and founder of FabScrap, a non-profit whose 80% of earned income comes from service fees and fabric sales. They receive service fees from brands to Fabscrap to pick up their textile waste, similar to when they pay for recycling or trash pickup. They do this with an army of volunteers, almost 100 unique ones per month and their staff in Brooklyn and Philadelphia. Their staff take extra precautions to assure brands that their copyrighted materials are shredded and don’t reenter the market. Fabscrap also sells the fabrics to quilters, sewing enthusiasts, fashion students and assuring nothing that is picked up by Fabscrap goes to the landfill. With the long-term goal to influence habit and policy they create impact reports that they share back with their brands – how much and what fabric they picked and how was it sorted and if reused or not. Jessica believes that this makes the brands internalize the cost of their waste and may help them reevaluate and optimize their design and planning process. Learn more about this first of its kind initiative and organization on this episode of Mindful businesses.

#textilewaste
#mindfulbusinesses
#sustainablefashion
#fabricwaste
#fabscrap
#sustainablefashion

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Mindful Businesses
107: FabScrap - Recycling and Reusing Textile Waste
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17: Ricron Panels – Giving Value To Waste Plastics

Laminated film is used in a wide range of flexible packaging applications such as food pharma, personal care products, etc. and then disposed off. The annual production of laminates in India is expected to be over 1 million MT with a market growth rate of 15-20%. These are used in your potato chip bags, candy wrappers and varied every packaging solutions. Waste generated from laminates has no productive value as it is expensive to recycle and thus ends up in landfills. Ricron Panels recovers this non-recyclable waste and uses its proprietary technology to convert this waste into forms of sheets that are used as a building material. It creates a product that is a substitute for plywood and in fact at some ways even better. It is waterproof, rust proof, termite resistant, fire – retardant, heat resistant and best of all it is recyclable. It creates a circular economy. In this episode, we learn about this solution from the co-founder Rahul Choudhary of Ricron Panels where he talks about the process and motivation to found this business.
Join us on his journey, especially with our sustainable house underway.
This episode is a re-air from February 4, 2020

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https://www.ricron.com/

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Mindful Businesses
17: Ricron Panels - Giving Value To Waste Plastics
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107: FabScrap – Recycling and Reusing Textile Waste

Majority of the conversation around fashion waste revolves around finished products that end up in the landfill. But around 12 % that is around 6.3 million tonnes per year is sent by brands to the landfill in the design and development stage. These would be sample booklets with swatches and unused fabric rolls and prior to Fabscrap they ended up in the landfill. We talk with Jessica Schreiber CEO and founder of FabScrap, a non-profit whose 80% of earned income comes from service fees and fabric sales. They receive service fees from brands to Fabscrap to pick up their textile waste, similar to when they pay for recycling or trash pickup. They do this with an army of volunteers, almost 100 unique ones per month and their staff in Brooklyn and Philadelphia. Their staff take extra precautions to assure brands that their copyrighted materials are shredded and don’t reenter the market. Fabscrap also sells the fabrics to quilters, sewing enthusiasts, fashion students and assuring nothing that is picked up by Fabscrap goes to the landfill. With the long-term goal to influence habit and policy they create impact reports that they share back with their brands – how much and what fabric they picked and how was it sorted and if reused or not. Jessica believes that this makes the brands internalize the cost of their waste and may help them reevaluate and optimize their design and planning process. Learn more about this first of its kind initiative and organization on this episode of Mindful businesses.

#textilewaste
#mindfulbusinesses
#sustainablefashion
#fabricwaste
#fabscrap
#sustainablefashion

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Fashion and Beauty
107: FabScrap - Recycling and Reusing Textile Waste
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81: Zeloop – The Eco-Friendly App That Rewards Goodness

We talk with Eric Schaffner, CEO and Founder of ZeLoop. A revolutionary and eco-friendly platform that makes consumers a crucial part of the plastic circular economy, allowing them to contribute to the reduction of plastic waste and be rewarded for it. This innovative and responsible app aims to reward the pro-environmental behaviors of consumers with the prime focus being on plastic bottle collection.The ultimate goal that ZeLoop works towards is to become the main driver for consumers’ motivation to act differently that will one-day make the Earth plastic litter-free.All you have to do is:– Gather used plastic bottles– Drop them at collection centers for recycling– Upload a picture of deposited bottles on the app– Win tokens to get exciting rewards! You can use these tokens, for instance to get a discount while purchasing one of our guests – Thaely’s sneakers. Learn more on this episode.
📷 Ian McMillen Photography

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Europe
81: Zeloop - The Eco-Friendly App That Rewards Goodness
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17: Ricron Panels – Giving Value To Waste Plastics

Co-founder Rahul Choudhary of Ricron Panels talks about the motivation and the process of converting toothpaste and candy wrappers into a great cost-effective substitute for plywood and MDF. Join us on his journey.

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Fashion and Beauty
17: Ricron Panels - Giving Value To Waste Plastics
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