With the rapid growth of China, citizens become more affluent and waste has been generated at an unprecedented rate, many of China’s first and second-tier cities have been forced to rethink waste management. Particularly, the informal waste management systems that have, to date, efficiently closed the loop on a lot of waste streams. In Shanghai, with two of its largest landfills in the process…
Last Thursday, Collective Responsibility hosted it’s Beijing session on “Closing the Loop on Waste” to look at how China is managing its growing supply of waste, the implications for business, and to share some best practices for how firms in the retail and manufacturing sector are closing the loop in China. Joining the session, we had Libo Ma, Director in Corporate Culture, Employee Engagement…
Most people can make money from waste … They start work at five in the morning and get off at 10 at night; they never rest and don’t spend much money. In one year, about 72,000 RMB. After a little over a year, you can really make that much money. 10 years down the road, you can save quite a lot.” – Owner, Large Collection Centre The latest addition to our publications series “Informal Waste…
In this episode of AskTheCollective, we answered a question about the role of SME in China's circular economy, how they can play a part in the circular economy and the opportunities that present to them. As always, we hope you find these questions and answers useful, possibly gain some new insights, and feel compelled or inspired to ask questions of your own! Enjoy Episode 011 below, check out…
China's waste collection and management system has recently captured public attention. Much of that attention has focused on negative incidents – such as dumping scandals in Shanghai and Wuxi – or uncertainty about the future of waste treatment, with expected landfill closures in Shanghai for 2017. But how much do you really know about waste beyond the headlines? Collective's work on waste i…
Smelly. Useless. Truck. Bin Man. Trash. Annoying. These are all words that popped into people’s heads when asked what they first thought upon hearing the word "waste." A quick Google search reveals other phrases like “worthless,” “no purpose,” “no longer useful or required,” “the unusable remains.” While I don't deny the legitimacy of the definition, it is striking to me how many items and pr…
With so much going on in the realm of sustainability, leadership, and innovation, and only a limited amount of bandwidth for professionals in this space, we have created this weekly post to highlight news and articles that we feel are (1) important, (2) relevant, and (3) interesting in the areas of business sustainability. If you have an article that you feel needs to be mentioned, please do so in…
