Circular economy & zero waste

This archive tracks real progress in circular economy design and zero-waste systems — from industrial material loops and packaging innovation to municipal composting and repair-culture movements. These stories show how waste is being redesigned out of the economy, not just managed after the fact.

Hollywood street, for article on single-use plastic reduction

California passes first sweeping US law to reduce single-use plastic

By / / Good News For Humankind

California’s single-use plastic law sets a binding target to cut throwaway plastic 25% by 2032, and it puts the bill where it belongs: on the companies making the stuff. A new producer-led organization will run recycling programs and pay $500 million a year into a fund that helps clean up the mess and address its health impacts. That’s a real shift, because for decades the cost of plastic pollution has fallen on cities and taxpayers, not the businesses profiting from it. As the largest U.S. state, California tends to pull markets and other states along with it — making this a hopeful template for tackling plastic pollution far beyond its borders.

Wind turbines, for article on recyclable wind turbine blade

General Electric produces its first 100% recyclable wind turbine that can be reconstructed as it ages

By / / Good News For Humankind

Recyclable wind turbine blades just moved from concept to reality: a French-led consortium has built a 62-meter prototype in Ponferrada, Spain, designed to be fully broken down and reused at the end of its life. The secret is a thermoplastic resin called Elium, which can be chemically separated from its glass fibers so both materials return to the manufacturing stream as good as new. Engineers will now put the blade through structural lifetime testing in Denmark, with the recycling process itself validated soon after. If the approach proves commercially viable, it could close one of renewable energy’s most persistent loops — turning the blades that power our clean-energy future from a looming waste problem into a genuine circular success story.