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Showing 9 of 98 news items in Circular Economy

Circular EconomyJuly 29, 2024

IDB Lab seeks innovative solutions to mitigate Sargassum impact

IDB Lab, the innovation laboratory of the Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB Group), in collaboration with other agencies is launching the Sargassum Innovation Quest. The initiative aims to harness the potential of the sargassum biomass and improve the resilience in Latin America and the Caribbean’s coastal communities through the use of advanced technology and innovative practice. It says since 2011, the region has faced significant challenges from the influx of sargassum, impacting tourism, fisheries and coastal ecosystems. The call is open to proposals for technological solutions from startups, corporations, foundations, non-profit organisations, and academic institutions, among others. These solutions must be already proven at an experimental level and need to be scaled to a commercial level, with business models meeting economic viability, social impact, environmental sustainability and sectoral innovation requirements.

Circular EconomyJuly 29, 2024

IslandPlas initiative aims to tackle plastic pollution as African islands drown in a sea of waste

Photo credit: Elgin Crea: Retrieved from dailymaverick.co.za Plastic pollution is a global problem but its impact on the shores of African islands and their communities far exceeds that of inland countries, flowing in from both countries in the global north and from within these island states. Mauritius, Cabo Verde, Comoros, Madagascar, São Tomé and Príncipe, Seychelles, and Zanzibar produce around 200,000 tons of plastic waste per year with only around 40% of it collected. To understand the scale of this, if an adult elephant weighs an average of five tons, 200,000 tons of plastic waste would equate to 40,000 adult elephants! These small islands lack economies of scale, as well as the waste management and industry infrastructure needed to enable a robust circular economy for plastics. This results in unsustainable waste management practices such as landfilling and an increased risk for large-scale plastic leakage into the environment, especially the ocean. At the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Africa Conservation Cconference in Nairobi in June, the IslandPlas initiative was started to give these islands a fighting chance against plastic pollution on their shores by implementing waste management and recycling initiatives that reduce plastic waste leakage in the targeted seven African islands and help them transition into plastic waste-free islands.

Circular EconomyJune 10, 2024

Can the circular economy help the Caribbean win its war against waste?

Image by Sandra Weiss. Retrieved from news.mongabay.com The best place to party on the Caribbean island of Curaçao is Mambo Beach, near the island’s capital, Willemstad. On weekends, DJs outperform each other, spinning the hottest music at shoreside hotels and beach clubs. Tourists and locals dance the night long, consuming beer, cocktails, rum, soft drinks, and maybe water. Then, at 4 a.m., when the last partyers have fallen asleep on the beach’s sunbeds, the [Green Phenix](https://greenphenix.com/about/) team arrives and starts collecting the garbage strewn by guests. Green Phenix is a local environmental startup that has set itself a big goal: To clean up Curaçao. This is more than a civic duty — it may also be a national imperative: Waste disposal has become a serious problem on the island, which is the size of Manhattan, and it’s getting worse. The same is true on islands across the Caribbean. “In 2020, each [Curaçao] islander produced an [average of 1,200 kilograms](https://cuatro.sim-cdn.nl/cbscuracao/uploads/curacao-environmental-statistics-compendium-2020-a_0.pdf?cb=QD13A2_h.html) [about 2,650 pounds] of waste per year,” says Ciaretta Profas, a government adviser on environmental policy. “That’s three times as much as usual in Latin America,” she adds. Of course, this isn’t because the inhabitants of Curaçao are particularly wasteful, but because all the garbage left behind by tourists is statistically attributed to the 150,000 inhabitants.

Circular EconomyMay 31, 2024

Inside Vanuatu’s Resilience Revolution: A Blueprint for Small Island States

Photo: Hamish Wyatt/World Bank. Retrieved from worldbank.org Over the course of 10 years of partnership, the World Bank has supported efforts by the government of Vanuatu to build the skills and institutions it needs to deal with the many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes it is prone to as well as the increasingly frequent and severe cyclones. This collaboration and institutional strengthening with one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries could serve as a model for other small island states as climate impacts worsen around the world. The World Bank has been working in Vanuatu since the 1980s. Over the past decade, much of its work there has focused on disaster risk management, including building on the geohazard monitoring work that Dr. Esline Garaebiti began back in 1997. Dr. Garaebiti, one of the first female geoscientists in the Pacific and a recipient of a Women’s International Network for Disaster Risk Reduction Leadership Award, is the Director General of Vanuatu’s Ministry of Climate Change. Born on a volcanic island, Esline discovered her passion for earth science as an undergraduate. In 1997, she joined a French organization implementing Vanuatu’s first geohazard monitoring. She then become the geohazards manager for the government of Vanuatu before assuming her current post, in 2020.

Circular EconomyMay 29, 2024

Antiguan appointed Executive Director of the Centre for Excellence for Oceanography and Blue Economy

Photo courtesy UWI FIC. Retrieved from antiguaobserver.com The University of the West Indies (The UWI) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr Branson D Belle as the Executive Director of the Centre for Excellence for Oceanography and the Blue Economy at The UWI Five Islands Campus in Antigua and Barbuda. The Centre aims to advance research and training in oceanography and sustainable maritime industries, contributing to the development of the blue economy in the Caribbean region. According to a press release, Dr Belle, an Antiguan national, brings over 20 years of experience in cutting-edge technology development from renowned universities and research institutes. He obtained his PhD in Magnetic Materials from the University of Manchester (UoM), where he also earned a Master’s degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering with First Class Honours, and spent a year at ENSEEIHT in Toulouse, France. He was awarded the FC Williams (2000), IEEE (2001) and the Sir William Siemen (2003) awards for most outstanding academic achievements in his years at UoM. Belle then obtained an Overseas Research Scholarship award to pursue his PhD in Magnetic Materials at UoM. After his PhD, Dr Belle worked as a Research Associate with Nobel Prize winners Professor Sir Andre Geim and Professor Sir Kostya Novoselov. He co-founded 2-DTech Ltd, a materials and technology company later acquired by Versarien PLC. For the past nine years, Dr Belle has been a senior scientist at SINTEF, one of Europe’s largest research institutes, working in the departments of Smart Sensor Systems and Sustainable Energy Technology. He has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers in prestigious journals and secured over $7 million in grant funding.

Circular EconomyMay 28, 2024

Small islands must wake up to chemical and pollution ‘time bomb’

Small island developing States (SIDS) gathered in Antigua and Barbuda this week for the SIDS4 conference should not be afraid to stand up to companies seeking short-term profit at the long-term expense of human health and the environment – especially in the tourism sector. That’s the message from the Seychelles-born Executive Secretary of the UN-administered Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions Rolph Payet. He told UN News in Antigua that pollution – from chemical waste or cruise ships – is a “time bomb” for vulnerable countries unless they band together and take more action. He told Matt Wells that while fighting climate change is a complex challenge for small islands, they can collaborate better to reduce pollution and promote sustainability through achievable and tangible goals such as water harvesting.

Circular EconomyMay 17, 2024

Opinion ǀ American Samoa deserves to thrive as fishing shifts

Excerpt and Photo from mvariety.com THE perilous state of American Samoa’s last tuna cannery is an outcome that experts have long warned about. An international shift in the fishing industry, largely driven by countries with lower workforce standards and pay and subsidized infrastructure, makes U.S. competition in the cannery industry unavailing. In desperate attempts to cling to the last of what was once four canneries in American Samoa, some industrial fishers and cannery operators are trying to blame Pacific conservation efforts as the culprits. Despite the anticipated demise, it is disingenuous to pit the vitality of the ocean against American Samoa’s livelihood. This divisive approach offers false hope that the territory’s cannery can somehow survive if we don’t protect the health of the Pacific Remote Islands. Located in the middle of the Pacific ocean, Howland, Baker, Jarvis and Wake Islands; Johnston and Palmyra Atolls; and Kingman Reef are home to some of our planet’s last wild and healthy ocean ecosystems. The islands, atolls and reefs also hold rich voyaging and cultural history among indigenous Pacific Islanders.

Circular EconomyMay 10, 2024

Notes from a development practitioner in Solomon Islands

Excerpt and Photo from UNDP (undp.org) UN Women have held its Project Working Committee Meeting for the Market for Change Project in Honiara. Across the next two days, the project is undertaking a review of activities implemented, and outlining the way forward for the project. To introduce myself my name is Jilgina Kimisi, and I am so proud to work as project associate for this project for the women of my country because in just this short time, I have been able to see the change that the project is bringing about to the women and the development of my country. During the first session of the meeting, I had the opportunity to do a little presentation about the component implemented by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Solomon Islands. It´s the first time I participated in this important governance meeting since I started to work for the project just two months ago. As the Project Associate in Solomon Islands, I spearhead Outcome Two, a component implemented by UNDP which focuses on empowering women entrepreneurs with financial literacy. With the activities implemented under this component, every day is a new opportunity to witness the positive transformation the initiative brings to the women at the markets around the country.

Circular EconomyMay 3, 2024

Caribbean startups are turning excess seaweed into an agroecology solution

Photo courtesy of Carbonwave. Retrieved from news.mongabay.com In 2015, smelly mats of a brown macroalgae called sargassum piled as high as 1.2 meter (4 feet) on the beaches of Barbados, recalls Joshua Forte. It was the fourth year in what has become an annual nightmare, with an estimated 18,100 kilograms (20 tons) of seaweed inundating Caribbean shorelines each year and wrecking the region’s tourism-centered economies. The onslaught of seaweed reeked of rotten eggs, but Forte smelled something else: opportunity. A year earlier, Forte founded an organic fertilizer company called [Red Diamond Compost](https://www.reddiamondcompost.com/en/). He was already selling a soil additive from sunflower seeds called Liquid Sunshine. But the sargassum seemed too big to ignore.