@ragn_sells
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Climate Love
Report data
Ragn-Sells
22 w
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Megacities like New York are facing a problem – feeding their growing populations is causing dangerous amounts of phosphorus to leak into nearby water streams. We need a future where it’s the norm to extract nutrients from our wastewater and reuse them in our food system. At Ragn-Sells, we have the technology to do this, but we need collaboration between a variety of actors to make it happen. This is the purpose of the 10 Billion Challange Initiative, which we recently launched during Climate Week NYC. Phosphorus has been a key resource that affords us our way of life, but now it’s one of the substances that threatens to take it away. When Pär Larshans, Director of Sustainability at Ragn-Sells, landed in New York for this year’s Climate Week, one of the first news stories he saw was that residents of Florida may not be able to take their spring bath in the ocean. Why? Eutrophication in the ocean has caused the biggest algae bloom ever in the Sargasso Sea, causing dangerous cyanobacteria to spread on the Florida coast. This is one of the consequences of phosphorus leaking into our waters. Not even the Atlantic Ocean is big enough to absorb all of the phosphorus that we release into our ecosystems. During Business Sweden’s event, Accelerating NYC’s Net Zero Journey at Climate Week NYC, Pär Larshans was invited to speak about the role cities could play in mining and trapping vital resources like phosphorus and nitrogen. Wastewater or nutrient resource? The problem that cities face is that they have to import produce to feed their growing populations, which leads to a surplus of nutrients in the wastewater that then spills into surrounding waters. These wasted nutrients require massive resources to produce, explained Pär Larshans: “Today, we take nitrogen from the atmosphere, (...) we need to use 2% of the world’s energy just to produce nitrogen fertiliser today, and the phosphorus, of course, will be more and more scarce, and without phosphorus no life.” The solution to these two issues is to make cities the nutrient mines of the future. With Ragn-Sells’s technology, the nitrogen and phosphorus needed for fertilisers can be extracted directly from wastewater streams, reducing eutrophication and introducing a source of circular nutrients that can be reused in our food system. We can also use the leftovers from this process to make more sustainable construction materials like cement and red paint. https://youtu.be/b-9Dsw3ydpc?t=4571 The challenge: Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 In 2050, we are expected to have 10 billion people on this planet, 7 billion of which will live in cities. In order to feed all these people while sparing the environment from intensive nitrogen and phosphorus extraction, we need new wastewater treatment facilities that can recover nutrients and other resources. To scale up these solutions, we need to build partnerships across all sectors and get cities on board. For this reason, we have launched the 10 Billion Challenge Initiative. The 10 Billion Challenge Initiative is a global initiative to create partnerships and promote circular solutions for a more sustainable food system. "Changing the global food system requires a very wide range of actors to work together and form circular partnerships. This is why we now launch the 10 Billion Challenge Initiative, and invite businesses and organisations to join us," said Pär Larshans. Read more about the 10 Billion Challenge Initiative.
Ragn-Sells
23 w
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Our waste is a treasure chest filled with raw materials that can be reused, but more often are not. Today, we at the environmental company Ragn-Sells launched a campaign entitled ‘What a waste!’, aiming to change outdated views on waste and drive the transition towards a circular society. - If we are serious about creating a sustainable society, we must use the resources we already have, over and over again. But this requires a completely new perspective on waste. The 'What a waste!' campaign is designed to inspire more people to think circular," says Cecilia Zarbell, Brand and Communications Director at Ragn-Sells. When a product has served its purpose, it becomes waste, which contains valuable raw materials that can be reused. However, according to the United Nations, half of the world's climate emissions and 90 percent of the threat to biodiversity are still caused by the constant pursuit of new natural resources for everything we produce. - What a waste! Our trash is a treasure chest filled with valuable resources. But in order to harness them, we need to start seeing waste as the sustainable source of raw materials it actually is. With today's legislation, it's cheaper to extract new resources than to use the ones we already have, and we have to change that, says Cecilia Zarbell. Read more about the campaign at www.ragnsells.com/whatawaste
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23 w
This is a very brilliant campaign
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23 w
The world has to embrace sustainability in all sorts of waste for a better tomorrow.
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23 w
Great name for a great campaign.
Ragn-Sells
25 w
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How can we feed a growing planet in a sustainable way? 🌍🌱 Soon, the world will be home to 10 billion people. To meet increasing demands without damaging the climate and the environment, we need to fundamentally change the global food system. Transitioning to a sustainable way of feeding the planet requires using the raw materials already available in our waste streams – over and over again. Today we launch the 10 Billion Challenge Initiative, a global initiative to create partnerships and promote circular solutions for a more sustainable food system. – Changing the global food system requires a very wide range of actors to work together and form circular partnerships. This is why we now launch the 10 Billion Challenge Initiative, and invite businesses and organisations to join us, said Pär Larshans, Director of Sustainability at Ragn-Sells and the originator behind the initiative. The initiative was launched in New York City during Climate Week NYC, a global climate summit bringing together international leaders from business, government, and civil society. Read more about the 10 Billion Challenge Initiative and how to join here. 👇 https://10billionchallenge.org
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24 w
I have started a conversation in Nairobi. Urban Agriculture. I'm targeting ,open spaces, balconies, drive way and more lmportantly flat roof on building where we are building green houses.
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25 w
Fantastic initiative! The food challenge is huge and can only be solved on a systemic level.
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25 w
A great initiative!
Ragn-Sells
25 w
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Improving the circularity of our society requires action on many fronts. In our 2022 Sustainability Report, we focus on the progress we have made in 7 sustainability goals over the past year, as well as how close this progress gets us to our goal of being a climate-positive company by 2030. - If we are serious about creating a sustainable society, we need to use the resources we already have, over and over again. That's why it's pleasing to look back at 2022 as a year filled with innovations, partnerships, and promoting a circular future, says Lars Lindén, CEO of Ragn-Sells Group. In our latest Sustainability report, we compiled these actions and evaluated how they help us reach 7 sustainability goals. 4 of these goals are directly related to environmental sustainability, getting us closer to being a climate-positive company by 2030: Reduce CO2e emissions, Circular solutions, Resource focus instead of waste focus and Recycled materials in procurement. Reduce CO2e emissions Goal: Ragn-Sells has reduced the footprint from our operations and facilities in line with, or better than, the Paris agreement. While we need systemic change to reach the Paris Agreement, we naturally need to be role models and reduce our own emissions. In 2022, we focused on two major sources of emissions for us: Transport and landfills, each representing almost one-half of our total emissions. 47 thousand tonnes of CO2e come from our use of transport. We are addressing this by switching to renewable fuels and electric vehicles. By the end of 2022, our company car fleet consisted of 94 percent electrified vehicles, compared to 88 percent in 2021. Starting this year, we are also looking beyond our own operations by calculating the transport emissions of our suppliers, so that we can take action to reduce those as well in the coming years. 45 thousand tonnes of CO2e come from our landfills. We can tell you this number because we recently started accurately measuring these emissions. With these measures in place, we can take action in the coming years to find the best way of reducing emissions from landfills in line with our climate goals. Circular solutions Goal: Through collaboration with partners and society we develop and deploy refined and value creating circular material flows, with the aim to increase material recycling and avoid emissions. Our most important contribution to a circular society is to develop and deploy our solutions across various sectors, making society as a whole more circular. To do this, we need to be proactive in our environmental approach and introduce milestones to achieve better circular practices. In 2022, we appointed a high-level steering committee to compile insights for circular solutions, and we advanced a great number of necessary partnerships related to plastics, wood, textile, construction materials, aquaculture, and other relevant sectors for circularity, including partnerships with Saint Gobain, IKEA, and Tarkett. Resource focus instead of waste focus Goal: The established waste hierarchy (part of the EU legislation) has been replaced by a resource focus instead of a waste focus principle that emphasises the importance of securing the availability of circular resources We need to change our system to transition into a circular economy, and an important actor in this system is the European Union. We want to use our position as a major environmental company in Europe to influence how policymakers view waste, seeing it as a resource rather than something to be discarded. In 2022 we put ourselves into positions where we can do just that. In May we were invited by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) to a World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting in Geneva. We took the opportunity to highlight the challenges of trading CO2, a key enabler and feedstock into one of Europe’s largest circular economy projects. Our Sustainability Director Pär Larshans was appointed co-chair of a new global working group on circular economy by the ICC in September, alongside global law firm Greenberg Traurig and global tech company IBM. Through this group, we can contribute with business perspectives, knowledge, and experience to current sustainability challenges including circularity. Recycled materials in procurement Goal: At least 50 percent of all our procurement is sourced from recycled resources. As an environmental company with a large supply chain with a serious ambition to drive the change to a circular economy, we want to be best in class in procuring more recycled materials. The goal for our procurement is very ambitious and will be a challenge to reach if the rest of the industry does not share it, but we are doing our part by steadily increasing recycled materials in our own operations to increase demand for these materials. As the demand for recycled materials increases, suppliers will be more incentivised to use them, and the circularity of our economy will increase. However, We need to see more of this from other companies if the change is to happen fast enough. These goals are our guiding stars in reducing our environmental footprint, and we will continue to report on their progress as we come further in our sustainability journey. Learn more about these goals and our other sustainability goals in our full sustainability report: https://newsroom.ragnsells.com/posts/pressreleases/ragn-sells-publishes-the-2022-sustainability
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23 w
I love the efforts to tune waste into resources like plastics, food etc
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25 w
These efforts are lovely.
Ragn-Sells
37 w
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Smart design and circular components are key factors that can significantly reduce resource use and carbon emissions in our cities. The eighth episode of Circular Table Talks focuses on crucial solutions to make our cities more circular, sustainable, and livable, from design to practice. According to the UNEP Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction’s 2022 Global Status Report, the buildings and construction sector accounted for around 37% of energy- and process-related CO2 emissions and over 34% of energy demand globally in 2021. In Circular Table Talks VIII, the topic in focus is the new report Paving the Way: How Circular Construction Builds A Sustainable Society, commissioned by Ragn-Sells to understand how we need to work together to improve the circularity of our cities. Rethinking cities of the future Opening the discussion, Serge Salat, President of the Urban Morphology and Complex Systems Institute, highlighted the need to rethink urbanization. Quoting the UNEP International Resource Panel’s report The Weight of Cities, he emphasized that we cannot rely on isolated actions like changing the types of cars we use or buildings we construct. We need to rethink the whole system. Redesigning cities to reduce the land area they claim and to optimize the ratio of buildings, streets, and open spaces is the first step to making cities more resource efficient. “The sizing and orientation between buildings and the voids between buildings, the urban spaces are really key for letting the air between the buildings create natural ventilation, solar gains in cold countries, shade in hot countries, this type of bioclimatic urban fabric is key for saving massive amounts of operational energy,” explained Serge. We also need to redesign the buildings themselves. By designing buildings that can be used for multiple purposes such as office buildings, hotels, and residences, the need for renovation and additional resource use can be significantly reduced. Buildings can also be designed to promote sustainable behaviors in the residents’ everyday lives. “Ultimately, cities and buildings are about people. It’s not the cities and buildings that consume resources, it’s ultimately the people,” said Serge Salat. Policy roadmaps for climate-neutral cities The next speaker was the Estonian Member of Parliament Pärtel-Peeter Pere, who told us about their construction roadmap towards climate-neutral cities. As one of the primary tools for reaching the goal of climate-neutral cities by 2040, the Estonian government has implemented carbon emission measurements for all new buildings, a method that is to be implemented on a European Union level by 2030 at the latest: “We are on track [...] for all new buildings, you need to calculate the CO2 footprint, and they have established a cap too, which you can’t exceed.” To make sure that buildings stay below the cap, Pärtel emphasized the importance of circular materials. As an example, he referred to a project in Norway called Future Built where an office building in the heart of Oslo was renovated with 80% reused materials, which resulted in a 70% reduction in the renovation’s carbon footprint. Wood: A circular building material Kristina Nore, Research and Innovation Manager, OMTRE, told us about using wood as a circular material in construction. “Wood is carbon”, she emphasized, meaning that building with timber sequesters carbon into buildings that can stand for decades. Wood as a resource is however connected to forest exploitation, which negatively affects biodiversity. In order to build more with wood, we need to reuse wood that is wasted today. “In Norway we waste just about the same amount [of wood] as we build, so it is natural to take more care of this resource,” Kristina explains, referring to her project SirkTRE which takes half of the wasted wood in Norway and uses it to create new construction materials. This action alone equates to 8% of Norway’s commitment to the Paris Agreement. Form Follows Availability: Moving from efficiency to sufficiency Anders Bang Kiertzner, Director, Circular Advising, Lendager Group wrapped up the presentations by introducing a new perspective in architecture: Form Follows Availability. According to this perspective, we need to move from thinking about efficiency to sufficiency. What we need is just as important as what we want, especially in the Global North. In the building and construction sector, this means that we need to build in a way that questions how we have done things over the past 50 years and look for new solutions that can reduce emissions from transportation, resource extraction, and more. Anders brought up an example from Berlin: “We are currently working on a large project in the center of Berlin where we are using the existing structure of the building that is already on the plot, and the additional materials that need to go into the building are sourced from a renovation project that is taking place right next door.” The next step: Legislation for circular construction Pär Larshans, Director of Sustainability at Ragn-Sells, wrapped up the presentations by scoping in on EU legislation and how it affects circular construction. Today’s legislation almost prevents recycling companies from being a part of remodeling. This is why we decided to hold the round tables presented in the Paving the Way: How Circular Construction Builds A Sustainable Society report, to understand what can be done to alleviate this. Some findings were surprising. “When we had those round tables, the different stakeholders had very seldomly met before. We have very little collaboration across the value chain, we work in our silos. We need to break this up.” This is what the report is trying to accomplish, by showing our findings to the European Union we can translate these findings into action. To wrap up the eighth episode of Circular Table Talks, we asked each speaker what they wanted us to bring to the European Union when we meet them. Watch the full episode below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGL6Ah04iJA
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36 w
Circular economy highly contributes to a sustainable environment.
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37 w
I really liked that episode, we really heard from all the different actors in the building industry, from politicians to architects! Very inspiring
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This is such an important topic. With the construction sector accounting for 37% of energy-related CO2 emissions, it is an area where initiatives to increase circularity and reduce CO2 emissions can have a real impact! This was a great episode of Circular Table Talks
Ragn-Sells
54 w
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We know by now that by recovering phosphorus and nitrogen from wastewater streams, we can reduce emissions, use fewer resources and prevent pollution. In this special episode of Circular Table Talks, the Ambassador of Sweden to Germany stressed that collaborations between countries are crucial for these technologies to be used at scale. Pär Larshans, Director of Sustainability for Ragn-Sells, joined Pär Thöresson, the Ambassador of Sweden to Germany, along with representatives from EasyMining to talk about technologies that can help us recover nutrients from wastewater and the policies that stand in the way of scaling these technologies. Ragn-Sells and EasyMining have done tests where third-party verified, high-quality phosphorus and nitrogen have been recovered through the unique Ash2Phos and Aqua2N methods. We know that we can provide these resources to feed products, fertilizers, and more, if we are allowed to. Unfortunately, current legislation takes into account the origin of products and not the quality. Since these resources are considered waste, they are dispersed into our water streams instead of being reused. Changing these policies will unlock significant circular solutions for us. We would like to go a step further and request a base legislation that states that you have to recycle and detoxify phosphorus if you can. This would give us the best possible opportunity to transform wastewater treatment plants into resource treatment plants. Enabling these solutions unlocks a huge potential for countries like Sweden and Germany to come closer to meeting their climate goals. While the exact climate benefit of recovering nitrogen and phosphorus is still being calculated, it is clear that to avoid the mining for new materials, and at the same time reduce the emissions of laughing gas (N2O) from nitrogenized water and protecting marine ecosystems, will lead to reduced emissions from both ends of the spectrum. To learn more about our solutions and listen to the full discussion with the Ambassador, watch the full special episode of Circular Table Talks below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMX4wXXRF90
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54 w
This was a great episode, highlighting the need for countries to implement the right kind of policies if we want to continue producing food in the future! This is a key issue
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54 w
It is inspiring to hear about collaborations between countries to reduce emissions and prevent water pollution.
Ragn-Sells
61 w
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We have a massive problem with our plastic recycling system. Traditional plastic recycling technology requires the plastic material to be clean and uniform in order to work - and as it turns out, only a small proportion of the plastic we throw away fulfills these criteria. In Denmark, the proportion is 30%, which leaves around 200,000 tonnes of plastic waste that cannot be recycled every year. Ragn-Sells are working to solve this problem. These 200,000 tonnes are left to be incinerated or sent to landfill, causing emissions, or even worse, polluting nature, which in turn creates the need to produce 200,000 tonnes of new plastic from virgin materials, causing emissions. This is a gigantic waste of resources and a source of unnecessary emissions. Our FAIR Plastic granulates are made of recycled plastic from the unclean, mixed portion that is otherwise wasted, and have a grey tone due to the mix of colors from the plastic that is recycled. We want to make it profitable to reuse this type of plastic in order to unlock a massive amount of material that is already present in our system. By using the FAIR Plastic granulates to make plastic vessels for waste collection, we can already collect nearly 60% of all the plastic the Ragn-Sells Group manages. In partnership with major Danish brands like Grundfos and LEGOLAND, we have started creating the first products from FAIR Plastic, and we are looking to do even more. Let us know if you have any ideas for what kinds of products could be made from this new material! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEAA9vx813I Read more about FAIR Plastic: https://fair-plastic.com/en/
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58 w
Plastic is a world menice, recycling adverts should be adopted to curb the remaining plastics
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61 w
This could be a massive development to make sure that recycling is a more valuable action to take as an individual! We need to make sure that the plastic that goes to recycling is actually recycled, it's really bad that's not the case already so I'm happy to see that Ragn-Sells has a solution to make it happen.
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61 w
The world is waiting for a solution to plastics.
Ragn-Sells
65 w
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During the UN climate conference COP27, Ragn-Sells participated in the COP27 Climate Hub, an on-site and digital broadcast hosted by We Don’t Have Time from Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt. Pär Larshans, Director of Sustainability of Ragn-Sells Group joined the broadcast from Sharm El-Sheikh to co-host a session about transforming our wastewater systems and start seeing them as resource treatment plants. Phosphorus in wastewater is not only an issue in terms of wasted resources but also an issue for the ecosystems that receive the wastewater. In a warmer future climate, eutrophication, that is the overabundance of nutrients in water bodies, will increase. This leads to increased activity by the likes of bacteria and algae which leads to massive emissions of methane, a significant contributor to the climate crisis. Pär also brought up the issue of how nitrogen from wastewater plants contributes to disrupting marine and coastal ecosystems and causing emissions of N2O, another powerful greenhouse gas. Ragn-Sells provides technical solutions to extract both nitrogen and phosphorus from water that can then be reused in industrial and agricultural processes through the subsidiary EasyMining. “EasyMining’s statement is for policymakers to listen. Their solutions are available, make sure that you enable them and create a demand. Don’t be afraid of businesses, that is my big conclusion: Policymakers, listen and please enable circular solutions,” said Pär Larshans in his closing statement. The broadcast also had guest speakers from WWF Sweden, Svenskt Vatten, EasyMining, the European Environment Agency, Wien Energie, Aquafin, Phosphorgewinnung Schkopau, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, BIOFOS, IUCN Ocean, and academics on the global phosphorus emergency give their perspectives on wastewater and how we can turn it into resources. Watch the whole session to hear from all of them! https://youtu.be/4_wdhcfFk1c?t=29075 Rewatch the COP27 Climate Hub anytime on We Don’t Have Time Play.
Ragn-Sells
74 w
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It’s clogging up our oceans, it’s filling up our landfills, it’s choking our wildlife… Plastic, one of the biggest environmental pollutants humans produce. But solving the plastics problem is about much more than just reducing or moving away from this material. During the We Don't Have Time broadcast "The Road to COP 27", which was part of Climate Week NYC, we sat down alongside several forerunning businesses for a session on plastics, plastic waste, and the potential for recycling this common yet harmful material to reduce emissions across a range of industries. We were keen to share how our history in the waste management industry could be used to combat this plastic crisis and integrate the material in a way that works with a circular, greener economy, rather than against it within our region of operations in Denmark. Our CEO of Ragn-Sells in Denmark, Massimo Forti was joined by the founder of WRAP, Marcus Gover, a climate action NGO working directly on a plastic reduction initiative in the UK, as well as Erin Simon, Head of WWF’s USA Plastic Waste & Business Arm, and Sheila Aggarwal-Khan, Economy Division Director, UNEP. Together, we shared our collective vision and solutions for a renewable plastic future. The Plastic Issue “We started a journey at Ragn-Sells Denmark years ago by treating organic waste from groceries stores but realized that 20% of the input was actually plastic. Solving the waste problem with organic produce is easy, but this isn’t the same for plastics.” As Massimo outlined in his initial remarks, the challenge of plastics is inherent in its ubiquity - the material is used in virtually every industry, with much of it coming in an unrecyclable form. We had stumbled across a challenge that we wanted to solve, and although, as our Danish CEO shared onstage, we have already generated some technical solutions, such as recycling plastic back into usable materials, this was a solution that was economically inefficient. “Virgin” or new plastics don’t have a fixed price, but they are often far cheaper to create, sell and produce than recycled plastics. From wholesalers to producers, to customers, it is currently not economically advantageous to turn to entirely recycled plastic products. “We have to find a new plastic production model, but how do we do this? We need to restructure the inherent value of different types of plastics to create a demand for recycled plastics.” But as Massimo outlined, there needs to be a new worldwide standard for reused plastics in all our goods that will set guidelines for how valuable recycled plastics do become to businesses and industries. The new plastic standard “Not all companies have internal policies on how much recycled materials need to be in their products. In the Uk now, they have a list of several plastic products where they have to have at least 30% recycled material.” As Massimo shared, if there was a standard globally for all products to contain the same amount of recycled materials, it would automatically increase the value of recycled plastics across the board, helping expedite the process by which entire supply chains begin to prize this more climate-friendly plastic solution. A fantastic point was brought up by Sheila Aggarwal-Khan, Economy Division Director at UNEP, who outlined the issue with plastic “additives” as part of a wider “reuse and recycle” system for plastic usage: “There are chemicals that go into plastics. You have your phone, you have your laptop - even packaging - that turns the plastics into something manoeuvrable… What do you do with these chemicals that could be harmful to the people that are responsible for recycling?” She added that, “Governments are looking at the kind of regulatory environment that they are putting in place to create a level playing field for actors across the value chain to be able to operate in a new plastics economy.” Watch the whole discussion: https://youtu.be/bo5jL_K5BQs?t=31735
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70 w
Very interesting
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74 w
I recommend the book Plastics Paradox
Ragn-Sells
75 w
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The Curt Bergfors Foundation has recognized the importance of recovering nutrients from waste by nominating Ragn-Sells for their Food Planet Prize. The prize is given to two winners who get $2 million each, making this the world’s largest environmental prize. Ragn-Sells' entry to the award consists of three solutions for recycling nutrients from waste back into our food production. “As the world’s population keeps increasing, recycling agricultural nutrients is crucial to our ability to feed everyone without ruining the planet”, says Pär Larshans, Chief Sustainability Officer at Ragn-Sells. The three processes recycle three crucial nutrients for growing our food today – phosphorus from sewage sludge, nitrogen from sewage water, and potassium from fly ash. By recycling these nutrients instead of releasing them back into the atmosphere, we can avoid mining or fixation operations that require large amounts of fossil fuels today. In some cases, we can prevent the greenhouse gasses that would have been created directly by the waste, like N2O. The Curt Bergfors Foundation was established in 2019 by the Swedish entrepreneur Curt Bergfors, founder of the restaurant chain MAX Burgers. The Curt Bergfors Food Planet Prize is now the world’s largest environmental award, aiming to accelerate the transition to sustainable food systems. Read the full press release.
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60 w
Wonderful idea for our ecosystem.
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75 w
This is a great solution to win back the necessary nutrients for our food agricultural systems!
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75 w
Great job indeed..
Hannah Mbiuta
77 w
The annual United Nations Climate Change Conference is a critical platform to advance the agenda for global climate action. Over 11 days, global decision makers, business and industry leaders, climate experts, and civil society will come together to negotiate and agree actions for meeting the targets of the Paris Agreement. Sweden’s COP27 Business Delegation will take Swedish companies, government agencies, academic leaders, and preeminent NGOs to the conference, to partner up with one common aim, to accelerate the implementation of innovation solutions and collaborations that support both business competitiveness and the future of the planet. https://fal.cn/3s2bv
59 more agrees trigger contact with the recipient
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77 w
Ragn-Sells is leading the way to a circular way!
Ragn-Sells
88 w
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Ragn-Sells Norway is investing in a sustainable solution for the fish farming industry. Dead fish and fish feces have proven to be a treasure trove full of renewable energy. A Norwegian unique technology can contribute to transforming an environmental challenge into an international industrial adventure. An hour by boat north of Bergen, between high Western Norwegian mountains in Sørfjorden in Osterøy, the 14 open marine netpens of Lerøy Sjøtroll’s aquaculture facility come into view. Over 700,000 rainbow trout live here in what appears at first sight to be an entirely ordinary aquaculture facility. However, a world first is hidden beneath the surface of the water. At the base of the netpens is Norwegian-developed technology which can both help meet an environmental challenge and be the start of a global green industrial adventure. Waste from open aquaculture facilities consists mainly of fish faeces and waste feed. This ends up in the sea and may form a carpet over the marine environment. Around 90 per cent of all aquaculture facilities have a certified environmental permit that is good or very good, but in some places the local conditions prevent the fjord from removing waste naturally. This leaves room for innovative solutions. Revolutionary business opportunities – What you will see down there in the netpens at a depth of 35 metres paves the way for revolutionary business opportunities. For the aquaculture industry, on a global scale in particular, waste also represents an opportunity for profitable green resource utilisation, says Dag Martin Børhaug, a Bergen resident through and through and General Manager of Ragn-Sells Havbruk. Norwegian fjords such as Sørfjorden have natural advantages for aquaculture, but in some places the volume of waste has hindered growth. At the same time, the authorities have clear expectations that production will double by 2030 and quintuple by 2050. – For a few seconds, just take in the idyll all around us. Aquaculture must be managed in such a way that it keeps the fjords alive. If capacity is to be increased, solutions are needed to minimise the negative environmental consequences, says Børhaug. When the clever folk at the small aquaculture firm Lift Up in Western Norway had developed their invention, a combination filter made of blue plastic, Børhaug and Ragn-Sells Havbruk saw its opportunities and entered into a partnership. The golden filter Back in the netpens off Osterøy, the rainbow trout swim around in the blueish green seawater mixed with fresh meltwater from the mountain. They are fed eleven times every 24 hours and they defecate at least as often. – The residue of both food and faeces, fish sludge, usually sinks to the seabed through the netting of the netpens. Here at Lerøy in Sørfjorden, the netpens have a tightly meshed base so that the sludge is caught in the netting and separated by the filter, says Børhaug. The waste constitutes a valuable resource containing high quantities of the important mineral phosphorus. Using the recently developed combination filter, these resources can be utilised as it separates dead fish and fish sludge, which is then pumped up into separate tanks and used to produce bioenergy, fuel, fish oil products, and organic fertiliser. – This is the first facility in the world to make use of the invention. The system for collecting and removing waste from aquaculture netpens minimises the impact of food and fish faeces on the marine environment, explains Daniel Flatøy, Head of Logistics at Ragn-Sells Havbruk, which performs waste management and maritime operations for over 100 sites in Western Norway and Rogaland. Since last summer, nearly 3,200 tonnes of fish sludge have been removed from Sørfjorden, equivalent to 70 per cent of the total discharge. – This is a big step towards utilising established aquaculture facilities in a more sustainable manner. We are planning to gradually scale up activities, which will stimulate more value creation, says Flatøy. The energy potential of biosludge from Norwegian aquaculture production is actually equivalent to the annual energy consumption of all of the City of Bergen. International value chain The full-scale pilot project in Sørfjorden was started in summer 2020 and is a partnership between the aquaculture operators Lift Up, Ragn-Sells Havbruk, AquaPro, and AMOF-Fjell, with the support of Innovation Norway. – The project is a good way of starting to use an unutilised resource and also overcoming an environmental challenge. In the big picture, we need to recycle and utilise the resources that exist to a greater extent, says Tore Alfheim, Senior Adviser at Innovation Norway. He emphasises that the good results may pave the way for attractive business opportunities worldwide. – What is happening with the local pilot project outside Bergen will greatly benefit aquaculture nations like Scotland, Chile, Canada, China, Ghana and Peru. I am thinking here of the combination of technology, experience and environmental benefits, says Alfheim, and with Norway at the helm as a leading aquaculture operator, I think we are seeing the start of a very interesting value chain here, Alfheim concludes. The technology and the collaboration project were also praised by the Minister of Fisheries after a visit to the facility in the late summer at which the Minister described it as an impressive example of the aquaculture industry taking the lead and finding solutions to environmental challenges. Imagine fish sludge becoming biofuel on a jet plane that can ultimately take you to the Maldives or New York. That’s what I call greener travel, says Dag Martin Børhaug of Ragn-Sells Havbruk.
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80 w
Hmmm... Turning the sludge into biofuel for the city of Bergen sounds like a nice recycling solution--except burning the biofuel generates CO2 from material that would otherwise end up at the bottom of the sea (not a good place for it, but not in the atmosphere), or in soils (maybe a better place for it). Slightly better than burning fossil fuels, but, at this juncture in our changing earth system, maybe not the best solution.
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There is so much disease and toxic waste concentrated in these pens and huge amounts of antibiotics. Have you looked at the health of these fish and they are full of cancers and lice. I can’t really see much beyond a sales job here. I hope I’m wrong.
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Very cool!
Ragn-Sells
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On Thursday 19 May, representatives of the environmental company Ragn-Sells met Vice President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, during his visit to Estonia. Mr. Timmermans was introduced to one of the Nordic region's largest ongoing circular projects, the Oil Shale Ash-project, and the challenges facing the project: the lack of carbon dioxide (CO2). The Oil Shale Ash-project is managed by Ragn-Sells in Estonia and is based on a technology that creates precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC), a mineral that can be used in a large array of products, from rubber to tooth paste and more. What makes this technology unique is that it uses CO2 as a part of the process, actively binding CO2 that would otherwise have made it into the atmosphere and contributed to the climate crisis. Despite the huge climate savings potential that the project has, a major challenge is that at present the project does not qualify for any EU green funding options. The reason being that our technology uses carbon dioxide generated from a fossil fuel origin. Ragn-Sells propose that the European Commission establishes a transition period, during which the circular economy production units could also use fossil carbon dioxide if there are no alternative sources available. If scaled, the Oil Shale Ash solution could reduce the emissions of Estonia’s energy production by approximately 15 percent in the short term. We are happy that Frans Timmermans took our words to heart and that he will bring the issue to the European Commission. - The oil shale ash valorising project is an impressive example for the whole production sector and promised to raise the CO2 issue in Brussels and come back with the potential solutions, said Mr. Frans Timmermans. Read the full press release: https://newsroom.ragnsells.com/posts/pressreleases/lack-of-carbon-dioxide-a-threat-to-the-transi Read more about the Oil Shale Ash project: https://app.wedonthavetime.org/posts/cf630302-97d3-473e-a1f0-a3081457123e
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Great climate leadership
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92 w
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
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The best kind of political advocacy - show them directly what kinds of action exists!
Ragn-Sells
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Circular Table Talks V - Circularity and 21st century Logistics 🗓 June 8 🕒 15:00 CEST We Don't Have Time and Ragn-Sells are proud to present the sixth episode in a series of six in-depth table talks on the subject of circularity. The series will explore new and exciting ideas that have the potential to benefit people, the planet and build green economies locally and globally. Bringing together experts on the circular economy, showing examples of projects applying these principles in real life and challenging preconceived notions of what is and isn't waste. This episode will focus on fossil fuel free logistics and how we can transform the way goods arrive and then are delivered. But also how the waste generated is taken out of our communities in ways that have a drastically lower carbon footprint, reduce traffic congestion and help build greener, more liveable cities. Read more about the speakers here: https://www.wedonthavetime.org/events/circular-table-talks-v Ask your questions to our guests in the comments section down below ⬇ https://youtu.be/TSDW1A6gFYY
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Not possible till FOSILE FUEL/ GAS EXTRACTION and refinery manufacture supported by Government...
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92 w
Ragn-Sells are really a climate leader!
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92 w
looking forward!
Sweta Chakraborty
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Appreciated this conversation last week for WDHT’s Circular Table Talks with Linnéa Sellberg and Par Larshans of Ragn-Sells. “We need to move into a circular economy if we want to create a sustainable world.” 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
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60 w
Such a powerful partnership. Hopeful about this pair.
james rewel
100 w
Trees are our major source of pure livelihood. Metal and steel suggestion for such cable drums is more durable and recyclable more than felling millions of trees for one time use. After the contents are emptied the timber becomes waste or rather firewood which is not materialistic.
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Ragn-Sells
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Circular Table Talks "Special Edition - Climate Needs Circularity" 🗓 April 7 🕒 15:00 CEST We Don't Have Time and Ragn-Sells are proud to present a special edition episode from Washington DC of circular table talks. The series explores ideas that have the potential to benefit people, the planet and build green economies locally and globally. Bringing together experts on the circular economy, showing examples of projects applying these principles in real life and challenging preconceived notions of what is and isn't waste. Humanity’s ways of sourcing and handling key nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, are deeply problematic and damaging to people and planet alike. So, this special episode will focus on the potential for circular material flows when it comes to used in food production as fertilisers as well as saving greenhouse gas emissions and limiting eutrophication. Ask your questions to our guests in the comments section down below ⬇ https://youtu.be/JF9uuuqNdR0
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Question: for circular plastics recycling, how important is it that a product be manufactured from a single type of plastic? For example, a soda bottle and its cap are different.
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I am so looking forward!
Ragn-Sells
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In June, Sweden hosts the 50-year anniversary of the first UN Conference on the environment. Environmental company Ragn-Sells will be an active part in the discussions and was represented in the preparatory meeting held in New York on March 28. The aim is to raise global awareness of the potential of circulating nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen, critical in order to produce enough with food in the world. – Humanity’s ways of sourcing and handling key nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, are deeply problematic and damaging to people and planet alike. The nations present at the UN Stockholm+50 Conference have to pave the way for circular solutions for nutrients, says Linnéa Sellberg, Project leader and owner representative at Ragn-Sells. Fifty years ago, in 1972, Sweden hosted the first-ever global conference on the environment, which resulted in the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). After five decades of international cooperation, there is growing concern as environmental problems continue to accelerate, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are not expected to be met in time. As world leaders meet in Stockholm, they will discuss how to accelerate multilateral cooperation in order to accomplish Agenda2030, the Paris agreement, and global framework on biodiversity (CBD). One area that requires urgent attention during this year’s conference is the issues concerning food production. – In the 50 years since the last Stockholm Conference, the problems with phosphorus and nitrogen have only gotten worse, and they now represent the most transgressed planetary boundary. Now is the time for action before it is too late. Every nation needs to prioritise the recycling of these key nutrients today, says Linnéa Sellberg. For example, The UN Environmental Assembly (UNEA) approximates that only 20 percent of nitrogen added to agriculture ever reaches our tables. The rest causes astonishing damage, estimated by UNEA at up to 3 400 billion US dollars annually in addition to enormous human suffering. Ragn-Sells presents circular solutions for phosphorus and nitrogen, as well as potassium. Ordinary sewage sludge contains large amounts of phosphorus and nitrogen which are not put to use today, but can be recovered with new technology and brought back to the fields. – If we are serious about creating a sustainable society, we have to start using the raw materials we already have over and over again. We look forward to contributing our knowledge about recovering key nutrients from waste and advocate for a new way of converting wastewater treatment plants into resource plants in the circular economy of tomorrow, says Pär Larshans, Director of Sustainability Ragn-Sells. Along with Ms. Sellberg, Mr. Larshans was the company’s representative participating in the preparatory meeting in New York on March 28. For further information, please contact Linnéa Sellberg, Project leader and owner representative, +46 70 927 29 37, [email protected] Pär Larshans, Director of Sustainability, +46 70 927 29 63, [email protected] Emma Ranerfors, Press Officer, +46 10 723 24 16 , [email protected]
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Very interesting, this is a topic we don't hear enough about!
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102 w
Well said - resource efficiency needs to be discussed more.
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This is important as it would help to go further into circularity
Ragn-Sells
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Ragn-Sells' new Ash2Salt plant is being built in Upplands-Bro outside Stockholm and will be operational in the second half of 2022. But already now we have ensured that the circular salt will make it to the commercial market through a commercial partnership with GC Rieber Salt which means that they will handle sales of all the recovered salt from Ragn-Sells. The partnership has already led to a commercial deal with Swedish construction company Peab, who will start buying circular salt from GC Rieber in late 2022. “Through the cooperation with Ragn-Sells, we can offer the market several different high-quality salts, with a carbon footprint that is one-tenth compared to traditional production", says Fredrik Eide, Country Manager Sweden and R&D Manager GC Rieber Salt. The Ash2Salt method allows the creation of new salt using fly ash, a waste product that is formed when flue gases from waste incineration are cleaned. The 300,000 tonnes of fly ash produced in Sweden each year contain large amounts of valuable raw materials such as potassium, sodium and calcium in salt form. With the Ash2Salt technology, developed by Ragn-Sells' innovation company EasyMining, these materials can be extracted efficiently, potentially saving 90% of the carbon footprint. Read more about the Ash2Salt technology here: https://www.mynewsdesk.com/ragnsells/pressreleases/ragn-sells-invests-50-million-eur-on-resource-extraction-from-fly-ash-2975619 Read the full press release: https://www.ragnsells.com/what-we-do/inspired/gc-rieber--ragn-sells/ Press release from Peab (in Swedish): https://news.cision.com/se/peab/r/peab-minskar-klimatavtryck-med-cirkulart-vagsalt,c3496499
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Pinned by We Don't Have Time
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According to our calculations, the CO2-reduction is 12500 ton per year. This is when the factory is operating at its full capacity of 130.000 t/a, and compared to the European average CO2-footprint for the three different salts.
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106 w
Ragn-Sells turns waste in to gold! Keep up that work - there are lots of gold to be made
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107 w
Saving 90% of carbon footprint is a great fate.
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107 w
Good job Ragn-Sells 👏 it's great to follow the implementation of this climate solution
Ragn-Sells
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Circular Table Talks "Plastic: Molding a Sustainable Future Now" 🗓 February 8 🕒 15:00 CET We Don't Have Time and Ragn-Sells are proud to present the fourth episode in a series of six in-depth table talks on the subject of circularity. This episode will focus on plastics and plastic waste, examining how we can fast forward, real and sustainable markets for recycled waste plastics. Hearing from guests about the global situation and spotlighting some breakthroughs in circularity such as new processes for bringing back previously hard to reuse plastics. Ask your questions to our guests in the comments section down below ⬇ https://youtu.be/7w3n-G7GmYs
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109 w
We need to get to these 'treaties' pretty quick! Many have no concept of how ineffective our current measures are. We managed without plastic and most uses are not essential. Use it ONLY where it makes sense.
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109 w
such an initiative would be beneficial in African countries where we have a huge plastic waste problem.
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Do we really need all the plastics to avoid food waste? France is gradually getting rid of its plastics for fruits and vegetable are other countries using food waste as an excuse not to follow?
Ragn-Sells
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Webinar: Improving the sustainability of livestock production: February 3 - 13:00 - 14:30 CET Welcome to a live webinar moderated by @Nick_Nuttall that will focus on how recycled phosphorus can work as a feed phosphate and the legal barriers to reaching the market. Results from digestibility on pig and poultry using a recovered feed phosphate will be presented, and a panel of politicians is ready to discuss the opportunities and obstacles that recycled nutrients are facing. Presentations The potential of recycled resources from the wastewater sector, with Ludwig Hermann, Senior advisor Proman Consulting Making phosphorus recovery happen in Germany, with Martin Braunersreuther, Head of Sales – industry services, Gelsenwasser From sewage sludge ash to a recovered feed phosphate, with Yariv Cohen, Head of R&D EasyMining Digestibility results from tests with a recovered feed phosphate, with Magdalena Åkerfeldt, Associate Professor SLU, Department of Animal Nutrition and Management Quality before origin; legislative barriers, with Sara Stiernström, Product Manager EasyMining Market potentials for sustainable products, with Kerstin Sigfridson, Pig Nutrition and Feed optimization, Lantmännen Panel participants Magnus Ek, Member of the Swedish Parliament (Centre Party) Marcus Selin, Member of the Swedish Parliament (Social Democratic Party) Anders Wijkman, Former member of the European parliament, honorary chairman of Club of Rome and Chairman of Circular Sweden https://youtu.be/HSmenp6nMuE
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Great points
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110 w
Really a great step forward if we could use recycled Phosphate and other nutrients as fertilizer on the fields and as feed for livestock. Ragn-Sell is truly leading a very important development here
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The conversation was quite interesting.
Fernando A
110 w
I spotted this event on circularity and plastics today and the lineup is very exciting with speakers from very different sectors to talk about plastics and solutions to the problem, there will the environment minister of Denmark and people from WWF, UNEP and WRAP. Looking forward to this discussion! Thanks Ragn-Sells and We Don't Have Time, sending climate love! https://www.wedonthavetime.org/events/circular-table-talks-iv
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108 w
Keep doing more of this talks we shall win the war
Ragn-Sells
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A pilot plant for an innovative new process that removes and recovers nitrogen from wastewater was launched on Wednesday, 8 December 2021. Based at Ragn-Sells Högbytorp’s treatment and recycling facility in Upplands-Bro outside of Stockholm, the pilot plant features two custom fabricated mobile units and has a capacity to process four cubic meters of water per hour. It's the first industrial-scale effort of a patented method developed by EasyMining, the innovation company in the Ragn-Sells Group, that recovers resources from wastewater with high concentrations of ammonium nitrogen. According to Anna Lundbom, head of marketing at EasyMining, the currently used biological-based processes just release the nitrogen into the atmosphere after removing it, while the process applied by the nitrogen pilot plant captures it for use in for example fertilisers. ”We want to keep the nitrogen and use it over and over again. What we do is to capture the ammonium nitrogen and then convert it to a form that can be used in the fertiliser industry”, she explains, “thus sending it back to agriculture, closing that loop and saving energy and resources.” What’s more, the process the pilot plant utilises would replace methods that produce emission of nitrous oxide (also known as “laughing gas”) and thus significantly lower a water treatment facility’s climate footprint. "If we are serious about creating a sustainable society, we have to use more of the raw materials we have already extracted. Wastewater is a goldmine, and this project is a great example of an innovative new process that removes and recovers nitrogen from wastewater," says Lundbom. Along with EasyMining and Ragn-Sells, other companies in the partnership are the Swedish agricultural cooperative Lantmännen and the Danish wastewater utility company BIOFOS. Lantmännen is evaluating the end product of the process, ammonium sulphate, for its potential use in creating a more climate-friendly fertiliser; while BIOFOS is adapting the pilot plant to run on reject water from the dewatering of sewage sludge as its Lynetten facility, the largest wastewater treatment facility in Denmark. "Cooperation across the value chain is key to circular transformation, therefore we are pleased that this project lead by EasyMining now have a demonstration plant up and running for an innovative and sustainable wastewater treatment solution here at Högbytorp," says Mikael Hedström, CEO of Ragn-Sells Treatment & Detox. The demonstration and assessment period for the pilot plant is set to run till the summer of 2022. It will be running on landfill leachate water at Högbytorp outside Stockholm until March 2022. In April 2022, the demonstration plant will be moved to the BIOFOS´s Lynetten facility in Denmark. Read more: https://newsroom.easymining.se/posts/pressreleases/unique-pilot-plant-for-nitrogen-removal-and-r
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118 w
A great solution that should quickly be scaled and spread.
Ragn-Sells
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Tarkett, a worldwide leader in innovative and sustainable flooring and sports surface solutions, and the Swedish environmental company Ragn-Sells, have announced today a collaboration aiming at developing carbon negative mineral fillers for vinyl flooring by 2025. The calcium is extracted from ash piles in Estonia and the calcium carbonate is produced using carbon capture technology. Each year, 22 million tonnes of calcium carbonate is mined worldwide for the production of simple everyday items – from food products to paints. Unfortunately, the mining and production of precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) is resulting in huge amounts of greenhouse gas emissions – 1 ton of PCC produced emits 1 ton of CO2 emissions. We have a solution for this: 600 million tonnes of deposited oil shale ash from electric production are piled up in huge “ash hills” in Estonia. Out of all that, only 1% has been reused. Together with the Tallinn University of Technology, we have invented a technology that allows us to turn oil shale ash into PCC. The calcium is extracted from the ash using water-based leeching using water in a circular system with zero liquid discharge. Once extracted, the calcium bonds with CO2 from the air, meaning that the production captures more carbon than it emits. The material is then used by multiple companies to create products with a long life cycle, like flooring produced by Tarkett. The calcium carbonate currently used by Tarkett already has a carbon neutral footprint of 0.006 kg CO2 eq per kg (cradle-to-gate). With the calcium carbonate produced by Ragn-Sells, it is expected to generate a carbon negative footprint of -0.4 kg CO2 eq per kg (cradle-to-gate). We see this as a great way to turn waste into a valuable resource – while at the same time reducing carbon concentrations in the atmosphere. Find out more about Ragn-Sells carbon capture solution: www.osaservice.ee/en/
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126 w
You are holding your promises true by producing raw material without mining or drilling for it.
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126 w
Waste as valuable resource. Perfect innovation @ragn_sells.
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126 w
This sounds like a great transition solution while we still have oil shale ash. Are there other waste products that this process can be utilized by when we transition away from oil?
Ragn-Sells
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We are proud to be presenting the second in a series of 6 of Circular Table Talks in a collaboration between Ragn-Sells and We Don't Have Time. The episode will focus on wastewater and Climate Change. Bringing together experts on the circular economy, showing examples of projects applying these principles in real life and challenging preconceived notions of what is and isn't waste. The broadcast will go live on Tuesday, October 5th, at 15:00 CEST / 9:00 am EST. Speaker program and more info: https://www.wedonthavetime.org/events/circular-table-talks-ii Use the comment section below if you have questions for the speakers. https://youtu.be/28ztdTtQJ5A
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When is the next event
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Hi Caroline (and others) How can I, as an individual, limit my impact on wastewater at the household level? Do you have any good guidelines to follow?
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127 w
This event is of great value based on the present level of urban waste water disposal particularly waste water from domestic and industrial sources. Cities and major towns in Africa, Nigeria in particular have a lot to gain from this Talk.
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21 w
Bringing different actors to work together and form circular partnerships is a great focused step that will help you to feed many. On this particular day as you present at NYC climate week,I watched and listened to the whole panel ideas and they were all superb solutions.
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Is this a practical solution and for huge populations over s long period?
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The 10 Billion Challenge Initiative is an innovative and much-needed approach to address the growing global population's food requirements while mitigating the environmental impact of nutrient leakage into water bodies, particularly in megacities like New York. The circular nutrient concept presented by Ragn-Sells holds great promise in transforming the way we manage and reuse essential resources.