How was life like before e-commerce? Thanks to it, goods and services are available worldwide with a single click. Also, it's a means to expand the market for many companies in a globalised world.

However, shipping items from one corner of the planet to another requires assuring these arrive in perfect conditions. For this, proper packaging is a must. But, does it mean these goods must be covered with layers and layers of protecting material? Here we share this real life example.

The image on the left shows one of the two cups bought by e-commerce. Each of these where packaged in a small cardboard box, enough to protect it during transportation (maybe also wrapped with some old crumpled newspapers to be on the safe side?).

Surprisingly, these boxes where likewise put into a much bigger cardboard box, with LDPE bubble plastic to fill the vast remaining empty space inside. So, in the picture on the right, you have the total amount of cardboard and plastic used to protect the two cups... isn't it crazy?

Okay: both cardboard and LDPE are recyclable materials. Yet, some important questions remain open: 

• what's the use of the second cardboard box?
• why its huuuuuge size?
• why not putting the two cups into a single small box?
• why not using old newspapers instead of LDPE?

The fact is that, to ship around 960cm3 of fragile items, they used a 18.816cm3 volume. In other words: the packaging is about 20 times larger than the volume of the items! If we also analyse the weight added by useless protection materials, the situation becomes even more outrageous.

Efficient use of transported volume is crucial for a sustainable transport system. Be that by ship, by plane, by train, by road, there is energy and fuel involved. A bad management of wrapping and packaging materials, leads to the release of emissions just to transport air in containers. In this case, 95% of the volume is air. 

It's worth to say that this is not an exclusive feature of e-commerce. We can daily find overpackaged items anywhere (meat, fish, veggies, biscuits, cleaning products, clothing, tools and DIY materials... even wrappings and containers!)

Eco-tips to not contribute to this craziness:

• Make a list to buy what you really need. 
• Buy your groceries in bulks and avoid using single bags when possible.
• Veggies grow in contact with air... plastic wrapping is waste.
• In e-commerce, try to buy all items from the same provider in the same session. 
• Consider local goods (requires less transportation and stock).
• A single label attached to the item is enough. Clothes, plastics, ceramics, inox metals, and similar, are not degradable either when not wrapped... 
• Plastic wrapping plastic is (most of times) silly. 
• when no other option, choose recyclable packaging and wrapping (LDPE, HDPE, cardboard or biodegradable materials).
• Make a query to your provider when you receive overpackaged items. Companies are rather sensitive to customer satisfaction.

Can you come up with something else? Would you like to share your experience with us? Feel free to comment!

As we well know, oil and water don't mix with each other, and the density of cooking oil is lower than that of water. Thus, the oil poured can create a film on top of sewage water, hindering its oxygenation. In an atmosphere lacking oxygen, there are microorganisms able to transform the organic matter dissolved into methane, which has a Global Warming potential 23 times higher than CO2!

Once arrived to the sewage water treatment plant, the oil is already dispersed into drops which reduces the efficiency of the first treatment processes. In the end, it may oblige to add specific oil removal stages, excessive for a simple domestic sewage water plant. Later in the process, it can hamper digestion of organic matter during the biological treatment, as it disturbs regular bacterial development. As a result, it increases costs and may give rise to higher taxes for compensation (so called "externalities").

Finally, it can get stuck to your pipes, creating a crust, and trapping or retaining particles, dirt, and waste, resulting in bad smells and poor hygienic conditions for your home.

So, what to do with this oil if we don't want to use it? 

Eco-tip: Oil is a problem for a water treatment system. However, it is also a great biofuel. Thus, why not taking advantage of it through energy recovery?

1. Squeeze the oil into a small bowl. 
2. Take some used kitchen paper and use it to absorb the oil.
3. Dispose the oily paper into the garbage bag. 

Simple, huh? A combination of waste paper and oil will provide the municipal waste incineration plant with renewable fuel :)

Cooking tip (extra): 
Put the oil in a salad or use it for a marinate (especially if it's olive oil). It will give to your dishes a delicious fishy taste. 

A sandwich maker can make your life so easy...if it works. Despite it's a rather simple device, mine failed. So I had two problems: hunger and a device to fix. I guessed it had to be the rheostat. Either way, I had to open it to unveil the guts.

I got my nothing-especial blue-collar toolbox, picked the set of screwdrivers and...Tataaaa! I found the screw in the image. I tried and I tried but it was impossible to unscrew with a regular tool.
Three options were possible:  

1. to throw it away and buy a new one.
2. to buy an especial screwdriver and a new rheostat to fix it. 
3. to pay a professional to repair it. 

It's a shame, but the cheapest option was option #1. And this is what happens in most of cases. A single screw can mean the different between something repairable and the end-of-life of a product, forcing users to purchase new ones with double environmental impact: material consumption + waste generation. 

Eco-tip: a well ecodesigned product will always use standardised components to ease repairing, disassembly, assembly, remanufacturing. This way we just replace single elements and not entire products.

PS: no sandwich makers where harmed in this post. I sold it to someone able to fix it, and bought a secondhand one. Long life to Circular Economy!

Each country (even regions or municipalities) try to find the way to ease waste collection to recycle certain materials or to optimise energy recovery through waste incineration. There are well-intentioned people all around the World eager to recycle. But, is waste sorted properly? What do we do when a waste product combines more than one material? 
​As an example, I found this broken hanger. The body is made of polypropylene (PP) and the hook of steel. Where should I throw away this hanger? plastics? metals? incineration?

A short  background description. In Switzerland, generally, disposal points differentiate PET, aluminium (cans), glass, batteries, light-bulbs, non PET plastics (HDPE, PP), paper. Less commons are organic waste, cardboard, domestic metals (tins), clothing, and such. Such wide classification is kind of confusing, isn't it? But when facing confusion, Swiss citizens use a Joker: a white taxed bag where they can put whatever.

We all will agree: waste should be sorted before disposal. But most people don't have 8-10 different rubbish bins at home. Later, at the collection point, is far too late. Besides, lack of knowledge about materials and their recovery process make collection and recycling less efficient. I myself found the disposal of a simple hanger rather difficult. 

For Circular Economy and ecodesign engineering, material recovery or recycling (or alternatively energy recovery) are essential. Here we give you some general tips to sort your waste (regardless your country) when the products include several materials. 

​Eco-tip:

1. Try to separate materials manually when possible before disposal. An easy first-step sorting process separates paper, glass, metals, plastics, and others. Then, go after following points. 
2. Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), including toys and devices carrying chips, cables, batteries, and the like, shall be disposed of in special containers at your local recycling point. Do never throw away WEEE in a regular bin!
3. Plastics have less value than metals. If you can't separate plastics from metals, put the mix in the container for metals. 
4. Separate aluminium when possible. It requires much energy in production from raw materials. You may recognise aluminium because of its lightness and because magnets do not stick to it. 
5. Different plastics have different properties and cannot be recycled together. Separate plastics by following the symbols - find more information here - or according to your local requirements (Swiss rules distinguish between "PET" - #1 - and "Others")
6. Never pour oils by the kitchen sink or in the toilette! when oil recycling is not allowed, absorb it with used kitchen papers and put it in a regular garbage bag. 
7. If organic waste is used for biogas production, avoid mixing bones, eggshells, plastics, and chemicals. Dry organic waste works well, too.
8. Wood is not cardboard nor paper (despite they come from wood). They are generally treated or coated and so they go separately. 
9. If paper is covered with oil, too dirty, or is mixed with plastics, put it in a regular container. Magazine paper is likewise recyclable.
10. Glass and ceramics are different materials. Do not put ceramics in the glass container. In addition, the bottle lids are made of tin, and should go elsewhere (to a container for metals, for instance). 
11. compress your waste and empty out liquids there contained before disposal. The flatter and compact you make it, the lesser the air you carry in  your rubbish bag.

There are many other tips that we could come up with, but it may be enough for a post. We may add some more in a future. By the way, the hanger was split into hook and body: the hook to the domestic metals container, and the plastic to a white bag for energy recovery.