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Spinning Waste into Gold: Circular Supply Chain · Speaking of Supply Chain

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  You're listening to Speaking of Supply Chain, a meeboch podcast. This is a
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  show for logistics professionals looking to learn more about the latest innovations in supply chain.
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  Each episode will feature a conversation on topics such as mitigating supply chain disruption
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  and reducing risk, current automation trends, sustainability initiatives, and more. Let's
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  dive right in. Hello, and welcome to Speaking of Supply Chain, where
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  we explore trends, current events, and innovations impacting the logistics and supply chain
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  industries. I am your host, Ellen Wood. Today I wanted to share
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  with our listeners some musings that I've had over the last few weeks with regard
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  to sustainability and the circular supply chain. Normally we would do an icebreaker right
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  about now, which if you follow our podcast content on YouTube, you get
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  to see and hear some additional information about myself about our guests. If that
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  sounds intriguing, you should click on the link in the episode description to go
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  check out our podcast channel on YouTube. But since it's relevant to our topic
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  today, I am going to share a little bit more about how this particular
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  topic is personal for me. In a previous episode, I shared about my
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  dad's work in food production and my tumultuous relationship with mushrooms. But before that
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  company, he had worked in a local meat processing plant in Indiana that means
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  pork products, so to say that it was an unpleasant job would be an
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  understatement. But one thing he used to joke about was the phrase that the
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  company leadership would use internally about their processing, and that phrase was everything but
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  the squeal. It's dark. I know, I'm sorry, but if you
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  think about it, it speaks to their larger purpose and that they strove to
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  use every single part of the animal and have zero waste, which is one
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  of the goals of sustainability and circular supply chain. So these are not entirely
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  new concepts. Ever since hearing that phrase, initiatives that are designed to reuse
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  items or buy products that would otherwise go to waste has been a fascination of
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  mine. We've also spoken previously on the podcast about governmental regulations being necessary to
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  encourage sustainable practices reduce waste level playing fields for businesses, but those are really
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  more top down approaches. What I love to hear about are the innovations from
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  producers or consumers that ensure that their investments of time and effort and capital are
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  as close to zero as possible, even after a product has been sold or
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  used for its intended purpose. So what does that have to do with today?
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  And what this has really sparked for me is the recent eclipse that we
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  had in Indiana. The eclipse had totality, so we got to see the
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  full one hundred percent eclipse. It was very, very cool. My kids
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  really enjoyed it. Our communities got together and had events for it. It
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  was a big deal and we had tons of visitors coming into our communities to
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  witness this event. And what it generated was all those single use safety glasses
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  to be able to look at the sun during the different phases of the eclipse.
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  But those single use products don't have to be they don't really serve another
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  purpose. They are only good for viewing an eclipse. And then I heard
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  on the radio the other day about local officials collecting those used single use safety
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  eclipse glasses to forward on and be redistributed by groups like Eclipse Glasses USA or
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  Astronomers Without Borders and reused in the next communities that are expecting a full solar
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  eclipse. There's one that's going to be happening in Latin America and South America
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  in August, and so they are collecting those glasses to be able to send
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  them down to those communities. You know, there's in every community, there
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  are individuals in lower socioeconomic situations, and so we want those schools, we
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  want those communities to be able to have access to these safety materials so that
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  they can enjoy the eclipse when it comes to their neighborhood. So it's a
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  small thing on its own, but it speaks to a much larger question of
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  what products in our lives that would normally be considered trash or destined for a
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  landfill, could possibly and purposefully be reused. So there's some creative ideas out
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  there. And it's beyond just donating old things into second hand stores or to
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  be sold and have a second life, or even beyond donating things such as
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  old eyeglasses or cell phones. There are programs for those so that they can
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  be given to other individuals who may not have the privilege of being able to
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  purchase these items new for themselves. And although those are great programs and they
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  do keep very specialized items out of the trash. Those are great programs,
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  but there are other things out there where items are really repurposed. Have you
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  heard about Wands for Wildlife. This is an interesting one that I heard about
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  a few years ago. The program was born from a grassroots initiative to collect
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  used mascara wands from cosmetics. These wands proved to be very useful and sought
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  after by wildlife rehabers, so when they needed to carefully and gently clean wildlife
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  that had been injured or abandoned, they would use these mascara wands that had
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  been cleaned and repurposed for this use. And since then, Wands for Wildlife
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  has gone global in their efforts to collect and reuse various items, not just
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  mascarowonds, enabling individual wildlife rehabers and community groups to participate in conservation efforts to
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  help the environment and to help the wildlife. I love that they saw a
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  need of this is an item that goes in the trash. Who could use
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  this item and developed an entire plan for collecting those items and repurposing them and
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  getting them into the hands of the individuals who needed them. And that all
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  takes a ton of logistics. Recycled plastics or reusing plastics. This is another
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  area and another huge industry. It's a complicated one because not all plastics are
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  created equal. The materials can break down further each time they're reused, limiting
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  their useful life for every reincarnation. But certain plastics can be repurposed into building
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  materials. It can be created or melted down and you can make three D
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  printing spools so that you can make new things out of that plastic. They
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  make textiles out of recycled plastic, they make furniture, and it's even used
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  to pave roads, being an additive in the asphalt. The team at Repurpose
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  they are working hard towards changing the way the world uses plastic. Buy and
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  I'm going to quote from their website, bringing together brands, consumers, innovators,
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  and policymakers to combat the plastic waste crisis. And their projects have recovered
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  an astounding This is a big number. Fifty four million, two hundred and
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  seventy six thousand and three hundred and fifty one pounds of plastic bound for landfills.
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  That is significant. Whether you're an individual wanting to become more involved or
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  an enterprise business looking to measure your organization's plastic footprint, or increase circularity or
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  set reduction goals for your plastic use. This group at Repurpose has resources to
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  support those efforts. Another organization doing something similar is bright Mark, and this
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  is in North America. It's an organization that helps to increase the circularity of
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  materials, but not just plastic. They also repurpose food waste and agricultural waste
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  that they're able to use and generate renewable energy. They create compost out of
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  the solids and fertilizers out of both the liquids and the solids. One fun
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  fact from their website, did you know that the US alone generates over fifty
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  four million tons of food waste annually and globally, food waste accounts for nearly
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  eight percent of the greenhouse gas emissions. Those are two of the facts that
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  I found on the Brightmark website. They're trademarked Circularity Centers, and that's the
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  name that they have for their centers where they repurpose all of these materials.
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  Their circularity centers deploy circular solutions for some of the world's most pressing waste challenges,
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  unlocking the value in waste by transforming it into new products. What's interesting
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  to me is the sheer volume of logistics that are needed to pull off any
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  of these initiatives, whether the massive effort of collecting the materials or processing them
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  either for reuse in their current format or into new usable formats, distributing that
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  final product, which in truth could end up right back in their raw material
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  pile in a year's time. These initiatives, and I see videos on LinkedIn
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  all the time. I see articles about these companies that come across my desk,
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  and it's so interesting to me that this is not a new concept,
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  the circular supply chain, and I know that there are so many other organizations
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  doing these types of things. I hope to get one of them, or
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  many of them on the podcast so we can talk to them a little bit
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  more in depth about what it is that they're doing to make sure that this
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  waste is not just put into a landfill, whether it's waste that is post
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  cons so it's an item that's been used by the consumer and then it's brought
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  back into some sort of production or useful life, or whether it's simply waste
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  from the production process back to my Dad's companies saying, you know, everything
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  but the squeal, so that there's nothing wasted in the production process. We
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  don't want to leave a potential useful item to be left and put into the
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  trash. So that brings us to the end of this short solo episode.
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  And while this circular supply chain can be a great goal, it's a fantastic
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  goal for organizations large or small. It requires creative thinking and I am so
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  interested in those innovations that coordination of effort for multiple stakeholders. And at the
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  bottom of this is at the core of this is the basic desire to leave
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  our spaces on this planet in just as good, if not better conditioned,
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  then we found ourselves in. I'd love to hear about what reuse and recycle
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  initiatives you've seen recently, whether it's on LinkedIn or YouTube or in the news.
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  I'd love to keep this conversation going on LinkedIn, So if you have
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  and if you've enjoyed the show, please rate and review us on whatever podcast
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  platform you prefer. We are on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, iHeartRadio, or
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  Spotify, and be sure to tune in next time for a topic or you
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  would like to be a guest on the show, I would love to hear
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  from you. Please contact me at podcast at mebok dot com and we will
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  get that scheduled. As always, thank you for listening to Speaking of Supply
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  Chain. Meeboch Consulting is one of the largest and most globally recognized supply chain
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  consulting, engineering and advisory firms. For nearly fifty years, we've helped clients
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  achieve supply chain excellence and sustainable competitive advantage across the entire spectrum of the supply
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  chain by delivering improvements and innovation strategically, tactically, and digitally. To learn
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  more, visit meeboch dot com. You've been listening to Speaking of Supply Chain,
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  Thanks for listening. Until next time,