We plan to continue our Noon and PM Club meetings via Zoom technology. A link to the Zoom meeting is available by clicking on the link located below "This Week's Program".
You will be able to join the meeting via Smartphone, Tablet, Laptop or Desktop Computer. Select an audio style, then listen in and join in the discussions.
Find the mute button in the lower left of the Zoom screen. Please be considerate of others and mute yourself when not speaking. PS: Turn off the video portion if your internet connection does not respond well.
Members use ingenuity, flexibility to help people affected by coronavirus and to stay connected.
Fighting disease is one of Rotary’s main causes, so members already support efforts to promote proper hand washing techniques, teach people other ways to stay healthy, and supply training and vital medical equipment to health care providers. Now they’re helping health authorities communicate lifesaving information about COVID-19 and donating protective gear and other supplies to clinics and hospitals that are under strain because of the pandemic.
Click the link below to review the ideas of Clubs around the world and how they are staying connected while helping to keep others safe.
The circular economy provides a framework to solve the plastic problem. Business can take the lead.
In 2018, as the recipient of an Eisenhower Fellowship, Matt Kopac spent five weeks traveling in South America and Europe. During that time, he met with leaders in government and business, as well as leaders at universities and nonprofits, discussing, as he puts it, “the future of our economy.” When he returned home, he told his fellow members of the Rotary Club of Durham, North Carolina, what he had learned.
“We take a lot for granted,” he explained in a July 2018 presentation to his club. “We imagine that the economy we have is the one we were always meant to have, and the one that we will always have. As in prior eras, we have difficulty perceiving when we are amidst great changes.”
One of those changes was the potential shift from the wasteful linear economy of the last 200 or so years to the more sustainable circular economy he had encountered during his travels. A feature of the latter was its approach to plastic, which was once celebrated for its disposability. “Collecting and reusing consumer plastic waste is a circular practice,” he said.
A NEW LIFE
You’ve finished your bottle of water, your container of laundry detergent, your milk jug. For you, that’s the end of the story. But for your bottle, it’s only the beginning. After your recyclables are collected, they’re sorted by glass, metal, and type of plastic, then sold to intermediaries that grind the plastics into flakes or pellets the size of rice grains. The pellets, called “nurdles,” are then sold to producers that melt them and turn them into new products.
There are seven codes on the bottom of plastic containers, signifying, among other things, the temperature at which they will melt. But only two are routinely recycled. Soda and water bottles — No. 1 plastics — may eventually become carpet or fleece clothing. Milk, juice, and detergent containers — No. 2 plastics — find new lives as decks, buckets, and Frisbees. Technology exists to convert plastic into crude oil and other fuels. But globally, recycling rates hover around 14 percent.
Click here to learn more and read the entire story about the Circular Economy of today.
Illustrations by Studio Warburton
• This story originally appeared in the April 2020 issue of The Rotarian magazine.