Grief turned to outrage Friday over a deadly high-rise tower fire in London amid reports that materials used in the building's renovation could have fueled the inferno that left dozens dead and missing as it decimated the public housing block.
Engineering experts say outside insulation panels installed on the 24-story Grenfell Tower may have helped the fire spread rapidly from one floor to the next. The Guardian newspaper reported Friday that contractors installed a cheaper, less flame-resistant type of paneling in the renovation that ended in May 2016.
Tensions were high Friday two days after the overnight fire gutted the huge housing block, killing at least 30 people and leaving dozens missing and hundreds homeless.
Police officers confront demonstrators inside Kensington Town Hall, during a protest following the fire that destroyed The Grenfell Tower block, in north Kensington, West London, Britain, June 16, 2017.
Scuffles broke out near the Kensington and Chelsea town hall offices as demonstrators chanting "We want justice!'' surged toward the doors.
London has a chronic housing shortage even in the best of times, and those left homeless by the fire — already angry over what they see as government inequity and incompetence — fear being forced out of the British capital.
The Grenfell Tower housed about 600 people in 120 apartments. Britain's Press Association reported that some 70 people are still missing after the fire.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said people were frustrated by the lack of information about the missing and the dead as well as a lack of coordination between support services. Residents who survived the tower blaze lost everything and have no idea where they are going to live or how they will get back on their feet.
"The scale of this tragedy is clearly proving too much for the local authority to cope with on their own,'' Khan said in an open letter to Prime Minister Theresa May.
After meeting with Grenfell survivors on Friday, May announced a 5 million pound ($6.4 million) fund to help them and expressed sorrow for their plight. The package includes a guarantee to rehouse people as close as possible to where they previously lived — a poor neighborhood surrounded by extreme wealth
"[This aims] to give the victims the immediate support they need to care for themselves and for loved ones,'' May said.
But the Conservative leader still struggled to overcome accusations that she lacked compassion because she had failed to meet with victims on her first visit to the devastated site. Police surrounded May as she left a church Friday following the meeting with survivors and protesters shouted "Shame on you!'' and "Coward!''
Demonstrators hold up banners during a march in Westminster, following the fire that destroyed The Grenfell Tower block, in north Kensington, West London, Britain, June 16, 2017.
Using drones and sniffer dogs, firefighters continued to search the burned-out housing block that looms over the low-income community in west London.
The fire, which started just before 1 a.m. Wednesday, surprised many as they slept and the speed with which it spread shocked fire experts.
Metropolitan Police commander Stuart Cundy responded to fears that the number of dead could exceed 100 by saying: "I really hope it isn't.''
London Police have launched an investigation to determine whether any crimes contributed to the blaze. May on Thursday announced a public inquiry while Khan called for an interim report on the fire to be published this summer.
Grenfell Tower is a public housing project owned by the local government council and managed by a nonprofit known as the Kensington and Chelsea Tenants Management Organization. The group last year completed a 10 million pound ($12.8 million) renovation that included new outside insulation panels, double-paned windows and a communal heating system.
Police officers stand in front of the The Grenfell Tower block that was destroyed by fire, in north Kensington, West London, Britain, June 16, 2017.
Aluminum composite panels essentially consist of two thin layers of aluminum sandwiched around a lightweight insulating material. Standard versions use plastic such as polyethylene for the core, while more expensive variants use fire-resistant material.
The Guardian newspaper reported Friday that Omnis Exteriors supplied the aluminum composite material used in the cladding. The newspaper quoted company director John Cowley as saying the building used Reynobond PE cladding, which is 2 pounds cheaper ($2.56) per square meter than Reynobond FR, which stands for "fire resistant.''
The International Building Code calls for the use of fire-resistant cores in buildings over 40 feet (12 meters) tall to slow the spread of flames.
The company that installed the exterior cladding, Harley Facades, issued a statement this week saying the panels are "commonly used'' in refurbishing buildings. It did not address the exact makeup of the panels.
"It would not be appropriate for us to comment or for others to speculate on any aspect of fire, or its causes, in advance of these inquiries,'' managing director Ray Bailey said. "At this time, we are not aware of any link between the fire and the exterior cladding to the tower.''
A woman touches a missing poster for 12-year-old Jessica Urbano on a tribute wall after laying flowers on the side of Latymer Community Church next to the fire-gutted Grenfell Tower in London, June 16, 2017.
Families searching for loved ones have blanketed the area near the tower with posters. Whole families are said to be among the missing.
Nearly 110 families made homeless from the blaze are being housed at hotels in west London. Churches and community centers are providing meals and support, and donations of clothing, toys and household supplies are flooding in.
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince William visited an aid distribution site Friday for the tower's residents and met with volunteers.
It may take some time though, before the families of the victims know the fate of their loved ones.
Forensic experts said the fire at Grenfell was so hot it could be compared to a cremation, which is going to make it difficult to identify those who lost their lives.
"When you have a fire that takes hold like that, that is literally an inferno. You get a lot of fragmentation of bodies, charring of bones,'' said Peter Vanezis, a professor of forensic medical sciences at Queen Mary University in London. "Sometimes all that's left is ash.''
The scorched facade of the Grenfell Tower in London, June 15, 2017, after a massive fire raced through the 24-storey high-rise apartment building in west London early Wednesday.
Vanezis said the best chance to identify victims may be if firefighters find bits of teeth or bone, medical devices like pacemakers or artificial implants.
"The longer a fire burns, the less chance you have that there will be enough DNA left to test,'' Vanezis said.
Even amid the chaos and the frustration, some found a moment to seek unity. A special service was held Friday afternoon at the al-Manaar Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre to pray for the victims — and for the families waiting for news.
"Obviously, the longer people have to wait, especially finding out what happened to their loved ones, [that] can create anger,'' said Abdurahman Sayed, Chief Executive Officer of al-Manaar. "We're just really anxiously waiting for the authorities really, [to see] what they are going to do.''
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Jake Freed, an Arizona man is attempting to break the world record for longest distance traveled on a longboard. He will be going almost 14,000 km across the country; averaging up to 16 hours a day.
However, this isn’t Freed’s first long distance trip on a board. In 2013 he skated 3,700 km from Mesa to Washington, D.C
“I just wanted to see if I could do it,” Freed said. “I wanted to push myself to the limit and see if I was actually capable of a feat this big. I have done my shorter trips in the past prior to my D.C. trip and they were always full of adventure and self-satisfaction.”
Freed said his trip to Washington, D.C. inspired him to push himself to go further.
“When I arrived in D.C. I thought to myself, ‘OK, so now what?’ I truly thought I could turn around and go back home then, but I already booked a plane flight and wanted to spend some time with family and friends on the east coast so I didn’t,” he explained.
However, his upcoming journey will be no easy feat. It took a lot of preparation which included planning, researching and training.
“I skated everywhere,” he said. “I trained in the gym five days a week, mostly doing cardiovascular workouts at an incline to get my body prepared to climb elevations and push for long distances at a time.”
Freed said he expects to finish the trip sometime in the fall.
The current Guinness World Record holder for most miles skateboarded is Robert Thompson of New Zealand. According to Freed, Thompson skated 12,200 km and has held the record for the past decade.
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LEARNING IS THE ONLY WAY TO TURN FAILURE INTO SUCCESS.
Don't let the name fool you — Samuel West's "Museum of Failure Innovation" is an act of celebration.
On June 7, West, a collector and self-described innovation researcher, will debut 51 failed products in a museum exhibition in the Swedish city of Helsingborg, all in the name of honoring the creative process.
Visitors will get reacquainted with familiar names like Betamax and Blockbuster, and perhaps meet lesser-known flops — Twitter Peek, anyone? — all of which West has been collecting for the past year.
"Even the biggest baddest most competent companies fail," West tells Business Insider. "The trick is to create an organizational culture that accepts failure so that you can fail small ... rather than failing big."
Here's just a taste of the products that are getting a second life on display.
West says it's been difficult trying to secure the items in his collection, given they're all discontinued. The project is a labor of love.
Image: Samuel West
Many of the products lasted only a few years. The smartphone and gaming device Nokia N-Gage, for instance, was on sale from 2003 to 2005.
Image: Samuel West
Nokia released the device as a challenger to the Nintendo Game Boy, but critics quickly took issue with its odd design and button layout.
Nokia tried to upgrade with the redesigned N-Gage QD in 2004, but ultimately sold only a few million units before discontinuing the device altogether.
Even further back was the Apple Newton, which ran for a bit longer between 1993 and 1998. The poor handwriting software and high cost contributed to its demise.
Image: Samuel West
The Newton first retailed for $699. Adjusting for inflation, the device would cost $1,178 today.
Hospitals made brief use of it in the mid-1990s, but ultimately Apple struggled to capture market share from the Palm Pilot — another digital assistant of the time.
The one saving grace: Steve Jobs later retooled Apple's approach to personal computing to create the iPhone and iPad.
A lesser-known flop is the CueCat, a barcode reader launched in 2000 that few consumers found any use for. The idea was to direct people to a website — via scanning a magazine, for example — rather than typing in the URL.
Image: Samuel West
Back in 2009, when Twitter was still relatively new, a company called Peek released the TwitterPeek. It was a $200 device that only accessed Twitter — something few people decided was important enough to buy.
Image: Samuel West
Peek Inc., the parent company of the device, launched its first product in 2008. The device, also known as the Peek, solely sent emails.
Since 2012, the company has shifted away from personal devices to focus on cloud technology.
Kodak's DC40 digital camera was among the first of its kind when it was released in 1995, but it's considered a failure largely because of Kodak's eventual bankruptcy in 2012, West says. The company failed to consider how big online photo-sharing would get.
Image: Samuel West
In the 1970s, Sony's Betamax was viewed as the superior choice to VCR. It was faster and offered a clearer picture. But Sony's failure to capture the video-rental market sent it scrambling for market share.
Image: Samuel West
The so-called "Format Wars" ended soon after JVC began gobbling up market share; however, Sony didn't officialy stop manufacturing Betamax players until 2002.
And it wasn't until 2016 that the company stopped making the cassette tapes that had long been irrelevant.
The video renal market eventually went bust, however. As Netflix began shipping movies directly to people's homes (and as streaming video became more popular), Blockbuster found itself struggling to entice buyers. It went bankrupt in 2010.
Image: Samuel West
Beverage companies are known for creative (and sometimes puzzling) innovations. One casualty was Coke II, or New Coke as it was first branded, which replaced Classic Coke on shelves in early 1984.
Image: Samuel West
Within months, customers demanded that Coke begin selling its original formula again. New Coke was eventually discontinued in 2002.
The story isn't all bad: Though New Coke has been called a failure, sales of Classic Coke ended up surpassing Pepsi by the end of 1985. New Coke may have left a positive impact after all.
A clearer failure was Coke BlaK. The coffee-flavored soda was released in 2006 and promptly discontinued in 2008 after complaints about the poor taste combination and excessive caffeine.
Image: Samuel West
In the 1980s, Colgate produced a line of frozen dinners, encouraging people to eat a branded dinner before brushing their teeth with Colgate toothpaste. West describes the flop succinctly: "Brand extension failure."
Image: Samuel West
Speaking of brand extensions, the motorcycle company Harley-Davidson released its own line of perfumes and colognes in 1996. They were called "Hot Road" and contained woody notes with hints of tobacco.
Image: Samuel West
But perhaps the most unsettling failure in West's collection is the Rejuvenique facial mask, which delivered mild electric shocks to the wearer's face.
Image: Samuel West
The electricity would contract the facial muscles in an effort to lift and tone. It was released in 1999 to less-than-enthusiastic reviews.
You've probably heard some productivity expert talk about the importance of making a to-do, a schedule, or at least a tentative plan for the day.
It makes sense — when you get into work in the morning, you don't want to spend an hour trying to figure out what to do first.
And yet, sometimes, all that planning and scheduling can work to your detriment. Which is why they're best used in conjunction with the "do it now" rule.
The rule is the creation of Josh Zerkel, the director of global community and training at Evernote and a certified professional organizer. When I met Zerkel in May, he said he teaches the rule to many of his clients.
It's simple enough, Zerkel said. "If you can do something right now in the moment, without having to close it and then reopen it again later, get it done now."
Consider Zerkel's rule an alternate version of the "two-minute rule," which is the brainchild of bestselling author David Allen: If a task will take two minutes or less to complete, you do it now.
Zerkel said, in his view, it doesn't really matter if the task will take two minutes or five — if you have time to do it right now, get on top of it.
The "do it now" rule works for two key reasons.
For one, it prevents procrastination. "I'm not a big fan of look at your stuff, review it, methodically plan it," Zerkel said. "If something is short, just take care of it."
This is something I'm constantly guilty of. I'll put a time on my calendar for sending a quick response to an annoying email; but by the time I reach that point in the day, I'm exhausted and end up putting it off until the next day.
The second reason Zerkel said the rule works is that finishing even a small task "builds a sense of productivity and momentum — I'm getting stuff done! — which can lead you into getting to the bigger things that might be more challenging."
Once you fire off a response to that email, or sort through the pile of mail on your coffee table, or whatever it is that's been hanging out on your to-do list for too long, you'll feel motivated to tackle something else even bigger.
Media captionSadiq Khan, Mayor of London: "There aren't words to describe the grief and anger our city will be feeling today"
The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has dismissed criticism from US President Donald Trump over his response to Saturday's terror attack.
Mr Trump accused Mr Khan of downplaying the attack by telling Londoners there was "no reason to be alarmed".
Mr Khan's team said he had "more important things to do than respond to Mr Trump", who had "deliberately" taken his remarks "out of context".
"The Mayor is busy working with the police, emergency services and the government to co-ordinate the response to this horrific and cowardly terrorist attack and provide leadership and reassurance to Londoners and visitors to our city," Mr Khan's spokesperson added.
On Saturday night, following the attack, Mr Trump tweeted a message of support to the UK, but also sparked controversy after he called for his travel ban on visitors from six predominantly Muslim countries to be upheld by US courts.
On Sunday, he criticised Mr Khan, writing: "At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is 'no reason to be alarmed!'"
His tweet angered many in the UK, who pointed out Mr Khan had been referring to increased police numbers on the streets.
During an interview earlier on Sunday, Mr Khan had said: "Londoners will see an increased police presence today and over the course of the next few days. No reason to be alarmed."
Mr Khan had also said: "One of the things the police and all of us need to do is ensure that we're as safe as we possibly can be.
"I'm reassured that we are one of the safest global cities in the world, if not the safest global city in the world, but we always evolve and review ways to make sure we're as safe as we possibly can."
Following the attack, Mr Trump also tweeted that "we must stop being politically correct and get down to the business of security for our people", and that there was no gun debate after the attack "because they used knives and a truck".
Later on Sunday, Mr Trump visited the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia for the second time over the weekend.
Mr Trump and Mr Khan have clashed several times in the past.
During the US presidential campaign last year, Mr Trump first proposed the ban on Muslims entering the US, but suggested he could make an exception for Mr Khan, who is London's first Muslim mayor.
Mr Khan rejected the offer, saying: "It's not about me, it's about my friends, family and others from all around the world."
The circular economy – an economic model focused on designing and manufacturing products, components and materials for reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling – promises big opportunities for the private sector to drive new and better growth and accelerate innovation. Shifting to the circular economy could release $4.5 trillion in new economic potential by 2030, according to Accenture. But how do we take that vision of a circular economy – which imagines a world without waste – and translate that into profitable and scalable action?
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation Corporate Citizenship Center, a nonprofit organization driving the circular economy agenda in the US, is releasing a new report featuring case studies that illustrate how companies are translating their circular economy aspirations into action - and how that in turn drives greater resource productivity improvements, eliminates waste and inefficiency, and contributes to a stronger and more competitive economy. Let’s take a look at some of the companies featured in the report.
Aramark: Reducing food waste
Food services provider Aramark has set a goal of reducing food waste by 50% by 2030 from its 2015 baseline, such as by setting standards for ordering, receiving, preparing, serving and tracking food production. Through its partnership with food waste reduction experts LeanPath, Aramark is accelerating its waste prevention and minimization efforts by integrating LeanPath’s tracking and analytics technology platform into its largest 500 accounts. Since 2016, Aramark has rolled out LeanPath's platform across 161 sites, slashing its food waste on average by 44% and reducing the amount sent to landfill by 479 tonnes. In instances of overproduction, Aramark donates unserved food to local food relief agencies or for composting.
EILEEN FISHER: The path to 100% circularity
EILEEN FISHER’s take-back programme, in which employees and customers can bring back unwanted EILEEN FISHER clothing for $5 store credit per piece, started in 2009 under the name Green Eileen. Funds raised from the programme are donated to organizations that support women, girls, and the environment. In 2017 Fisher Found was launched as the next iteration of Green Eileen, a circular take-back programme that focuses on reselling, renewing (repairing slightly flawed pieces, for example), and remaking EILEEN FISHER garments. Since 2009, EILEEN FISHER has taken back over 800,000 garments and donated $2 million to its chosen causes. EILEEN FISHER currently takes back 3% of the products it creates each year, and is working towards a goal to take back 100% of its output.
Intel: Finding value in waste material
Computer chip manufacturer Intel has set a goal to recycle 90% of its non-hazardous waste and divert 100% of its hazardous waste from landfills by 2020. Since 2008, Intel has recycled 75% of the total waste generated from its operations, such as through upcycling, recycling, recovery, and reuse. For example, Intel developed an onsite electrowinning system to recover solid copper for reuse from an aqueous waste stream generated by semiconductor manufacturing. The recovered copper can enter the metals market supply chain for reuse in other industrial or commercial applications. The copper recovery process has been replicated at Intel’s microprocessor manufacturing sites and more than two-thirds of the waste was recovered in 2016. Additionally, over the past 10 years Intel has donated more than 1,000 pounds of copper to Arizona State University for use in the creation of works of art.
Johnson Controls: Closing the automotive batteries loop
Johnson Controls has designed its conventional automotive batteries so that 99% of the materials can be reused. Customers can return old batteries that are collected by Johnson Controls and turned into new batteries. The company’s circular supply chain has pushed recycling rates for conventional batteries to 99% in North America, Brazil, and Europe in 2015, enabling Johnson Controls to produce batteries containing more than 80% recycled material. In partnership with suppliers, customers, and logistics partners, Johnson Controls has enabled hundreds of millions of batteries to be properly recycled and recovered into new batteries. The benefits include a more resilient raw material supply, job creation and economic development for local communities and suppliers, and a 90% reduction in energy by using recycled plastics instead of virgin plastic.
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