New legislation allows for electrical recycling scheme
July 5, 2007 at 10:57 am
New environmental legislation set to come into effect this July is likely to significantly improve the ability of both retailers and consumers to recycle electrical appliances. The Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment Regulations (WEEE) require producers and sellers of such appliances to make some contribution to the costs of recycling electrical goods lying at local tips. This obligation applies not only to established high-street companies but also to Internet sellers.
However, a recent survey by the high-street chain, Comet, has revealed that the vast majority of people are unaware of the services available when it comes the recycling of electrical goods. Comet’s report revealed that only one person in fifty was aware of the services on offer. Indeed, most people had never recycled an electrical appliance and a troubling number of those polled confessed to thinking that such practices were impossible. A significant proportion of those surveyed blamed their local authority for failing to provide them with sufficient information on the matter.
Recognising the need to increase awareness among consumers of the recycling services on offer, Comet has announced a number of measures to deal with the situation. Just about any electrical appliance can be recycled under the WEEE guidelines. As such, Comet is set to expand its collection and recycling facilities to cover bigger appliances including fridges, washing machines and dishwashers. Although over three million such appliances have been recycled since these services began, many more make their way to tips and landfills each year and consequently contribute to environmental degradation.
With our consumption of electronic items on the increase, the need to provide recycling facilities for such goods is of essence. Roughly 70% of heavy (toxic) metals found in landfills come from discarded electrical appliances. In some instances, such waste is transported to third world countries for disposal. However, this offers neither a viable nor equitable long term solution. Furthermore, in certain circumstances, recycling is the only real option. The direct disposal of certain goods such as computers and mobile phones is banned in developed countries as they contain components constructed from toxic metals. Other common household appliances such as televisions and VCRs can release toxic chemicals such as dioxins, PCBs and radioactive isotopes into the environment. Only recycling provides a safe means of disposal for such goods.
Comet’s recycling services are available to all. You need not have purchased your appliance from them in order to qualify. However, you will need to pay a fee of £20 per item to be recycled. Given the dangers associated with the direct disposal of electrical appliances and equipment, it is a small price to pay.
Cowbins inspire children to recycle
July 3, 2007 at 3:16 am
An initiative encouraging young people to recycle is causing a stir in Somerset this week. A “herd” of recycling bins, painted to look like Friesian cattle, has been installed in a field near Weston-super-Mare ready, to be used by schools in September. While the bins have boosted recycling rates elsewhere, there are concerns that the roadside spectacle is slowing down traffic on the M5.
The makers of the bins, waste company Taylor, claim that they deliver a 61% increase in recycling. The eye-catching “Cowbin”, and smaller “Calfbin” for primary schools, provide an exciting way to educate children and adults about recycling issues. The “Feed the Cows” recycling project in the London Borough of Lewisham won Best Information and Communications Campaign at last year’s National Recycling Awards.
The Waste Strategy for England 2007 from the Department for Environment and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) promised more recycling bins in public places and stressed the need to promote waste reduction and recycling in schools.
Taylor has agreed that the Somerset herd should be removed following complaints that the bins are distracting drivers and causing delays. This won’t be the end of the bovine recycling champions, though. Chorely Borough Council in Lancashire has just been awarded a grant of nearly £39,000 for the bins to be used in a communal recycling scheme. According to Taylor, there are plenty more cowbins desperately wanting to move to new pastures to graze on recyclable rubbish in schools and public spaces across the UK.
Can China be excused its emissions seeing as the UK send all its recycling there?
July 3, 2007 at 3:05 am
Should China be excused 2 new power stations a week because it recycles most of the UK’s rubbish?
China is the workhouse of the world. Since the dawn of the millennium it has become one of the top-five exporters of merchandise, the second highest oil consumer (after the US) and the world’s biggest coal consumer. China’s importance in the world’s economy is huge, but for all its growth, there comes a price. In 2006 China’s CO2 emissions rose 9%, compared to 1.4% in the US (Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency). In July 2007, as reported in BBC News a study by a leading climate change official for the UK Home Office, John Ashton, concluded that on average China builds two new power stations per week and these are almost solely coal-burning plants.
The Chinese economy needs to uphold its energy production levels to support its rapidly increasing economy. However, alongside their increasing levels of carbon emmissions, China appears to be helping the rest of the world in what many would consider an environmentally-friendly task – recycling.
Over 35% of all waste-paper and plastics collected in the UK is shipped en masse 8000 miles to Hong Kong, where it is fought over by the hundreds of recycling factories. Many of the factories are not being run in accordance to the safety standards accepted in the UK; plastics are burnt and their waste often leaked into nearby rivers, huge and unfiltered stacks of smoke sit under the clouds and the workforce are often migrant labourers, earning next to nothing, working in appalling conditions and being exposed to high-levels of toxic poisoning.
Unbelievably there has been no official report into the precise environmental costs of this recycling-trade. Although China professes to be regulating the waste that is exported to it, their recent industrial revolution makes any new business proposition almost impossible to resist. They have defended claims that they are doing more harm than good by highlighting that the end product of these factories is often storage containers that would normally have had to come from chopping down trees all over the world.
Although the UK has vastly improved its methods and incentives for recycling, whilst foreign companies such as those in China are offering cheaper and quicker deals for local authorities and supermarket chains in the UK, shipping the waste abroad will be be a hard offer to resist. Although the government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs claims that in the next three years they will “encourage £40m worth of private investment into waste projects” a British plastics recycler, Edward Clack, was reported in The Guardian Online on September 20, 2004 as saying “Everyone has lost supplies to China. The local market is being starved of materials. Hundreds of brokers are buying up the plastic and shipping it out. It’s cheaper to send a container to China than to Scotland.”
Asda stocks environmentally friendly CDs
July 2, 2007 at 2:58 am
The supermarket Asda recently announced that it will become the UK’s first supermarket to exclusively stock a wide and diverse range of environmentally friendly CDs, which come in fully compostable packaging. Asda has always been a supermarket with a green conscience and has often done research into the relationship between the consumer world and the planet. The supermarket even has its own website, called ASDA’s Big Recycle Website which primarily targets children of a young age in order to educate them about how they can help to save the environment through recycling. This latest news concerning CDs follows Asda’s recent research into CD recycling, which found that up to 25% of all plastic CD covers are thrown away within 12 months of purchase.
The new CD packaging will be made from 100% recycled and recyclable paper-foam (which can be recycled along with newspapers and magazines) and will be stocked in all of Asda’s 336 stores in the very near future. Furthermore, no booklets will be sold with the CDs (the production of CD booklets uses a lot of paper which is often wasted as many people will never so much as glance at their contents) but will be available from the Universal Music website. Asda will call this new range the ‘Ecopac’ range and it will be manufactured in conjunction with Universal Music. There will be CDs available for all tastes and all age groups, from Marvin Gaye to Marilyn Manson.
Many music fans, both young and old, are eager to help make the country more sustainable and they are likely to enthusiastically accept Asda’s scheme, especially as it coincides with other events in the music world such as the Glastonbury festival and Live Earth. Live Earth actually marks the start of a multi-year mass persuasion campaign led by The Alliance for Climate Protection, which aims to instigate real action from all levels of society to help save the planet. Both this event and Glastonbury present a need to entertain but also to educate the public about issues concerning the environment and saving the planet through recycling. Asda’s scheme combines these two priorities and is likely to appeal to many people.
There is further evidence to suggest that Asda’s scheme will be a success. Asda’s parent company, Wal-Mart introduced the same scheme approximately 6 months ago. More than 2 million copies of the environmentally friendly CDs have been sold to date, with this figure only set to rise in the coming months. Both schemes from Wal-Mart and Asda interestingly coincide with a new awareness concerning the need to recycle old and unwanted CDs. Although the supermarkets have provided us with a good scheme to cut down on wasteful packaging, the problem remains as to how to recycle the actual CD itself. However, rather than throwing CDs in the bin, try these quick tips:
A greener way to buy your milk
July 2, 2007 at 2:49 am
Supermarket chain Waitrose is hoping to appeal to environmentally conscious shoppers with a new reusable milk jug and “eco pak” refill pouches. Both are made of recyclable material and use 75% less plastic than typical ‘polybottle’ milk packaging.
Whitland-based Calon Wen supply the pouches and the organic milk inside them. The company comprises 20 organic family farms across Wales and was the first dairy in the UK to achieve the Soil Association Ethical Trade Symbol.
This method of buying and storing milk is not entirely new. In Canada, around 40% of milk is sold in lightweight pouches. The concept has also been launched in Australia and New Zealand, but without widespread success. Waitrose say that if the eco paks were to entirely replace polybottles in the UK, nearly 100,000 tonnes of plastic would be saved every year.
The recyclable milk jug, costing £1.99, and eco packs, at 91p, will be available in 17 London branches of Waitrose, 3 branches in Wales and in their Bath store, with plans to roll the product out across the UK.
