Councils aim to improve waste and recycling collections
January 27, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Over 100 councils have signed up to the Waste Collection Commitment in order to improve residents’ satisfaction with how waste and recycling is collected throughout the UK.
The Waste Collection Commitment aims to help local authorities provide better waste and recycling services. It was launched by Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and the Local Government Association (LGA). Both organisations were asked to look at ways to develop recycling from a householder’s perspective.
According to WRAP, research into the Commitment was carried out in 2008 via a telephone survey of over 2000 householders, who were chosen to reflect the characteristic profile of England. Key findings from the research were developed with local authority involvement into several principles, that ultimately defined a good collection service.
WRAP explained that by signing up, councils would provide a better level of service and improve communication with their workers, so that residents would be clear about the level of service they would receive.
Wyre Borough Council recently became the 100th local authority to sign up to the Commitment. Commenting, Phillip Ward, director of local government services at WRAP, said that “reaching this milestone” was proof that local authorities were “dedicated to improving customer experience when it came to waste and recycling.”
He said that the research had also shown that “more than 80% of people were satisfied with their waste and recycling collection”. He added that they were encouraging more local authorities to review their service against “the principles of the Commitment” and to follow the lead of the other signatories.
Ebay offers recycling service
January 20, 2011 at 5:11 pm
Massive commercial sites such as eBay have often been criticised for seeming to embody everything that’s wrong with modern-day society, with blatant consumerism and greed the name of the game for many websites launched with making money in mind. It is, therefore, refreshing to see one such website unveil a new environmentally friendly initiative.
eBay has launched a brand new website, called eBay Instant Sale, that allows users to recycle their old and unwanted electronic devices, including mobile phones and laptops. The move comes as a major step forward in the world of green-friendly initiatives for eBay, who have taken more minor steps in recent months that would appear to have been precursors to the new website; eBay recently introduced reusable boxes in an attempt to cut down on waste generated by the commercial giant and is thought to be considering several other green-friendly proposals.
eBay Instant Sale’s beauty is in its simplicity. Users simply have to enter some details about the product in question and are presented quickly with a cash offer. If the user deems the price to be a fair one, they are sent a free shipping label and payment is processed via paypal (it may reassure you to know that users of the scheme will have the personal data on their devices removed entirely).
For items that have no cash value, eBay will recycle the products free of charge.
Whilst the new website may take some time to catch on, with many Brits keen to make as much money as possible out of old gadgets, even if they’re faulty, and criticism already being fired in eBay’s direction over the apparent low costs offered to users of the site, it is undoubtedly a step forward and may, eventually, change consumers’ mindsets from one of greed and maximum profit to one that considers the future of our planet.
