Trial of reward based recycling continues
October 1, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Following the announcement of a similar scheme in Windsor and Maidenhead, Halton Borough Council has decided to trial a reward-based recycling scheme. After half the residents in Windsor and Maidenhead signed up for the trial – earning themselves on average £20 in Marks and Spencer vouchers – Halton has decided to give the idea, which was recently endorsed by a report from Harvard University, a go.
The council has clearly decided that ‘stick’ methods such as bin police surveillance has angered residents instead of getting them to reduce the amount of household waste ending up in landfill sites. Using the ‘carrot’ approach, residents will be paid for every kilogram of recyclable waste they put in the correct bin. To avoid providing an incentive to raid neighbours’ bins for recyclables, Halton Borough Council will place a cap of £130 on annual earnings per household.
The decision to undertake this trial may have been influenced by the increasing pressure on local authorities to get residents to separate their recyclable and non-recyclable waste. Recent statistics have shown that last year alone a huge 54% of household waste in the Borough went to landfill compared to just 1% in Germany. One factor for this imbalance is that there is a landfill ban for household waste in Germany, one of several countries to have brought in this measure. Britain is expected to follow suit in about 2011 after a planned public consultation in early 2010.
As well as rewarding residents for separating their waste, the council is likely to be spared the job of weighing it as it is intended that microchips will be installed in the bins. It seems likely that, should these reward-based trials prove successful, they will become part of a wider national scheme to help promote a sustainable UK society by raising awareness through education.
Wales hits recycling targets a year early
September 25, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Welsh councils have hit their recycling targets for sending waste to landfill a year early. This will mean they will not face European Union financial penalties if they continue to recycle at the same rate next year.
The new EU initiative begins in 2010, and states that the rate of biodegradable waste such as food, cardboard and paper being sent to landfill must be down by 75% compared to 1995 levels. By 2013 this will be reduced by a further 50%, and will go down another 35% by 2020.
During 2008/09, Wales buried just 599,703 tonnes of biodegradable waste in landfill, marking a huge reduction of 154,879 tonnes in just two years. The Welsh Landfill Allowances Scheme allows for 788,000 tonnes to be buried each year, so this amount is 24% lower than the target. But more importantly it is 16% below the 2010 EU allowance, meaning if authorities continue at the same rate then they will not receive the heavy financial penalties for burying too much biodegradable waste.
It marks a huge turnaround for Wales. In 2008, only 11 of the local authorities were looking likely to hit their EU targets. But now they have beaten their targets a year early which is a great success for recycling in the country.
The Welsh Assembly Government has recently provided £24 million in funding for household waste collection and treatment across the country. In total, 18 authorities now have a food waste collection service up and running.
Environment minister, Jane Davidson, said that it was an “excellent achievement”. She said that simply burying waste to rot is something “from another era” and highlighted the possibilities it provided to “generate renewable energy through the use of anaerobic digestion”.
Doggy bags to clear nation’s plate
September 18, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, real-food campaigner and presenter of the River Cottage series of TV programs, has backed a supermarket campaign to reduce food waste by three million tonnes a year by asking diners to take uneaten food home with them.
In its official magazine, Waitrose supermarket implored readers to overcome their shyness and ask waiters for a doggy bag – a box or bag of leftover food.
William Sitwell, the author of the feature, took umbrage with the volume of waste produced by UK restaurants, calling it “appalling”.
An estimated 20m tonnes of leftover food items end up in landfill sites every year, according to figures published by government pressure group WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme).
Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall was quick to point out that chefs like to see their food eaten, not thrown in the bin: “I have asked for doggy bags in Michelin-starred restaurants. This isn’t something that is frowned-on."
Hugh’s enthusiasm is not universal, however. Several UK restaurants have banned doggy bags altogether, fearing legal proceedings, bespectacled lawyers and salmonella’s grubby fingers.
Visitors to the BBC website noted that today’s culture is too quick to seek compensation for minor infractions. Some restaurants may even ask customers to sign a legal waiver before handing over a doggy bag.
Despite the popularity of the phenomenon in the US, few UK restaurants are equipped to provide a ‘takeaway’ service.
The Love Food, Hate Waste website offers free recipes and advice for people who want to cut down on the amount of food that they throw in the wheelie bin.
Department for the Environment less than average in its recycling rates
September 14, 2009 at 2:47 pm
A recent parliamentary question has revealed that the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has only managed to recycle 29% of its waste during 2008.
Defra is the government agency charged with ensuring Britain meets its target of recycling 50% of its waste by 2020 as part of the Government’s ‘war on waste’ campaign and its vision of a more sustainable UK. However, the Department’s inability to generate higher recycling rates has left it lagging behind similar institutions. This is most striking when Defra is compared to some Local Authorities as some of these have been able to recycle more than 60% of their waste.
Perhaps the most worrying aspect for Defra should be that even companies such as Boots have been able to achieve recycling rates of 50% or more, demonstrating that the Department is lagging behind both the public and private sectors in its endeavours, leading opposition parties to attack the effort the Government is making in setting an example by achieving recycling rates as high as possible within its own departments.
In response to these claims, Defra has maintained that the figure does not take account of the fact that 64% of office waste is recycled. In addition the Department argues that a large proportion of the waste it generates cannot be recycled because it comprises hazardous materials, with a large proportion of these being incinerated to generate electricity.
This whole episode demonstrates both the improvements that have been made and the challenges that remain for the UK as we endeavour to reach our recycling targets and create a more sustainable society.
Carpet composting considered
September 4, 2009 at 4:16 pm
As the UK looks to cut down on the quantity of products ending up in landfill sites, Carpet Recycling UK has come up with a novel idea for composting woollen carpets.
At present the idea is in its trial stage with Derbyshire-based composters Vital Earth looking to see whether wool-fibre carpet can be composted successfully. The idea of composting carpets marks a change of focus on how best to recycle woollen carpets, with previous ideas exploring its insulation value amongst other things.
The original idea seems to have come from research conducted in New Zealand and, if the idea passes the trial stage, it has the potential to divert at least 35% of carpet material that has come from domestic waste towards composting to create a good quality fertiliser.
However, before the agricultural sector can look forward to the benefits of carpet composting, the UK Environmental Agency wants evidence that the carpet’s backing is biodegradable and will not cause harm to the environment. As well as this, there are fears that chemicals such as bleach that are used to treat fibres mean that the final product may not pass the PAS 100 accreditation that would enable it to be used as feedstock.
Despite this, the project can only be seen as a positive development as the UK moves towards a more sustainable society and as such it has received the support of the Environmental Agency. Whether the initial trials are successful or not, Carpet Recycling UK can already be pleased that their work is generating interest in carpet composting that was previously unseen.
Illegal waste arrives back in UK from Brazil
August 26, 2009 at 1:59 pm
We all know how unpleasant it can be scooping up the contents of our bin bag after a fox has had a good rummage, so spare a thought for the Environmental Agency team which is about to get their hands dirty but on an industrial scale.
A ship carrying 71 containers of toxic waste landed at Felixstowe Docks last week after being ordered back to the UK by Brazilian authorities; they had been shocked to discover that instead of recyclable plastics they were about to import hazardous and toxic waste. Whilst it is legal to export waste for recycling abroad, it is illegal to export waste for disposal.
According to Sky News, amongst the stinking rubbish were condoms, used nappies, bags of blood, syringes, bandages, household waste, car batteries and computer parts. The Brazilian Environment Agency (IBAMA) was understandably outraged and called for overseas countries to stop treating Brazil as the world’s rubbish dump.
The plan now is for the containers to be fumigated and sealed for a week, after which time Environmental Officers will sift through the waste for evidence of the perpetrators. Last month, three men from Swindon were arrested in connection with the crime, by Wiltshire Police and the Environmental Crime Unit which will be in charge of the investigation at Felixstowe. If found guilty the men could face an unlimited fine or two years in prison.
The Environmental Crime Unit was set up last year to target organised waste crime and consists of twenty former detectives, forensics experts and intelligence officers. We are all used to reading tales of people receiving draconian punishments for putting rubbish in the wrong bin or putting their bin out on the wrong day, but Environment Agency’s Liz Parkes was keen to assure people that this is not the purpose of the Unit “This is not about people putting rubbish in the wrong bins – we concentrate on those individuals and companies whose illegal activities have the potential to cause serious damage to the environment."
Marks & Spencer customers rewarded for recycling
August 7, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Marks & Spencer and Oxfam have introduced a new scheme to try to persuade people to recycle more of their soft furnishings rather than sending them to the tip. The ‘Soft Furnishings Exchange Programme’ has just been launched by the high-street store and the charity, and it will hopefully prove popular with shoppers.
The system is simple. Shoppers who bought soft furnishings from M&S in the past can now take them into an Oxfam shop instead of throwing them away, and they will be given vouchers in return. Each voucher will be worth £5, and it will allow the customer to make purchases on any homeware, clothes or beauty products in any M&S store. The vouchers will be valid for one month after they have been handed out, and they can only be used with a purchase over £35.
This scheme follows on from the successful clothes exchange programme that Oxfam and M&S introduced last year. So far, the scheme has managed to prevent 3 million garments from going to landfill sites, as well as raising £2 million for Oxfam. The scheme has proved hugely popular because it has allowed customers not only to help the environment but also to donate to charity at the same time.
According to DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), each year one million tonnes of textiles end up in landfill sites instead of being recycled. So if this scheme can help to reduce that number then it will surely be hailed as a success.
David McCullough, the director of trading at Oxfam, said that they are trying to make it “even easier” for people to recycle their textiles and to “make it curtains for poverty”.
Plastics 2020 Challenge launched
July 23, 2009 at 3:31 pm
It looks like there could be a new initiative in the plastics industry to increase recycling rates, as it has just launched a new campaign to get itself and others involved in recycling. The launch of Plastics 2020 is an attempt by the industry to set itself, consumers and the government the task of doing more to keep plastics out of landfill sites and to get them reused.
Launched in Westminster, the campaign already has the support of many MPs, and represents the first time that both processors and manufacturers have got together and set their own specific targets. The overall aim is to double the rate of plastic packaging recycling by the year 2020. The public will also be able to join in through a new website that has been launched, and numerous charities, including Friends of the Earth, will join in by taking part in various debates on the web.
One of the reasons the campaign has been launched now is that research from ComRes released recently showed that councils are not faring too well when it comes to meeting the targets they have been set for recycling next year. According to the research, a third did not think they would meet their targets next year, and a third didn’t think they would hit them between 2015 and 2020. This could lead to higher council tax bills as a result.
Calum Forsyth from Plastics 2020 said that although plastics are now “indispensable to our daily lives”, there is an “urgent challenge” to deal with their disposal as “time is running out”.
Best before dates might go in order to save waste
July 21, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Many of us look at the food packaging and simply aren’t sure whether we should eat what’s inside or chuck it in the bin. If in doubt, we throw it out. But the government are now starting to get very worried about the damage this is doing to the environment and to the economy too. The estimated total sum of money spent in the unnecessary wastage of food in the UK is a whopping £10 billion every year.
The Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, has called for action to be taken to make the best-before and display-before labelling on food items much clearer and possibly even scrapped in some cases. At present the retailers label their food with these dates so that they can properly manage their stock intake, as well as give information to the consumer about time limits for eating or drinking the item safely. The Department of Food and Rural Affairs is, however, concerned that it is only benefitting the retailers and not helping the customer or the environment.
The government sound keen to scrap the dates but the retailers insist this wouldn’t be a good idea. They feel they could bring in tougher rules that would make the labels easier to understand and which would ensure that all are laid out in the same way. There has been a lot of improvements in the packaging side of retailing, with the Trading Standards having a set-template for certain items so that they can see where some retailers are not abiding by the rules. DEFRA are working with the retailers in issues such as packaging, as well as restricting what materials go to landfills, so the dates look like they’ll be next on the agenda.
Bottle recycling plant gets go ahead
July 10, 2009 at 1:07 pm
Recycling in Wales received a boost recently after WAG (the Welsh Assembly Government) provided a grant to Plastics Sorting Limited for a new plastic bottle recycling plant that will be constructed in Ebbw Vale.
It is the second grant given to the project by WAG. It originally gave £850,000 in September 2008, and this second grant of £450,000 means that the total has now risen to £1.3 million, which will really help to get things up and running.
The plant will have the capacity to recycle 20,000 tonnes of bottles a year. It will be able to sort the bottles and clean them, and will then recycle them so that they can be reused. It will be able to do this with PET and HDPE plastic bottles, and it is thought that the site will be fully functional by March 2010.
Jane Davidson from WAG said that the plant will be “a key part in making our vision for a society that produces as little waste as possible.”
She also highlighted the benefit that will come from more jobs and investment in the green sector.
On top of providing clean recycled bottles, the plant is going to increase its green credentials by not only using rainwater for the majority of its process water, but also using an anaerobic digestion facility nearby, which is a renewable source of fuel, to provide its electricity and heating. This will lead to a site that is not only providing an earth-friendly service, but is also environmentally friendly in its operation.
