Collecting and recycling your electrical waste
May 8, 2008 at 3:27 pm
A brand new company has been launched this week specialising in the safe recycling of electrical waste in concordance with the WEEE directive, which came into effect on July 1st 2007. It was introduced in an attempt to reduce the amount of electrical waste heading to landfill and has significant implications for producers of electrical items and any non-household users of electrical items. The company, called Electro Collect, has invested in a state of the art website which not only allows you to create an instant quote for your waste, but also gives some very comprehensive information on the whole issue of the “WEEE Directive”.
The approach of the company is widely considered to be a step into the future for an industry which has been notoriously slow in its uptake of the Internet. Unlike the majority of its competitors, Electro Collect offers North West electrical waste recycling to the masses through an automated and easy-to-use website which eliminates ambiguity and speeds up the quoting process tremendously.
This approach, with the website acting as the main selling tool, gives the company the advantage of being able to harness digital media in a unique and pioneering way, for the market. Especially with the lack of publicity for the piece of legislation driving the venture, the strategy of hosting educational content on the website looks to be a defining factor in the market.
Needless to say, the website looks very appealing and the quote system gives a good tool to allow you to “gauge” the cost of obliging to this new law.
Britain’s beaches blighted by more plastic litter than ever before
May 7, 2008 at 11:55 am
The latest Beachwatch report from the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) shows that plastic litter on British beaches has increased by a worrying 126% since 1994. Bags, bottles and other plastic items now account for over 58% of all litter found on UK beaches. Nearly 4,000 volunteers swept 168.5 km of UK coastline to collect data for the report, picking up a staggering 346,000 items of litter as they went.
Plastic litter is not just an eyesore for us: it represents a real danger to wildlife. Over 170 species of marine wildlife, including whales, seabirds and turtles, mistake marine litter for food. This can lead to poisoning and fatal stomach blockages. Animals can also be injured, strangled or drowned if they get caught up in old fishing nets or plastic packaging such as can holders. The RSPB has urged the government to do more to protect marine wildlife by creating a robust network of protected coastal areas.
The MCS says everyone can help reduce the tide of plastic litter by taking simple steps such as taking re-usable bags to the supermarket, re-filling plastic bottles with tap water and disposing of litter responsibly.
While almost all plastic can technically be recycled, the process is complicated by the range of different types of plastic, limited infrastructure and market demand. Around 86% of local authorities in the UK now provide collection facilities for plastic bottles and retailers have recently introduced degradable, biodegradable and compostable plastic products.
Several coastal towns are making an effort to ‘Go plastic bag free’ as part of a national movement to reduce plastic waste. Modbury in South Devon claims to be ‘Great Britain’s first plastic bag free town’ after traders and shopkeepers stopped issuing plastic bags in May 2007. Campaigners are hoping that Brighton will soon follow in Modbury’s footsteps and similar efforts in Helston, Cornwall are being supported by Friends of the Earth.
The MCS runs an Adopt-a-Beach initiative to encourage individuals and communities to care for their coastal environment. By joining the scheme, you can adopt your favourite stretch of coast and take part in regular beach cleans and surveys to monitor litter.
Food recycling priority for Wales
April 30, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Recycling in Wales has been given a boost by the announcement of an extra £15 million in grants from the Welsh Assembly. Jane Davidson, the assembly’s minister for environment, sustainability and housing, revealed that a total of £50 million would be made available for local authorities to put towards recycling schemes in 2008/09. The grants will be given to those authorities that are working towards separating the different types of household waste to facilitate improvements in recycling in Wales.
Wales currently recycles 33 per cent of its waste, with this announcement setting it on course to achieve its EU target of 40 per cent by 2010. The assembly is considering proposals to target 70 per cent recycling rates by 2025. Davidson commented, “Food recycling is an area of great potential and exploiting this will be essential if we are to continue increasing the amount of waste we recycle and divert from landfill.”
It is particularly important to recycle food waste as it generates large amounts of methane when decomposing, a greenhouse gas identified as one of those responsible for global warming. Once recycled, food waste can be used to provide nutrients for soil.
In tandem with the new grants being made available, local authorities will have to pay greater tax on waste they send to landfill sites. Welsh authorities will pay £32 per tonne of waste sent to the landfill, up from £24 last year.
The authorities of Monmouthshire, Torfaen, Merthyr, Carmarthenshire, RCT, Bridgend and Swansea already have separation schemes in place, with Cardiff, Gwynedd, Isle of Anglesey, Conwy, Wrexham and Blaenau Gwent planning to put schemes into effect in the near future.
15 possible sites for eco-towns
April 22, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Gordon Brown is keen to make an impact on the hearts and minds of the British public and one of his personal passion-projects is called the eco-town. It has been announced this month which of the 15 proposed sites would be home to these 10 new carbon-neutral towns. The plans are to build towns from scratch and make them the very best example of a modern thinking and environmentally friendly habitable area. Everything in the town will be made from recycled materials, the transport designs will all use green renewable energy, and it will house totally sufficient recycling and waste water systems.
It’s a breakthrough for Europe, in as much as there have been eco-developments proposed and put into motion in the world, but this will actually house people and create an entire community. A similar project is now in full swing in Abu Dhabi called Masdar City and the plans for that project look like taken from a science fiction film. The entire city is built from renewable carbon-neutral resources and will more or less run on nothing but solar power.
In the UK though, the eco-towns are still a hugely significant proposal. Between 5 and 20 thousand homes are planned in the towns and all of these will be zero carbon – in theory at least. There has obviously been the usual rejection of the idea by conservationists and the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England are worried about what this will mean to the green areas. However, ‘green’ seems to be the whole agenda here so it might end up pleasing everyone. The final 10 sites will be revealed in the next 6 months.
Boris promises payments to Londoners for recycling
April 15, 2008 at 1:30 pm
At an environmental manifesto launch on Hampstead Heath last month, Boris Johnson, the Conservative candidate for London Mayor, promised to pay Londoners to recycle if he is elected on May 1st. London has fallen behind the rest of the UK with recycling and Boris hopes that the introduction of a scheme similar to one working successfully in America, may make all the difference. Perhaps predictably, current mayor, Ken Livingstone, has denounced the idea as “unconvincing green camouflage”.
Over the last three years the Philadelphia based private company, RecycleBank, has managed to make American households increase their recycling rates by 200% and now operates in over two hundred cities and towns in the States. The scheme works by measuring each household’s recycling and rewarding them with vouchers exchangeable for goods.
The high-tech wheelie bins contain a computer chip which stores the householder’s details, including an online account number, which is credited with “Recycle Bank Dollars” after special computers on the collection trucks scan the barcode, weigh the recyclable materials and work out the reward, which averages out at around $8 a week for most households. The balance on the account can be accessed online and spent in over 250 stores, including national names such as Starbucks, as well as local participating shops. Alternatively, consumers can choose to donate their dollars to local environmental charities.
Mr Johnson plans to get the Conservative councils of Westminster, Maidenhead and Windsor discussing the scheme with RecycleBank to pioneer a similar scheme in the UK. He has stated that the initiative has proved so successful in America because it rewards people for recycling, rather than punishing them by taxes for producing waste.
Well done Co-op, you’re setting the standard again!
April 8, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Ever wondered what the supermarkets do with all those old receipts and forms? Well it’s not very obvious what all of them are doing, but the good old Co-op is once again leading the way in terms of ethical affairs. It is recycling all of its scrap paper and turning it into toilet roll and kitchen towel. And what’s better is… they are making it into children’s attraction!
The Co-op’s HQ near Stockport in Lancashire houses Waste Works, a facility to which children from local schools are invited to watch recycling in action. The plant recycles at a rate of three tonnes an hour, and at the same time teaches children methods and ideas for helping the environment in the commercial world.
Waste Works is an arm of a charity called Waste Watch – a very well established body with the experience of 20 years in the field. All the waste paper is brought to the plant using a special electronic van – it is often met by classes of up to 60 children, eager to see the technology of the future. It’s a very hands-on trip for the children – they get to make their own paper by the end of the day.
Spokesman from the Co-op Richard Cranshaw is very keen to promote ‘closed loop’ recycling, which means products are made from recycled goods, then go on to be recycled after their use, and so on. Waste Works wants to turn boring grey plants into vibrant and fun places to learn about saving the planet. Once again the Co-op is setting the standard.
No help for us to get rid of our computers
April 1, 2008 at 2:10 pm
What do you do with that old computer you are now ashamed to be associated with? It’s huge, it’s dusty and it’s got nothing on the new all singing all dancing model you’ve just got out of the box. Well it seems that none of us, including our local authorities, know what to do with the old machines and so many of them end up being perches for seagulls on landfill sites.
The consumer magazine Which? has raised the alarm on this issue and is making a strong case to be concerned. The magazine spoke to 109 of our local authorities and around 15% of them didn’t have a clue what people could do with them. "They just literally go into the landfill; they get smashed apart," so said one council representative.
Apart from the obvious and topical concerns in relation to the protection of the environment, there is also increasing awareness of data protection and many of the people who were surveyed didn’t seem to have thought about the files still on their PC when it’s dumped. If the government are being targeted, then there’s a good chance we all are, but 1 in 7 people in the survey said they’d just dump their computers on the tip.
So is it up to us or up to our councils? Well it’s a bit of both, but the councils have their minds on more regular items of waste it seems so it looks as though it might be up to us to make sure those old breeze-blocks of a computer go to the right place after use. Ring your local councils to find out more or you could donate your old computer to charities, such as Computer Aid, who find a new home for it.
M and S to charge for plastic bags as industry’s voluntary efforts at reduction are slammed
March 26, 2008 at 2:52 pm
At a time when supermarkets are competing to see whose green credentials are the best, Marks and Spencer have announced that they are to introduce a 5p charge for each plastic bag, in their food stores. The money raised will go to Groundwork, a UK charity committed to improving parks and play facilities for children.
According to Sir Stuart Rose, the chief executive for Marks and Spencer, if their customers were to reduce their use of plastic bags by 70% then 280 million fewer bags would be headed for landfill sites.
The announcement came on the same day as the grocery sector announced disappointing results, under a voluntary agreement to reduce the use of plastic bags. A reduction of only 7% had been achieved despite the fact that the agreed target was 25%. One retailer had even increased usage by 22%.
The Courtauld Commitment started in July 2005. Supported by 30 major retailers, it is currently a voluntary agreement but the Government has announced its willingness to make it compulsory if the grocery sector is unable to achieve results under the current system.
London Councils who are the driving force behind the London Shopping Bags Bill, a move designed to ban the single use of carrier bags, has hailed Marks and Spencer as a “shining light” and an excellent example to other businesses.
Marks and Spencer are confident that their customers want to reduce the environmental impact of their shopping habits and will be prepared to change their ways accordingly.
A village with no rubbish
February 27, 2008 at 10:56 am
More and more of us are finding it hard to imagine what life was like before we recycled our rubbish. However, one staggering little village nestled in the beautiful valleys of South Wales is going one better than everyone else and has recently told the world that they plan to be the first "zero waste" community in Wales.
St Arvans is a few miles down the road from Chepstow in Gwent and has been boasting very impressive recycling initiatives and targets over the years. Its residents already recycle around 77% of all of their household waste. There are weekly kerbside collections for all, which take paper, cans, glass, foil, plastics, textiles, tetrapak cartons, green waste and food. On top of this, the local recycling site also pops around again during the week to see if anything else needs to be picked up. In one week, roughly half of the 261 homes in the village didn’t produce any rubbish whatsoever. They are a pioneering community, but hold on, they haven’t stopped there.
They wanted to do better and wanted to become the benchmark for the rest of Wales and the UK. Local residents turned out in force last year to regular meetings and 95% of the village signed a new "Zero Waste Pledge". Officially launched in June 2007, the principle idea comes more from what the buyer does before they even buy something as opposed to what they will do with it once they are finished. Although they will still recycle as much as ever, the new "zero scheme" will make all residents buy only products that can be either reused, repaired or recycled after use.
A mother of five, Lou Summers, has been positive and vocal about the scheme. At the moment supporters have signed a participation pledge for a minimum of three years. Mrs Summers said, "It’s something I believe in. It is going to teach the children that they need to recycle and reuse. The benefit is your peace of mind. There is not a lot left in our bin, we don’t even fill one black bag a week."
We might all think we have heard the facts and figures a hundred times about why we should make recycling our top priority in all of our homes. The Local Government Association has told us time and time again that over 26.8 million tonnes of rubbish is dumped on a landfill every year. If you do the sums then you’ll find out that’s half a tonne per year each. We’re being embarrassed by the rest of Europe and now we’re being embarrassed by the likes of the people at St Arvans. It’s a good job they are showing the rest of us how it’s done.
Report shows rodents on the decrease
February 22, 2008 at 10:53 am
We have all heard the alarming statistic that, when walking the streets of our major cities, we are never further than a few feet away from a rat (the precise distance depends on who is telling the story). It was no surprise therefore that when councils introduced alternate week collections of household waste, rats hit the headlines. Indeed, a judge in Oxford told a council tax rebel that he agreed that her rodent problem had arisen because of the council’s fortnightly collection of waste.
Just over a year ago, the National Pest Technicians’ Association (NPTA) published a report blaming “recycling mania” for a 39% increase in brown rat infestations between 1998 and 2005. The report declared that if the problem continued to escalate, the UK could face a major public health problem.
The recycling sector was unimpressed with the research and accuracy of the report, and Jeff Cooper of the Environment Agency argued that unless rats were chewing their way into wheelie bins, fortnightly collections could not possibly be responsible for the increase in infestations. Indeed, they could have a positive effect, since less rubbish was being placed in black bin bags, which offered easy pickings for the rat population.
Twelve months on and the NPTA have changed tack, reporting a 23% decrease in the brown rat population. Their report this year concludes that alternate week collections “properly managed and supervised at grass roots level are working fairly well” and lays the blame for rodent activity on excessive amounts of food being put out for the birds, and home composting issues. The decrease in numbers could also be related to the fact that, with some councils discontinuing their free pest control service, some householders no longer report their rodent problems.
The solution to home composters attracting rats, lies in the positioning of the plastic containers. If left on soft ground, rats are able to tunnel up into the composter. If it is not possible to site the composters on concrete, then strong but fine wire mesh can be used to cover the bottom of the container, rendering it impenetrable for rodents. For added peace of mind, the composter can be dug into a six inch deep hole in the ground, and the displaced soil used to bank up around the base.
There are also various things that you can do to make your garden less of a magnet to rats.
- Do not put cooked food or egg shells into the compost bin.
- Cover the raw food scraps with other materials such as grass cuttings.
- Make sure you give the contents a good shake from time to time as the rats like to be undisturbed.
- There are various compost bins on the market which are guaranteed to be rat proof although these tend to be more expensive than the normal type.
- If you feed the birds in your garden, do not put bread or cakes out as this will attract rats. Instead, stick to seeds and nuts in proper bird feeders and keep the surrounding area swept.
