Recycle bins on our high streets
November 9, 2007 at 8:40 am
With the UK still possessing one of the lowest recycle rates in Europe, 2007 has been a big year for Gordon Brown‘s new government in terms of environmental and recycling initiatives. One of the latest ideas has come in the form of special ‘recycling bins’ being dotted along our high streets, next to the normal litter bins, clearly marked with what recyclable waste one can deposit. The bins aren’t only planned for the high streets themselves but all public areas around towns such as car parks, recreation grounds, entertainment venues and shopping precincts.
The idea has come out of the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and their scheme this year called Recycle on the Go. Launched in Aug 2007, the scheme proposes a ‘voluntary code of practice’, as outlined in The Waste Strategy for England 2007 and is focused on encouraging and improving recycling in all public areas.
There have been ideas such as colour-coded bins, to help people understand where and what to recycle, but all of these initiatives will have to be taught to all of the individual owners of the public (or rather private) areas in our towns and cities. Advice will be available from Defra, who are working with the environment charity Encams, but one of the more obvious hurdles for this idea is where the funding will come from.
Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Environment Board Paul Bettison was sceptical, “The government have come up with this as a good idea but my concern is they have given no increase of assistance with funding.”
Techniques such as this are not a new idea in the UK and certainly not in Europe. Already a number of UK towns and cities have adopted methods to encourage their residents to recycle on the move.
- In Norwich city centre there are a number of recycling bins and the local council plan to increase them to every street corner.
- There are ‘commuter bins’ in the centre of London for all the thousands of free daily newspapers generated in rush-hour.
- In Manchester airport there are similar bins for all types of waste.
- In Chester they have designated ‘green spaces’ in the town to recycle waste around the river and park areas.
- Bins already in operation in the London borough of Camden are likely to be a good bench-mark for the rest of the country. There are over 50 bins dotted around the borough; all made from 100% recycled plastic themselves and accepting all kinds of paper, cans, glass and plastic bottles.
The British public often generate as much rubbish when out and about as they do at home, so this idea seems to make perfect sense. It might all boil down to finding funding for it though, or it might be more about the local councils and landowners making the services easily available and understandable. Then again, it’s more likely to prove a success or failure if we, the public, make an effort to find these bins and actually use them.
Vatican Commits to Carbon Neutrality
November 2, 2007 at 9:13 am
Leading the way in environmental concerns, the Vatican has recently announced its plans to become the first entirely carbon neutral sovereign state in the world. The plans come after a recent statement by Pope Benedict XVI, who, drawing on the teaching on stewardship in the Book of Genesis, emphasised the need of the international community to respect and encourage a ‘green culture.’
Pope Benedict’s own commitment to climate change reinforces that of his predecessor Pope John Paul II, who in 2001 spoke out against the indifference shown by many to the world’s ecological crisis. The Vatican hopes that its pragmatic approach to climate change will usher in a new way of living, in which individuals and organisations will wake up and take responsibility for the survival of the planet.
To help realise its ambitious targets of carbon neutrality, the Vatican has selected the environmental initiative of KlimFa, a Hungarian company co-owned by Planktos Inc, which is working in collaboration with Hungary’s government, Academy of Sciences and National Parks Directorate. KlimFa is an eco-restoration firm that works with companies and organisations to accurately assess their carbon emissions, allowing those companies to offset the damage caused by their carbon footprint through large-scale reforestation projects.
In partnership with the Vatican, KlimFa has been working to create a Vatican Climate Forest, which has been calculated to neutralise the Vatican’s carbon emissions for an entire year. The forest has been created in Hungary’s Buck National Park, as part of KlimFa’s Climate Parks programme, which plans to transform over 10, 000 hectares of Hungarian soil into native mixed forests over the course of the next decade.
This will also aid in creating new jobs for struggling Hungarian communities, as well as bringing about environmental regeneration. By using a complex mix of scientific planting patterns, species selection and growth rate measurements, KlimFa are able to calculate accurately the amount of oxygen produced by the forests, which can then go on sale to the European community as carbon offsets. As well as working directly with the Vatican, KlimFa will also work alongside Catholic churches outside of Rome, to help calculate their individual carbon footprints and put plans in place for carbon reduction and offsets.
The exact dimensions of the Vatican Climate Forest will depend on the Vatican’s success in reducing its current emissions, so, as well as working closely with KlimFa on the large-scale reforestation project, the Vatican is making significant steps to reduce its carbon footprint. Next year the Vatican plans to replace the roof of Paul V1, its 6,300-seater auditorium with photovoltaic cells which will convert solar energy into electricity. It is believed that the introduction of solar panels onto the building will create enough energy to heat, cool and light the building, with any excess energy being used in the Vatican’s network. There are also proposals to put solar panels on other buildings although historic sites such as St Peter’s Basilica will be left untouched.
McDonald’s rubbish to power hospitals
October 16, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Who said McDonald’s was bad for us? Well, they might want to eat their words because the global fast food giants have recently decided to lead the way in waste recycling, using it to generate heat and electrical power for communities here in the UK.
11 McDonald’s restaurants in Sheffield, Rotherham and Barnsley in South Yorkshire are taking part in a scheme that will aim to drastically cut down on the 100 tonnes of waste sent to landfill from one single McDonald’s restaurant each year. One of the reasons for the current landfill option is because the waste isn’t always completely devoid of food residue. However, this new scheme plans to work with various environmental agencies to turn the old packaging into new energy.
Waste will leave the 11 restaurants and be taken to modern facilities where advanced technology will convert the rubbish, along with other waste from the area, into stored electricity and heat. This will then be used to power a number of local buildings and community facilities. The Lyceum Theatre, the Millennium Gardens, Weston Park Hospital, Park Hill flats, Ponds Forge International Sports Centre and Sheffield City Hall are a few of the places that old rubbish from French Fries and Quarter Pounders will provide power for.
McDonald’s have been in the public spot-light for some time thanks to societies becoming increasingly more health conscious than ever before. The introduction of a more balanced and healthy menu sits alongside this venture as representing a shift in the ethics behind the company and of fast food chains overall.
The president chief of McDonald’s in the UK, Steve Easterbrook, said, “At the moment, it is difficult for companies like McDonald’s to recycle waste. Many recycling contractors refuse to take our waste because we cannot remove food from it completely. As a result, we have to send it landfill. This trial is an exciting opportunity to look at an alternative method of disposal with real benefits for the environmental and local community.”
In July 2007, McDonald’s announced plans to run their UK delivery fleet of lorries and trucks on biodiesel predominantly made from their own recycled cooking oils. The six million litres of regular diesel used by the fleet plans to be a thing of the past.
Furthermore, McDonald’s have also rolled out new environmentally friendly technologies and techniques within their restaurants. These include solar panels, wind power, recycling schemes for the large quantity of cardboard they use and also energy efficient lighting on their premises.
David Pratt, of the Carbon Trust, is working with McDonald’s on this new project and says, “We welcome the steps that McDonald’s are taking to reduce their emission as part of UK business efforts to fight climate change.”
Recycling – not all its cracked up to be?
October 9, 2007 at 11:20 am
With recycling such a buzz word in today’s society, you’d be hard pressed to find many studies questioning its benefits. However, a study has now been collated showing what the average UK household bin contains. The results were surprising – while almost half of it is naturally bio-degradable, 53% of our rubbish is rather more difficult for the environment to deal with. Indeed, there are certain items where the evidence in favour of recycling is overwhelming, but others where the scientific justification is lacking.
Some arguments against recycling have concentrated on the naivety of household recycling and our misconception that what we do is fundamental to reducing resource depletion. Recent statistics have shown that UK household metal recycling accounts for just 2% of the total ferrous scrap recycled in the UK. Furthermore, even if we managed to increase our household recycling by 50%, the total amount of waste going to landfill would only be reduced by 5%.
Renewable Resources?
What we should think about is the end result of recycling, namely reducing the output of harmful chemicals and resource depletion. Paper and glass are ultimately sourced from renewable resources, trees and sand. With sand being the most dominant element on the earth’s surface, worrying about it running out is not a grave concern.
There is also scientific evidence now that paper is likely to degrade within 2-5 months when sent to landfill; provided that there’s enough dirt, oxygen and bacteria to work their magic. This leaves us with the central question, are the environmental benefits of recycling better than producing new goods?
Aluminium and Steel
This has been one of the areas where the majority of research has been concentrated and the benefits of recycling are very evident. Metals can be recycled without losing any of their properties and the environmental benefits are vast. For example by recycling a tonne of steel the following are achieved:
- Reduction in water pollution by 76%
- The saving of 1.5 tonnes of iron ore and 0.5 tonnes of coal
- 75% reduction in the energy needed to make steel relative to virgin material
- 1.28 tonnes of solid waste reduction
- Reduced air emissions by 86%
Aluminium recycling produces similar benefits, needing only 5% of the energy that would be consumed in sourcing aluminium from the raw material. It also saves around 4 tonnes of chemical products and 1,400 kWH per tonne produced.
Cost/ Benefit Analysis
Unfortunately, the available evidence on this front is rather limited. However,
Transwatch has produced a significant study on the greenhouse gas emissions of cars. For example, if we were all to drive rubbish individually to recycling we would produce 860 grams of carbon, 1.18 grams of Carbon Monoxide (CO) 13.2grams of Nitrous Oxide (NOx) and 0.072 grams of Sulphur Dioxide per kilogram of fuel we used – all incredibly harmful to the ozone layer. In contrast, a single lorry will carry over 20 times the amount to be recycled, but only produce on average twice the amount of CO and NOx as well as maintain levels of carbon and sulphur oxide production. In conclusion then, rather than all trying to be altruists, we’d be much better off leaving it for the rubbish men.
This same logic needs to be applied to the harmful chemicals produced by factories specializing in recycling. Thankfully, this analysis has heralded positive results with the Institute of Science in Society estimating that 1.8 tonnes of oil are saved and sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide production reduced by two-thirds and half respectively when recycling polythene.
So What should we do?
Scientifically, many of the benefits of recycling are self-evident. However, it is only the tip of the iceberg and sacrifice is going to prove important if we really want to do something positive. This analysis only touches on the issues involved but hopefully provides some food for thought. Other things that we should all consider:
- Buy a kettle that keeps your water boiling at all times – this saves massive amounts of energy.
- Buy products manufactured in countries using renewable resources rather than those intent on burning fossil fuels.
- Use energy saving light bulbs, old style light bulbs waste 90% of the energy they produce as heat.
Are free newspapers costing the earth?
October 5, 2007 at 4:02 am
The hugely successful free newspaper Metro has announced this month that it will be distributing a further 250,000 copies of its paper each day. The paper already circulates at a figure around 1.3 million, which puts it as the fourth largest daily newspaper in the UK, larger than the Daily Telegraph.
Metro, which is part of the same media group as the Daily Mail, was launched in 1999 in London but has since spread its distribution to many other UK cities and, more recently, to Dublin. Having proven a huge success, being read by thousands of commuters every day and earning millions of pounds in advertising, a war broke out in August 2006 between two new free newspapers who wanted to dominate the evening commute slot in the same way.
London Lite newspaper is one of these two and was originally a free spin-off of The Evening Standard, but in August 2006, to counter News International’s thelondonpaper, it was given its own mantle and run alongside the Standard. thelondonpaper is part of the same company as The Sun and The Times, and has the infamous Rupert Murdoch at its helm.
The big question though is for all the millions of sheets of newspaper being produced for this new-found readership, how much is being recycled?
In August 2007, the two corporations agreed with Westminster Council’s requests to fund a further 64 recycling bins around central London or face a ban on selling their papers. However, in one year, the new papers have provided the council with an extra 1000 tonnes of waste.
The two corporations will also be responsible for the recycling of the new bins’ contents, as well as providing their own litter picking services on the streets and around the transport networks. Councillor Alan Brady said: “This has been a complex matter, and there are some details we need to finalise, but I look forward to all parties working together to ensure Westminster’s streets are kept clean and that as much waste newspaper as possible is recycled.”
Over £111,000 was added to the Westminster tax-payer last year to help cope with the vast increase of litter from newspapers.
The Clean Neighbourhood and Environment Act was brought in when discussing the issue, but it isn’t a law imposing act so Metro and The Evening Standard decided not to sign up to the agreement. However, this month, Metro have teamed up with WRAP to offer businesses in central London free recycling bins and information packs for their offices.
Nevertheless, such measures are not enough in themselves. A government funded organisation called Newsprint and Newspaper Industry Environmental Action Group (NNIEAG) was launched in 2006 with the objective of “providing advice on how to improve recycling rates and in particular, from a practical point of view, how to recycle newspapers.” With this in mind, here are a few tips for reusing your newspapers at home:
- Scrunch them up and use in the compost bin to soak up liquid
- Compress into logs for burning.
- Line trenches when growing runner beans
- Use newspaper to clean windows and stainless steel sinks
- Use as additional insulation
Talent from Trash
October 2, 2007 at 11:03 am
A new initiative, entitled Talent from Trash, hopes to give young people a sporting chance as well as an incentive to recycle. The scheme, which has financial support from Coca-Cola, asks youngsters to make a pledge to recycle more – the reward is cash assistance for youth development programmes at their local Football League Club. Thirteen clubs are participating in the scheme – you can check the site to see if you live near one of them.
Players, family and friends – in fact, anyone – can log on to the Talent from Trash website to make a pledge. This involves filling in your name and email address and promising to “recycle more aluminium, steel, glass, plastic, paper and cardboard products to help my Club raise money for youth development”. The promotion is running for just under three months – from 5th September to 28th November 2007.
The amount of money which can be raised for each club is capped at £18,000 – a pretty generous sum which should provide a welcome boost for football youth development. Everyone who pledges will also be entered in to a free prize draw, with one entry for each pledge. The prize is an extra £10,000 for the club and a personal reward of £5,000 – yet more incentive to crush some cans in the name of football!
Coca-Cola hopes that the initiative will capture youngsters’ imagination, and that the educational element of the website will encourage junior footballers and their families to make recycling a long-term goal. This section of the site provides tips on how and where to recycle.
Coca-Cola sees recycling as a key element of its environmental responsibility charter. The majority of Coca-Cola’s cans, bottles and cardboard packaging can be recycled, and the company is committed to a comprehensive recycling programme. However, the multinational has previously been criticised for failing to live up to its environmental promises. In 1999, the US organisation, Grassroots Recycling Network, claimed that the company has spent millions of dollars blocking legislation which would make it incumbent upon manufacturers to recycle beverage containers. And more recently, Coke’s green credentials have taken a knock with evidence that it has exacerbated fresh-water scarcity in some areas of operation. As such, this move is an attempt to salvage their reputation and improve their credentials as a green company.
Welsh recycling plant to generate power and jobs
September 28, 2007 at 12:09 pm
EnviroParks Ltd, a company based in the Welsh valleys, is hoping to get planning permission for a recycling plant which will create renewable energy from waste. The plant could be operational by 2009 and would create 200 jobs as well as £50 million of investment in the former mining region.
The plant will occupy a 17-acre site at the Tower Colliery near Aberdare – a coal mine where extraction will soon cease. The new plant will perform two functions – breaking down waste and generating energy.
The waste treatment technology in question is known as plasma arc gasification. This works by using a high-energy electrical arc to superheat the waste material. As temperatures reach 13,000°C, the majority of waste is broken down into basic elemental gases and a solid by-product, or “ slag”.
The process generates electricity, while the slag can be used as an aggregate. Although organic waste could be gasified in the same way as mainstream waste, it is proposed that a separate, anaerobic digestion plant be built on the site. This is to help ensure Wales meets its national target for recycling compostable waste, which is set at 25%. The anaerobic digestion plant would produce biofuels, providing a further source of revenue for the company.
A major advantage of both plasma arc technology and anaerobic digestion is the diversion of waste from landfill. The plasma method also creates none of the hazardous emissions associated with incineration. Until recently, plasma arc facilities have only been built for small-scale or niche waste markets. The Welsh plant will be the first in the UK to handle mainstream waste and will process up to 250,000 tonnes a year. The material will be a mixture of “black bag waste,” compost from domestic gardens and commercial food waste.
David Williams of Enviroparks Ltd believes the plant would “deliver 100% diversion from landfill, making the park a key strategic recycling location for southeast Wales and the Heads of the Valleys region.”
EnviroParks Ltd has promised extensive public consultation (to begin this week) and an environmental impact assessment. The scheme has the backing of the Welsh Asssembly Government, but Rhondda Cynon Taf Council is the body which will ultimately have the power to give the go-ahead or not. If the project is a success, more large-scale plasmas facilities could be built in the UK to meet the need for green waste disposal and energy generation.
Smash and Grab – Not Just For Criminals!
September 24, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Disposing of used glass bottles has always been an expensive and problematical matter for pubs and restaurants. They account for a large percentage of a pub or restaurant’s waste, and the licensed trade as a whole generates 600,000 tonnes of glass or around two billion bottles each year, much of which has previously ended up in landfill sites.
Now, thanks to the innovative firm Smash and Grab, the problem may have been solved. Their Little Smasher machine, which they have been developing for two years, looks as if it will be the answer to the prayers of green minded restaurateurs and publicans alike.
This top-loading machine is smaller than a dishwasher, is easy to use and fits neatly besides the crates and bins. It will take between fifteen and twenty bottles at a time and smash them in less than six seconds, reducing the volume of glass by 80%. Smash and Grab’s own collection team then collects the crushed glass at a time to suit the licensee. A £50,000 grant has recently been awarded which will be used by Smash and Grab to purchase their own collection vehicle rather than using the two hired trucks currently in operation.
At the moment, the glass collected is used for road fill and aggregate (none is sent to landfill) but the company hopes to interest glass reprocessors in recycling the material into new bottles, bringing great savings in the quarrying of raw materials. For each tonne of recycled glass used, 1.2 tonnes of silica and lime is saved. For this to be possible, the company will have to collect at least 2500 tonnes a year. Currently 800 tonnes a year is collected, which is in itself an encouraging fourfold increase in just twelve months.
The development of the Little Smasher has been made possible by advice on franchising, legal matters and marketing through the Enhance programme, in conjunction with the London Development Agency, London Remade and the London Community Recycling Network. Kate Nelson, the Senior Project Manager for London Remade, said: “Smash & Grab is an innovative company making a big impact on recycling within the hospitality sector… The Little Smasher is sure to be welcomed with open arms into many more licensed retail establishments. This will stop huge amounts of glass from being sent to landfill.”
Milton Keynes leads the way on street recycling
September 21, 2007 at 2:58 am
Better known for its “New Town” status and plethora of roundabouts, Milton Keynes is also leading the way when it comes to recycling. The local authority is one of the UK’s most successful in this area, recycling over 35% of all household waste.
Elsewhere in Britain recycling rates are much lower, due in part to the lack of public recycling facilities. Milton Keynes Council is tackling the issue by placing recycling bins in public areas to allow residents to recycle litter when they are on the move, and providing street cleaners with the facility to sort rubbish as it is collected. These measures have already diverted 12 tonnes of waste from landfill.
DEFRA (the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs) is hoping to encourage other local authorities to follow suit, through a scheme called Recycle on the Go, which is being run in conjunction with ENCAMS. The environmental charity believes public spaces – high streets, parks and entertainment venues – could be transformed into cleaner, greener areas through the introduction of recycling bins for paper, glass and cans as well as other rubbish.
The Voluntary Code of Practice on Recycle on the Go has not been given the go ahead just yet. A consultation is happening before Ministers make a decision. There certainly seems to be demand for improved street recycling facilities:
“92% of people recycle to some extent already,” said Ian Clayton, Deputy Chief Executive, ENCAMS. “It makes sense to make it easy to do so when people are out shopping or going to the cinema.”
Whether the public will use the recycling bins properly remains an issue, however. Some kerbside collection schemes have recently run into problems, as the proportion of recyclate which is contaminated with other waste has risen.
Although public recycling bins have been in place for years on the continent, particularly in Germany, they function well because the public is well-educated about recycling and how to sort rubbish. With widespread confusion about what can and cannot be recycled, it is likely that an awareness campaign would be needed to accompany roll-out of the bins. And with anti-social behaviour seemingly on the rise in the UK, will good recycling behaviour triumph, or will the bins simply become an easy target for vandalism?
Wales to host the largest mobile phone recycling plant in Europe
September 19, 2007 at 9:27 am
The future is coming to Wales in the shape of mobile phone recycling. A company called Excel Fortune Holdings have recently announced their plans to build the largest mobile phone recycling plant in Europe in the valleys of South Wales. The site is 120,000 square feet of former furniture factory space and the region will drastically be affected by the building, creating at least 250 new jobs and putting them on the map in terms of recycling across Europe.
An estimated £6 million has already been put forward towards the venture and it is hoped the facility will be able to recycle up to 500,000 mobile handsets each month and generate turnover of £15 million. Excel is fronted by Chief Executive Mike Bandeira, formally of BT and ntl, and he commented: “We will offer a complete end-to-end solution for the collection, recycle, re-use and distribution of phones… With Europe currently contributing around 125 million phones per year to a growing stockpile of unused goods, the need to convert them into reusable stock has become increasingly urgent.”
The project has also been part-funded by the Welsh Assembly and is certainly a very good indicator to the rest of Europe that Britain, and particularly Wales, is more than doing its bit for recycling. It is estimated that, in recent years, 110 million handsets were in circulation as more and more users demand the latest model.However, from an estimated 20 million newly used handsets per year, only 5 million are being recycled.
Excel hopes to improve on that statistic, with up to 95% of handsets being recycled when the facility is fully operational. The handsets are collected and then sold to developing countries such as India, Pakistan, Dubai, Bolivia and even China, where they were probably originally assembled. The condition, age and model type will measure how much money people could receive for donating their old handsets but often the money from the return will be given to charity.
The facility has been officially announced to the press, and to the local area around south Wales, but an official national TV advertising campaign will go out later in 2007 encouraging people to consider recycling their mobiles. Excel also plan to position collection points in stores of various leading supermarkets and high street shops by the end of 2007.
