Carbon footprint of household food waste
April 9, 2011 at 1:57 pm
The water and carbon footprint of household food waste has been recorded for the first time, showing environmental effects in the UK and globally.
A new report, jointly published by Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), claims that water used to produce food that is then wasted by UK households, amounts to 6% of the UK’s water requirements.
The water footprint from the UK is worked out by calculating the amount of water used to provide goods and services around the country. Research from the report found that the 6.2 billion cubic metres of water, used to produce 5.3 million tonnes of food that is wasted each year, is almost twice the annual household’s water usage in Britain. This works out to be approximately 243 litres per person per day.
The new research follows reports in 2009 from WWF and WRAP that identified avoidable food waste as having a value of around £12 billion, when the majority that is thrown away could have been eaten. Moreover, apart from the financial costs when food is discarded, the water and energy used to produce it is not recovered, it explained.
According to the report, food that is wasted in the UK every year, is responsible for up to approximately 3% of the UK’s domestic greenhouse gas emissions, along with those added from overseas. This is the same as the emissions created by 7 million cars each year.
In the report WWF and WRAP highlighted the importance of preventing food waste at all stages of the supply chain and said that by reducing waste from food, positive steps could be made towards addressing climate change and poor water management.
Liz Goodwin, chief executive at WRAP added that “growing concern” over the “availability of water in the UK and abroad and security of food supply”, meant that it was “vital we understood the connections between food waste, water and climate change”.
Coca-Cola in new recycling plant project
March 20, 2011 at 1:55 pm
The quantity of plastic bottles that can be recycled in the UK is about to get a massive boost thanks to a new partnership between Coca-Cola (CCE) and ECO Plastics. The two firms have joined forces to announce the building of a new £15 million recycling facility at Hemswell in Lincolnshire which will be dedicated to recycling plastic bottles.
The new facility is part of a 10-year joint venture, and once it is up and running it will more than double the quantity of Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) drinks bottles that can be recycled in the UK. Last year, 35,000 tonnes of PET was processed in the UK; once the facility is up and running that figure will rise to over 75,000 tonnes.
Coca-Cola is making a £5 million investment towards the construction of the site after the original site was destroyed by fire in August 2009. ECO Plastics will raise a further £10 million, and the facility is set to go operational in 2012, leading to the creation of 45 jobs in both the construction phase and the operational phase.
Coca-Cola stands to benefit from a regular supply of recycled PET to help it reach its target of 25% recycled plastics in its UK packaging by 2012.
The MD of ECO Plastics, Jonathan Short, said that the company was “delighted to be partnering with a company of the calibre of Coca-Cola Enterprises”. Simon Baldry, the MD of CCE GB, said that the move will help to “address the recycling challenges in this country”.
Work starts on £80 million London recycling plant
March 5, 2011 at 1:51 pm
Work began recently on a new £80 million recycling plant in London which will convert waste into gas that can be used to generate electricity.
London mayor Boris Johnson was present to mark the beginning of work on the advanced gasification plant, and said that local people won’t have to worry about any rubbish that they cannot recycle going to landfill because now “it will be used to power their homes with green energy”.
The plant is being built by Bioessence East London Ltd, a renewable energy firm in Dagenham, and is one of the first such plants to be built in the UK. Once it is fully up and running in 2013 it will be able to deal with 100,000 tonnes of waste every year, converting it into 19 megawatts of energy.
The process will see residual household waste being directed to the plant, where thermal and chemical processes will be used to break it down. This will create synthetic gas which can then be used to generate electricity.
The plant received an £8.9 million loan from LWaRB (the London Waste and Recycling Board). However, this was less than the £12 million originally pledged due to budget cuts.
The chair of LWaRB, James Cleverly, said that the plant “perfectly demonstrates how waste can be used as a resource.”
On top of the power that the plant will produce, it will also lead to the creation of a number of new jobs. 25 permanent jobs will be created when it is operational, and 100 construction jobs will be created during the building stage.
Edinburgh receives recycling boost
February 10, 2011 at 1:49 pm
Edinburgh is clearly a city full of residents with a green-friendly approach. That much was made clear when the council recently revealed a surprisingly high level of demand from the general public for more recycling facilities. It therefore would surely have come as music to the ears of those living in the Scottish capital that they will now be able to have batteries and plastic bottles collected for recycling from their homes, with the former now collected from blue kerbside boxes and the latter from red kerbside boxes.
Residents had previously been forced to travel to selected local shops or major council recycling centres if they wished to recycle their batteries but it isn’t just the council in Edinburgh that has identified battery recycling as one key area to address over the next five to ten years. With just 3% of batteries used in British households currently ending up in recycling plants, councils across the nation are seeking to solve a problem that can at worst lead to harmful chemical leaks that have the potential to damage the environment severely.
The local council in Edinburgh also has high hopes that the plastic bottle recycling scheme will be particularly successful, with around 275,000 tonnes of plastic used on an annual basis in the United Kingdom. This astounding figure equates to around 15 million plastic bottles each day. When you bear in mind that plastic bottles can take around 500 years to decompose in their entirety, the potential problem of not having adequate recycling facilities seems all too clear.
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.
Electrical recycling crucial over festive period
December 29, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Electrical gadgets represent big business at this time of year, with the latest models making popular Christmas presents for both young and old, and the January sales attracting consumers from up and down the country keen to update their TVs, stereos, and various game consoles.
However, even though we may not want to think about the importance of recycling at this festive time of year, it really does make a significant difference if you spend just a few minutes considering what to do with your old electrical gadgets.
Peterborough City Council has advised residents in the region to get rid of their old computers and televisions at the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment recycling centre, which is based in Fengate.
The idea behind the centre is to allow local consumers to dispose of their old electrical items, whatever size or age they happen to be (as long as they are in relatively good working order), safe in the knowledge that the gadgets will be put to good use, with those on low incomes or benefits able to buy the reconditioned items at cut prices. These individuals are often referred to the centre by charities such as Age Concern or the Salvation Army and all the money received at the centre is subsequently spent on improving the service the centre can provide.
Even if you think your old gadget holds no value, don’t throw it out immediately as the centre can easily identify any working parts that may still be useful and can take these out of the old, useless item.
DEFRA to suffer after goverment spending review
December 15, 2010 at 11:08 am
More than a quarter of the 30,000 people employed by DEFRA are expected to lose their jobs as a result of the huge cuts being made by the current ruling coalition government. With the Environment Agency among the groups expected to be hit hardest by the cuts, the government has so far not commented as to how the UK is expected to meet its current recycling targets whilst reducing spending on projects and staff who are helping to combat the effects of global warming.
Reports so far have suggested that the job cuts are likely to occur because the department is trying to find ways to cut £174 million from administration costs over the next four years. As well as this, the environmental agency, a key regulator of the waste industry in both England and Wales, has come under scrutiny after reports emerged that the coalition government is looking to reform the department substantially.
Commenting on the potential job losses, the permanent secretary at DEFRA stated: “Including non-departmental public bodies, the total staff cuts will be somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000 jobs across the whole network including the Environment Agency, out of 30,000”. However, she has in fact failed to disclose the full extent of the cuts that are going to affect the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), which currently receives two thirds of its budget from DEFRA.
Whilst DEFRA has been outlining plans which seem to suggest that it will not see its front line performance affected, some countryside experts are now worried that any cuts made by bureaucrats will not be made with enough knowledge to see this happen in reality.
Hampshire crisp packets ending poverty
December 15, 2010 at 11:06 am
Despite government incentives designed to encourage the British public to recycle as much as they can, it can sometimes be difficult to stick to a strict recycling regime. However, one charity in Hampshire has provided locals with a real incentive that has seen enthusiasm for recycling receive a significant boost.
The Philippines Community Fund (PCF), who state their vision as being “to free every Filipino child and their family from the effects of poverty” and perform crucial roles with regards to the health and medical facilities available in the Philippines, has started to turn crisp packets into fashionable items such as handbags and jewellery. The PCF was set up partially in order to help combat the social problems faced by those forced to live in squatter camps set up around giant waste dumps in the Philippines.
The PCF get together regular shipments of recycled crisp packets and send them out from Southampton to their eventual destination, a factory set up by the charity that allows around 300 local people to transform the waste into a range of products suitable for sale. By allowing the parents of young children living in the sites deemed by the charity as needing long-term help to receive an income from the sale of the products, the need for the children to scavenge on the tips is eradicated.
The charity also works extremely hard to improve the literacy and general educational standards of adults in the communities in the hope that this will increase the standard of living for future generations too.
With approximately 30 crisp bags needed by the factory in the Philippines to make just one small purse, the need for the British public to throw themselves fully behind this latest initiative is clear. So, next time you’re considering taking the lazy option and chucking that empty bag of crisps in the litter bin, think again.
Plastic recycling on the up
December 13, 2010 at 12:47 pm
With the bad weather and student protests dominating the front pages of the newspapers and providing us with news-flashes more than capable of dampening any festive spirit, it may seem that good news is at a premium at the moment. However, that generalisation simply cannot be applied to the recycling sector, which this week received a significant piece of good news.
The good news comes in the form of a report commissioned by Recoup, with the results of the study revealing that plastic bottle recycling in the UK has increased over the past year, with 45% of bottles now being processed by recycling facilities. The results of the report are based on responses from local authorities, with over 400 authorities initially contacted for data. The percentage represents a significant 7% increase on the figure for last year, causing Marcel Arsand, the project manager at Recoup, to state that the “plastic packaging collection scheme” has made rapid “progress” over the past 12 months or so.
The overall figures for plastic recycling over the past year make for impressive reading, with around 303,000 tonnes of plastic packaging collected for recycling, with 263,000 tonnes of this composed of plastic bottles.
However, there is no doubt that local councils need to make the lives of consumers far easier in order to boost the plastic recycling figure even more, with kerbside collections made more frequent and reliable and campaigns to raise awareness of the importance of recycling plastics sure to be high on the agenda of those local councils with an eco-friendly approach.
