Carpet recycling could be given a boost
February 26, 2010 at 2:57 pm
The UK’s carpet recycling industry may be in its infancy but Manchester based firm, Axion Consulting, is hoping to boost its growth by carrying out trials to produce plastic polymer suitable for reuse from polypropylene carpets.
Almost two thirds of carpets in the UK include polypropylene so if these trials are successful they could result in a ground-breaking move to increase the UK carpet recycling rate from the current paltry 2%. Over 500,000 tonnes of carpet waste is generated each year with the vast majority of it being incinerated or sent to landfill.
The trials were started by the London based trade association, Carpet Recycling UK, which seems cautiously optimistic about the results so far.
Axion has said that the plastic extracted from recycled polypropylene carpets is suitable for injection moulded projects such as paint pots, compost bins and dustbins. Carpet Recycling UK has, however, pointed out that further research and long-term trials would need to be carried out to see whether it is commercially viable and further funding is required to do this.
Another potential problem arises from the fact that the plastic can only be extracted from pure PP (polypropylene) carpets and not from those made from a mixture of materials.
The Axion trial was funded by Envirolink Northwest and their spokesman, Dave West, hopes that not only will the increase in carpet recycling be good for the environment, helping to meet the government targets, but will also benefit the north-west in terms of building a low carbon economy with the attendant advantage of creating and sustaining jobs.
TV recycling plant to create jobs in Salford
February 19, 2010 at 3:47 pm
The recycling company Nulife Glass has announced that it will be opening its first industrial plant in Irlam, Salford, in February. It has confirmed that this will lead to the creation of 30 new jobs. The plant will recycle glass from old television sets, where the lead will be extracted from the glass to be used again.
The plant will use new techniques that the company has developed itself over many years. The technique is the first of its kind in the world, according to the company, and it has already generated interest from international firms keen to use the technology for their own systems.
Flat-screen TVs are much more popular now, which means many people are throwing out their old TV sets. This creates a huge problem in the safe disposal of the old televisions, because if they are sent to landfill then the lead can seep into the earth and lead to environmental problems.
According to Nulife Glass, 14 years have gone into research on the new technique, which is emission free and leads to the production of clean glass and reusable lead. The new plant will have the capability to recycle 2,000 TV screens a day. However, the project will only have a short lifespan because within 10 years the popularity of flat-screen TVs will mean that the supplies will dry up.
There will be numerous types of job roles created, including electricians, office staff and people to take the TVs apart. The company has announced that its head office will also move from the West Midlands to the new location.
Battery recycling units introduced across country
February 12, 2010 at 4:06 pm
New battery recycling bins are currently being introduced across the country to increase the UK’s woeful battery recycling rate. Any shops that sell batteries will now be responsible for providing collection points so that customers will have an easy way in which to recycle them.
30,000 tonnes of batteries are sold in the UK annually, with the average household using 21 a year. But of this figure, only a tiny 3% are recycled. 600 million end up being sent to landfill, where they can leak into the ground and cause environmental problems.
The new European Batteries Directive has been launched with the aim of increasing battery recycling levels to 10% by the end of year. By 2012 the target is 25% of all batteries, and by 2016 it is 45%. This would represent a massive improvement, but failing to meet the target could lead to a hefty fine for the government.
Battery manufacturers will be responsible for the costs involved in the collection and recycling of the batteries, which will cost an estimated £3 million a year. This has led to fears that the price of batteries will be forced to rise as a result.
Some shopkeepers are also frustrated over the new responsibilities that have been thrust upon them. Any shopkeepers selling over 1,400 AA batteries a year have to log the number of batteries they receive and sign up to the hazardous waste register, which is extra work that some do not appreciate.
The Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, said that the new legislation “will make it easier for consumers to do the right thing whilst ensuring retailers fulfil their part of the bargain”.
Food waste could be banned
February 5, 2010 at 2:43 pm
MPs have demanded that the government gets tough on landfill waste. They have called for much firmer targets in the near future for greater food waste recycling across the country, both in households and in the much larger commercial sector.
Household waste accounts for 9% of total waste every year, equal to 330 million tonnes, according to a report from Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). The report says that the government needs to replace the “vague plans and rhetoric” that are currently in place with firm plans if we are to avoid further problems.
The startling figures from the report state that a third of all the food that we buy is eventually thrown away, equal to about 6.7 million tonnes a year. This in itself is responsible for releasing more carbon dioxide into the air than four million cars. It is now a matter of urgency that institutions, including hospitals and schools, are encouraged to compost more of their food waste to help solve the problem.
In those properties such as apartments and high-rise flats where composting is not immediately available, food waste should be collected separately from other waste and then sent to be composted or used for energy.
The committee has now said that the government should set a target of recycling 50% of household waste by 2015, and 60% by 2020, with food waste itself being banned from being sent to landfill sites.
The chairman of the committee, MP Michael Jack, said that Defra “must encourage companies to take a completely new view of waste and see it as a valuable source of raw material."
Support Your School recycling scheme
February 1, 2010 at 10:57 am
This January 2010 a new scheme is launched that provides schools in the UK with the opportunity to fundraise and meet government sustainability targets.
Support Your School is a free service set up specifically to help schools recycle used inkjet printer cartridges and unwanted mobile phones. Support Your School rewards schools with £1 for every printer cartridge and £3 for every mobile phone successfully recycled and reused.
The scheme is supported with an interactive website where a range of promotional materials such as; posters, letters and activity sheets that can be downloaded. These have been created to support teachers and make participation and implementation of the scheme as easy as possible.
The website also includes a full list of items that are suitable for recycling and details of how much the school has raised.
Schools sign up online and order their free recycling pack containing everything they need to recycle for a year. It’s not only the schools who can get involved in the scheme however, as parents and businesses are encouraged to also sign up online. They will also receive a free recycling pack enabling them to recycle inkjet cartridges and mobile phones from their workplace and raise funds on any registered schools behalf.
To sign up or find out more visit the website, email info@supportyourschool.co.uk or alternatively you can call free-phone 0800 849 1225.
Johnson plans to reward London recyclers
January 29, 2010 at 4:01 pm
London is one of the lowest-ranked major cities in the world when it comes to recycling levels, but that could all be about to change if Mayor Boris Johnson gets his way. He is backing a new scheme to improve recycling rates across the city and bin London’s poor reputation.
Named ‘Recycle Bank’, the scheme has already proved popular in the United States and Johnson is hoping the success will be mirrored here. As part of the scheme, households are given shopping vouchers based on how much they recycle at home, or they can choose to donate the money to charity instead. Johnson said that this would lead to about £14 per month extra coming into most households.
The mayor wants London to be on the same level as other major cities when it comes to recycling household waste. It currently has the lowest rates of recycling in England, and only about a quarter of the rubbish produced is currently recycled.
One of most important things for Johnson is to get more of the people living in flats and multi-occupancy buildings to recycle, especially when it comes to food waste. Currently half the homes in London fit this description, and this obviously presents its own challenges as they do not have gardens in which to compost their waste.
If the new scheme takes off and proves to be a success, it will form part of a larger plan for the Mayor who wants to save £90 million a year through greater investment in green technology and better recycling across the city.
Christmas waste could cost councils £78 million
January 22, 2010 at 4:13 pm
If you were left wondering what to do with your Christmas tree earlier this week, you could do worse than follow the example of London Mayor, Boris Johnson, who had the 65 foot tree in Trafalgar Square chipped, shredded and composted to be turned at a later stage into fertilising mulch.
In London alone, 35 tonnes of Christmas trees are thrown away, resulting in a large bill for landfill tax. The London Mayor was therefore urging all householders to take advantage of the recycling facilities for Christmas trees offered by all 33 London Boroughs. 27 of these will collect trees from homes whilst 26 also offer special collection points. Alternatively Christmas trees which have roots can be planted in the garden and dug up in time for next Christmas.
This advice follows the revelation that local councils for England and Wales could face a huge bill for disposing of Christmas waste in landfill. With householders sending almost 2 million tonnes of Christmas waste to landfill and councils being charged £40 tax per tonne, it is easy to see how a bill of around £78 million arises.
One celebrity supporting the recycling message in the run up to Christmas was Dame Judi Dench, who was encouraging people to recycle their Christmas cards through the Woodland Trust’s scheme. This enables householders to take their cards to special collection points in T K Max, Marks and Spencer and W H Smith and then go online to choose where they want trees to be planted using funding from the retail partners. For further details of the scheme see the Trust’s website.
Three ways to reuse old Christmas cards
January 13, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Each January we must tend to the undoing of a task which was full of excitement back in December. The party is over for another year and normality resumes. The tinsel and baubles are packed away (they have a duty to fulfil next year), but a pile of Christmas cards sit redundant.
Instead of reaching for the dustbin just yet, here are a few ideas to make more of old cards while also being good to the environment.
Recycle
The Woodland Trust is again running its annual scheme to recycle donated cards into paper products, the profits of which help fund tree planting throughout the UK. During January, cards can be deposited at Woodland Trust collection boxes, located at WHSmith, TK Maxx and Marks & Spencer stores.
The Trust is hoping to collect enough to facilitate the planting of fifteen thousand trees, helping towards sustaining the UK’s percentage of woodland area. Over the last twelve years, 13,080 tonnes of cards have been gratefully accepted, enabling 155,000 native trees to be planted across the country. Participants can even have a say in where the trees should be planted by voting on the Woodland Trust website.
Get Creative
Trying your hand at some home crafting can prove an enjoyable activity with family and friends. With a little glue and a pair of scissors, Christmas cards can be transformed into all kinds of new treasures, from games to decorations for next year’s festive season.
There are many websites offering tips on things to make from your old cards at home. Activity Village and Family Crafts offer step by step instructions for a raft of ideas, including gift boxes, gift tags, card ornaments, picture frames, new cards and jigsaw games.
Donate
Another rewarding way of dispensing with your old cards could be to donate them to charities and schools where they may be used for craft projects. You may, however, find some unable or unwilling to accept card donations. The best advice is to call beforehand.
A registered UK charity certainly accepting of donations is the Cobalt Appeal Fund. The charity, based in Cheltenham, aims to raise funds to facilitate the research, screening and diagnosis of cancer. A Christmas card scheme will run until January 22nd where all cards collected will be recycled into new ones ready for sale next autumn. For more information on the charity and where to send your used cards, please visit the website.
Social deprivation affects recycling rates
January 8, 2010 at 1:50 pm
It has long been recognised that social deprivation affects mortality and morbidity rates, mental health, educational success and a myriad of other outcomes but it now seems from recent research, carried out by WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme), that recycling rates are also affected.
The more poverty stricken an area is, the lower its recycling rate is likely to be. Perhaps this should come as no surprise: after all, if a family is struggling to keep its head above water the last thing on its mind is finding time to separate its cardboard from its glass and its vegetable peelings from its plastics.
The study found that 25% of the differential in recycling rates between councils can be attributed to socio-economic and geographical factors. The more urban an area is, the poorer its recycling rate will be. Parts of Lincolnshire and the Cotswolds were amongst the best performers, whilst poor urban areas such as London’s Tower Hamlets and Newham were amongst the worst. The differentials were said to be “most pronounced at the extremes” i.e. in the most prosperous and most deprived areas.
A quick look at Tower Hamlets’ website reveals that recycling facilities appear to be good. Weekly collections are made of glass, cans, paper, card, aerosols, tetra paks and plastic bottles, none of which have to be separated, making it easy for householders. The majority of properties have recycling bins and, in the case of flats, shared bins. There are also 50 street recycling bins across the borough. Kitchen and garden waste is also collected for recycling and special provisions exist for large items such as furniture or cookers.
Cotswold residents are provided with a whole list of rules and regulations on their council website and also have to separate their recyclables into blue and black recycling sacks for different materials.
Many residents of Tower Hamlets will not have access to the internet and many will not speak or read English, even if they have the time and/or inclination to recycle. It would seem that the best way forward is through community education.
Brits failing to recycle enough at work
December 18, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Although we may well be responsible citizens when it comes to recycling at home, this good habit stops as soon as we get to work. This was the finding from a government commissioned survey carried out by Tickbox.net/Opinion Matters on behalf of the Centre for Information.
The survey found that we seem to have very different attitudes to recycling at home compared to at work, and it came up with many statistics to back this up.
Some of the most revealing findings were that:
- over 40% of us recycle plastic at home and not at work
- 33% of us don’t turn off electrical goods at the end of the day at work although we do at home
- 21% of us throw away items at work that could be recycled
- 21% of us print out emails unnecessarily
This is pretty shocking and begs the question as to why we can’t be bothered to recycle when at work. Perhaps it is the feeling that recycling is not our problem when we are in the office, or maybe we don’t have the financial incentive to be eco-minded at work because we are not saving our own money.
The results come after Defra recently launched a campaign urging small businesses to cut down on their waste and reduce their energy and water use, showing that saving energy can save money too.
Defra claims that businesses could save £6.4 billion through being more resource efficient and installing low-cost measures, and that doing so will also improve their image in the eyes of customers.
