Ribena to use 100% recycled bottles
December 11, 2007 at 3:46 pm
It may not always be great for our teeth but now our favourite blackcurrant friend Ribena is taking notice of recycled packaging. Ribena, who are owned by the drug company GlaxoSmithKline, announced that they are putting plans into operation for all of their plastic bottles to be made from recycled plastics and remain 100% recyclable afterwards. The ready-to-drink bottles are now ready-to-recycle as of October this year, and Ribena are to roll out the same for their squash concentrate bottles too.
Ribena are by no means the worst in this field, with 40% of their bottles being made from recycled materials and a plastic called Polyethylene Terephthalate. Why raise the bar? It’s a costly venture but one Ribena feel is well worth it. Managing Director of Ribena, Anne MacCraig, says:
“This hasn’t been without its challenges but it is a major step forward for sustainable packaging. With nine out of ten consumers saying they think it would be good if packaging contained recycled plastic, we’re confident that they will welcome the move to 100 percent recycled plastic.”
Another drinks manufacturer, Innocent, were the first company ever to produce and sell a packaged product that is 100% recycled PET, meaning that every single material has come from a previous recycling process. Innocent signed up to an agreement called the Carbon Trust, which is another scheme to keep companies’ carbon footprint in check. Innocent expect to also see a 55% reduction in their own footprint through the use of these recycled techniques.
The co-founder of think-tank and consultancy agency SustainAbility, Julia Hailes MBE, commented by saying:
“I’m delighted that the makers of Ribena are leading the way in moving to 100 percent recycled plastic in their bottles. This is really significant in terms of saving energy and reducing waste. I hope other food and drink producers will follow suit.”
Reverse vending machines to reward recycling
December 11, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Plastic bottles account for an annual 23,000 tonnes of waste, much of it arising from drinks consumed away from home. With the Government keen to boost recycling rates in public places in an attempt to reduce the waste ending up in landfill sites, the so-called �reverse vending machines� are arriving at just the right time. Shoppers in Milton Keynes and Peterborough shopping centres now have the opportunity to do their bit for the environment and be rewarded for doing so.
The public can post their plastic bottles into the machine, which will determine whether it is made of PET (polyethylene terephthalata, a thermoplastic polymer resin which is part of the same family as the polyester used for man-made clothing). If so, it will be crushed by rollers and dropped into one of two internal compartments. Each of these compartments hold up to 400 bottles, depending on size and when they are full, staff at the shopping centres will be alerted so that the machines can be emptied.
If the bottle is non-PET and therefore not recyclable, it will be rejected and deposited into a side-compartment where it will be analysed to see what materials the public are trying to recycle. When a recyclable bottle is deposited, the shopper is rewarded by a voucher offering money off or offers for goods.
The vending machines are made by Recycling Options Ltd, based in Staffordshire, and the six month trial is funded by the pharmaceutical and healthcare firm, GlaxoSmithKline. The scheme is being managed by the charity Recoup. The project officer, Lucy Shields, says: "We believe that in areas with high public through flow, selling ‘food and drinks’, large quantities of plastic bottles, other packaging and food waste will exist. This trial will bring the opportunity for everyone to engage in recycling out of the home as well as in the home."
Shopping centres considering installing one will be pleased to know that they are also easy to install, requiring only a standard 13 amp socket and plug, and a telephone connection for recycling data to be transmitted. They require very little maintenance, are not noisy, only cost around 15p worth of energy to run each day and are not dangerous. The aperture has various sensors to detect any hands or arms and can immediately stop the rollers, which are in housed sufficiently deep in the machine to avoid any risk of accident or injury to users.
If the pilot scheme in Milton Keynes and Peterborough proves successful, perhaps the day will come when every venue with a vending machine will have a reverse vending machine situated close by, enabling us all to do our bit for the planet.
Recycling impact on fly-tipping
December 11, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Recycling schemes are all very well but what effect do they have on fly tipping? No-one likes to see rubbish strewn all over their streets or blighting the countryside but unfortunately, this is an increasing problem in many parts of the UK. Sadly not everyone is a good citizen, and when councils start restricting kerbside collection of non-recyclable waste from householders, then the temptation for the unscrupulous to fly-tip seems too enormous to resist.
During the year 2006-2007, local authorities spent £76 million clearing up fly-tipping mess and over three-quarters of that came from householders. Figures from Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) indicate that the number of fly tipping incidents rose by 5% from 2005-2006 but that more action was being taken by local authorities and government alike to address the problem. 1371 prosecutions were carried out and 94% of these were successful.
It seems that the worst offenders are in Liverpool, where the city council had to fork out a staggering £15.6 million last year to clear up 1.3 million incidents. The way forward, according to a spokesman from Defra, is that “initiatives to boost recycling should be supported by fly tipping strategies aimed at preventing the illegal dumping of waste.”
Businesses too are guilty of irresponsibly dumping waste. However, figures show that the problem has actually decreased by 10% from 2005-2006, with the number of illegally dumped black bags of commercial waste dropping from 59,630 to 53,566. This may be as a direct result of local councils more than doubling the number of inspection visits made to businesses to monitor the situation.
The District of Easington Council in County Durham has excelled in its attempts to tackle fly-tipping, not only reducing the number of incidents from 473 (2005–2006) to 422 (2006-2007) but also increasing the number of enforcement actions from 164 to 197. Ian Hoult, the Environmental Enforcement Manager, said that their success had come about by erecting signs warning people of the consequence of their actions, and by increasing patrols and surveillance work.
As of last year, the council has had the power to stop and search any vehicles which they believe may be carrying waste without the proper waste carrier registration. Anyone found to have fallen foul of the regulations, can be fined up to £5000 and have their vehicle confiscated. George Patterson, an Easington District Councillor, points out that householders must also take responsibility and, when having work done on their houses, should ensure that the waste is disposed of by a regulated carrier or they too may face a fine.
Other councils which have done well with their fly-tipping initiatives include Islington, Milton Keynes, Sheffield and Worthing, and the Minister with responsibility for recycling and waste, Joan Ruddock, would like to see other councils follow their example. She adds that members of the public and businesses alike must do their bit and report fly-tipping in an attempt to tackle the problem together.
Ban on plastic bags – good news or bad?
November 16, 2007 at 9:14 am
They have been banned in South Africa, Taiwan and Bangladesh; taxed in Ireland; become the subject of much debate in cities from Edinburgh to San Francisco; and brought headline fame to the small Devon town of Modbury. There is no doubt about it: plastic bags have become a contentious issue.
It is estimated that, globally, between 500 billion and 1 trillion plastic bags are used each year. That works out at over one million each minute. The environmental impact is huge and the problem is not just the fact that many of the bags end up in our over-stretched landfill sites, or that the production depends on non-renewable sources such as petroleum and natural gas. What is significant is that the plastic used to manufacture the bags does not biodegrade but instead photodegrades, breaking down into ever decreasing toxic particles, which contaminate the world’s soil, water supply and end up in the food chain, being accidentally ingested by animals.
An estimated 100 million tonnes of plastic finds its way each year into the sea, with devastating consequences for marine wildlife. In fact, it was after the filming of a BBC documentary in Hawaii, that wildlife photographer, Rebecca Hosking, set up the campaign to ban plastic bags in her home town of Modbury.
Talking of the hundreds of dead albatross chicks that she saw, Miss Hosking said: “There were carcasses everywhere I looked. You couldn’t walk in a straight line without stepping on a dead chick. Plastic was bursting out of the bodies.” Modbury’s answer to the problem has been to sell paper or recycled cotton bags, but have they, and environmentally friendly towns like them, got it right?
Research carried out by the Government shows that 59% of us reuse our plastic bags for everything from disposing of our rubbish, “poop-scooping” when walking our dogs, wrapping up our baby’s dirty nappies, and disposing of our cat’s litter. When a tax was introduced in Ireland, the free supply of plastic bags dried up and people actually ended up buying more plastic than before the tax was introduced, in the guise of bin liners and nappy bags.
When retailers changed to paper bags, the environmental impact was even greater: it takes four times as much energy to create a paper bag than it does a plastic bag. The trees cut down to produce the paper are no longer able to absorb greenhouse gases and, when degrading, paper produces even more greenhouse gases. Paper bags also take up far more room in landfill sites because of their bulk, although they do degrade more quickly than plastic.
Cotton bags do not fare much better. A cotton bag weighs around eleven times more than the average plastic bag, creating a far bigger carbon footprint bearing in mind the need to transport it from the other side of the world. Consideration also has to be given to the poor working conditions and meagre salaries of those making these cotton bags.
All in all, the ban on plastic bags is a thorny issue. There’s a lot of money out there for the person who can invent a bag, which does not deplete our natural resources in its manufacture, and which disappears as if by magic, when no longer needed!
Recycle your roof and the sky’s the limit!
November 9, 2007 at 8:48 am
Recyclenow are making an effort to justify their slogan of the possibilities are endless with a new recycling initiative.
Vinyl roofs made from PVC that are currently keeping the rain off our homes can actually be recycled and reused for various household and industrial purposes. The durable material from old roofs can be melted down and then made into things such as speed-bumps, curbs on pavements in car-parks and various other places where tarmac is used. The PVC membrane is also very useful as lining for carpets, traffic cones, road signs and barriers.
The business of roof recycling is thriving in Europe but here in the UK we are lagging behind somewhat. Gordon Harris, the Managing Director of Advanced Roofing, who are trying to lead the charge, said: “My view is that people who use the stuff will make this scheme work. Advanced Roofing currently recycles all its PVC waste. We know there are recyclers who will take all the membrane waste we can give them. If enough roofing companies take part, then I’m sure we could organise a workable collection system.”
The reason this hasn’t been a pressing concern for these roofing companies and for the individual home-owner is because the life-span of the PVC based material on the roof is around 50 years. So, for the most part, they are still up there and doing their job. In the next 10 or so years, however, this will all change and companies such as Advanced Roofing are urging us to be ready in time.
Mr Harris plans for the process of recycling to operate on a ‘chain’ type of system, or as he puts it, a ‘milk-round’. The roof cells will be gathered up by roofers and then stockpiled until enough is stored to necessitate another contractor then taking it away to be recycled. This will prevent the 1% that is currently already going to landfill becoming any higher.
This is a slow-burning area of the recycling world and, for the time being, it can afford to be this way to some extent. But within the next decade the after-life of old PVC roofs will shorten, they will need to be disposed of, and it will then become another recycling responsibility for us all.
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
