Calls for return of bottle deposit schemes
October 8, 2010 at 2:36 pm
The CPRE (Campaign to Protect Rural England), of which travel writer Bill Bryson is the president, has called for a reintroduction of the old-fashioned bottle deposit scheme to cut back on litter and increase recycling levels. It would involve consumers paying a deposit for glass and plastic bottles and cans to encourage them to take their containers back for recycling.
David Cameron has already said that the government will look into the proposed scheme to see how feasible it could be.
The scheme would involve customers paying a 15p deposit for containers smaller than 500ml, and 30p for larger containers. The deposit would then be returned to them when they take the empty bottle back to be recycled. The CPRE has predicted that, if successful, it could see a 90% return rate.
The idea forms part of the CPRE’s ‘Stop the Drop’ campaign, which is campaigning against littering and fly tipping. Bryson commented on the findings by asking “what sensible nation would not want to capture and recycle its precious and finite resources?”
The report suggests that the scheme would cost £84m to set up, but could save £160m a year for local authorities in their waste management costs.
As expected, drinks manufacturers are opposed to the idea, as they would be expected to foot some of the bill for the scheme. Bob Gordon, from the British Retail Consortium, dismissed the proposal as “rosy-eyed nostalgia” that would be an “expensive waste” to set up because “bottles and cans are not the issue”, highlighting rigid plastics as the key area for increasing recycling rates.
New Torbay recycling scheme up and running
October 1, 2010 at 2:29 pm
A new recycling scheme has just started in Torbay, Devon. The introduction of the scheme means that 60,000 households will now have to take time sorting out more of their rubbish in order to make it easier to recycle. Unsurprisingly, the scheme has proved to be controversial.
The aim of the new scheme, according to operators Tor2, is to get the recycling rate up to 50% of all waste by the year 2012. It claims that this will allow the council to save £14 million in landfill costs every year. In all, the scheme cost £2 million to set up and five years to come to fruition.
However, angry residents have been complaining that the scheme is too complicated, leading to thousands of calls to the council in the first few days alone. On top of the scheme proving unnecessarily confusing for many residents, there have been traffic problems caused by the new lorries which make the collections.
Residents now have a lot more work to do to throw out their weekly rubbish. They are now expected to separate their waste into three boxes: one for glass, foil and cardboard; another for cans, paper, plastic bottles and other materials; and a third outdoor bin for food waste. The rubbish will be picked up in a weekly collection.
The aim is to allow the council to reach the recycling targets that have been set by the European Union. The £14 million in savings will be made from not having to pay the landfill taxes and fines.
Battery recycling rates up
October 1, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Battery recycling rates seem to have been given a boost as a result of new EU legislation, according to recent figures from the Environment Agency.
The agency revealed that there has been a 7% rise in battery recycling rates over the last three months. In total, 16.5% of portable batteries were recycled in the second quarter of 2010, compared to just 9.15% in the first quarter.
In terms of volume, that equates to nearly 1,500 tonnes of batteries being sent for recycling between April and June of this year, and 2,320 tonnes being sent for recycling over the first half of the year.
It is likely that this sudden rise is linked to the new EU rules surrounding the recycling of batteries that came into force back in February 2010. The new laws made it a legal obligation for shops selling over 32kg of batteries a year to provide free battery collection points for batteries to be sent for recycling.
It is all good news for the government which has specific targets it has to reach over the course of the next few years. The target for this year is 10%, and it looks like this will be met as recycling rates are predicted to rise in the lead-up to Christmas. Indeed, the recycling rate for the first half of the year stands at 12.58%.
The next target is an 18% recycling rate for 2011, followed by the first legally binding rate of 25% the following year. Following that, a target of 45% has to be hit by 2016, so the government will hope that the rate continues to rise over the next few years.
Local authorities to grant referendums on services
September 24, 2010 at 1:35 pm
A new bill from the government is set to hand over more control to local authorities and to empower constituents. The bill, known as the Decentralisation and Localism Bill, is aimed at improving recycling schemes across England and Wales.
In a notable move towards David Cameron’s big society, if the bill is passed communities will be able to call for referendums on local services such as waste collections and tax issues. The focus is on getting local people involved in the running of their constituency and adapting services to suit each area.
It is hoped that a move towards more localised control will mean more efficient public services and encourage financial growth.
With recycling in mind, this month government minister Bob Neill gave examples of what the bill hopes to achieve. Mr Neill referred to the ‘Big Bin Vote’ carried out by Dartford council in 2007, highlighting how the vote had shown that the majority of people were opposed to the Labour government’s bi-weekly waste collections and wished to return to weekly collections.
A return to weekly collections has been a long-running Conservative policy, one that they argued for in opposition and are now hoping to see enacted.
Mr Neill hopes that other councils "will follow Dartford’s example in the difficult times ahead" and that they will "listen to local people about what services matter the most.”
The department for the environment, food and rural affairs (Defra) stated that this has meant the end for pay-as-you-throw pilot waste schemes that were being introduced after the Climate Change Act of 2008. To replace these the localism bill hopes to introduce financially based incentive schemes for recycling instead.
The localism bill will even allow local people the opportunity to veto some policies such as excessive council tax increases. It has not been made clear, outside of recycling and waste schemes, how far these powers will be extended and for what services authorities may grant referendums. Nor has it been spelled out what will be required to call a referendum or whether councils will be obliged to act in response.
The bill was outlined in May this year during the Queen’s speech. Ministers hope to pass it through parliament in the coming months. Details of other services to be affected are expected to be released in the near future.
Environmentally friendly milk bottles
September 17, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Plastic milk bottles were introduced because of expenditure, ease of use and recyclability. Although plastic milk bottles are cheaper to make and recyclable, the process of recycling plastic is more time-consuming than recycling the original milk containers – glass bottles.
What’s more, not everyone, despite widespread encouragement, recycles. As plastic is an inorganic material that does not decompose, not recycling it creates a mass of landfill waste which is damaging to the environment. Indeed, the average person in Europe throws away 85 plastic bottles per year and only 7% of plastic that is disposed of is recycled properly.
In a response to an appeal for ‘greener’ packaging, supermarket Sainsbury’s are introducing eco-friendly milk bottles. The milk pouches are reported to use up less energy and “take up far less space”. In 2007 Waitrose quietly initiated the product but quickly withdrew it because of “poor sales”; Sainsbury’s, however, have been successful in their milk pouch enterprise claiming “sales have far exceeded [their] expectations”.
The reason Sainsbury’s have had an advantage over Waitrose is attributable to their marketing strategy; before the product was launched Sainbury’s staff had the opportunity to use the milk pouches at home, which enabled them to answer any questions customers had about the product and to assist them if they had any difficulty in using it. The product “costs 6p less than a standard 2-pint bottle of milk”, “contains 75% less plastic”, and, if successful, will “reduce packaging by a third by 2015.”
Although some people will be sceptical of this product, with such impressive predictions for the future, there is no reason why other supermarket chains should not follow suit.
Government to offer voluntary recycling deals to businesses
September 10, 2010 at 3:55 pm
The government is planning to take a new direction when it comes to controlling the amount of waste produced by businesses. Rather than introducing further legislation and fines for businesses that don’t comply, it wants to introduce a voluntary deal instead.
The announcement was made by Lord Henley, the waste and recycling minister, whilst he was visiting the SITA UK plant. He said that voluntary responsibility deals are the government’s preferred option to reduce waste and improve recycling rates in the UK without having to introduce new laws.
The most well-known voluntary agreement up to now has been the Courtauld Commitment. This was introduced in the grocery sector in 2005 and proved to be very successful. Using this example the government now wants to show that the same principle can be applied to other sectors.
This is not a new idea as it was actually mentioned in the Conservative Party’s manifesto in the lead up to the general election, but now Lord Henley has made it clear that we could see progress in the near future.
Henley’s exact words were that the government wants businesses to “do the right thing” rather than having to be “tied down or penalised with excessive rules and regulations.”
Businesses in the UK create almost twice as much waste as households so it is even more important to get them to take greater responsibility for it. The government is likely to encourage competition between companies using incentives for reduced waste and increased recycling rates. The government is also hoping that businesses will come forward with their own proposals for change.
Sainsbury’s to offer mobile-phone charger recycling
September 3, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Sainsbury’s has added another notch to its environmental bow with the introduction of a new recycling scheme for mobile-phone chargers. Throughout August 2010, customers will be able to take their old mobile-phone chargers to any Sainsbury’s store and deposit them to be sent for recycling.
Although mobile-phone recycling has become something of a boom industry in the last few years, phone chargers have been largely forgotten. This is due to the fact that they are more difficult to recycle, and there is also no money involved for recycling an old charger.
As a result, estimates put the figure of unused chargers in the UK at about 20 million – that’s about 5,000 tonnes of waste cluttering up drawers across the nation.
The supermarket is the perfect place to get rid of the old chargers as people have become used to recycling other objects there. Sainsbury’s already has schemes for the recycling of mobile phones and sat navs, so this is yet another positive addition.
It comes as part of the supermarket’s initiative called ‘Make the Difference Days’, and will come to an end on August 28. By this time the supermarket hopes to have collected about 150,000 chargers from both its customers and its employees.
The property director at Sainsbury’s, Neil Sachdev, said that they were hoping to “raise awareness of charger recycling facilities” at the same time as saving about “40 tonnes of waste from going to landfill”.
He highlighted the fact that only 280,000 chargers are currently recycled annually, so if they manage to hit their target of 150,000 they could increase these recycling rates by more than 50%.
Phone recycling companies to check for stolen handsets
August 23, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Recycling your mobile phone when you want to get your hands on the latest model is a great idea. However, it’s now become so easy to benefit financially from the practice that mobile-phone recycling firms have had to admit to the problem of mobile-phone thieves taking advantage of the service.
About 100,000 stolen handsets are sent to recycling firms every year according to estimates, worth a combined value of £4 million.
The problem is that even if mobile handsets are blocked from UK networks after they have been reported as stolen, they can still be used overseas where many of the recycled handsets end up.
It seems the ability to get easy money with no questions asked has proved too easy for thieves: until now, that is.
Mobile-phone recycling companies have just signed up to a new code of conduct to reduce the number of stolen mobile phones being recycled.
From now on companies will check the phones they receive against the National Mobile Phone Register. If they find any stolen phones they will report them to police. The register is formed of three separate databases which should provide a good level of protection.
Over 15 firms have signed up to the code of conduct at the time of writing, making up 90% of the industry.
Charlo Carabott, the managing director of Mazuma Mobile, is quoted by the BBC, admitting that the high prices it was offering for old mobiles “could encourage people to go out and steal handsets,” and although the company had taken its own precautions from the beginning, this was an important milestone as the first “industry-wide standard”.
Plastic recycling expansion
August 13, 2010 at 2:36 pm
The North East of England’s largest independent waste management firm, Premier Waste, has announced a new hard plastics recycling service designed to combat the amount of plastic waste being sent to landfill sites in the UK.
With many summer products destined for landfill sites, Premier Waste’s timing should ensure that plastic recycling rates increase, with drop off points installed at nine of their Household Waste Recycling Centres in County Durham. The decision to offer local residents the opportunity to recycle all non-electrical hard plastic products is part of a wider initiative to increase recycling rates in County Durham and the UK.
The plastic collected will be used by manufacturers to make everyday items such as carrier bags, drain pipes, garden furniture, fleece jackets and sleeping bags, helping to reduce the estimated 3 million tonnes of plastic waste generated annually in the UK.
With plastic production currently using 8% of the world’s oil, it is clear that current practice is unsustainable, since oil is a non-renewable energy source that is rapidly being depleted. An increase in plastic recycling will make it easier for the UK to continue to enjoy many of its summer products made from plastic, with new items being manufactured from unwanted goods, and will also help the UK government to reach its current recycling targets.
If the scheme is successful at boosting recycling figures across County Durham, it is envisaged that the service will be expanded to include other parts of the North East of England as the UK continues its drive to increase recycling levels nationwide.
South Oxfordshire top of the league for recycling
August 5, 2010 at 1:37 pm
South Oxfordshire district council has claimed that last year it recycled or composted 73% of the household waste collected. This announcement comes a year after the introduction of an expanded collection scheme that has led to the inclusion of food waste composting. If confirmed by the UK government, this figure would put the district top of the league for recycling rates in England.
Between June 2009 and early June 2010, South Oxfordshire District Council’s municipal services contractor, Verdant, was able to collect a total of 18,531 tonnes of dry recycling, 6,115 tonnes of food waste, and 7,434 tonnes of garden waste. When added to the collections from the district’s recycling banks, this brought the area’s overall recycling and composting to 32,621 tonnes, compared to only 11,739 tonnes of waste sent to landfill sites in that same period.
This stunning achievement is reported to have saved around £350,000 of taxpayers’ money annually, whilst also generating up to £850,000 in recycling credits. This has been achieved despite an expansion of services provided by the council, demonstrating that expanding recycling services can help councils to cut costs as they look to reduce their expenditure and seek new revenue sources.
Despite the success of the scheme, the scenario could have looked very different. When the recycling service was changed last year, 1,000 homes were left without bins as the collections started. Shockingly, these teething problems were attributed to the fact that many of the individuals hired by contractors to issue the bins were unable to read addresses or use maps.
