New recycling network for London announced
July 28, 2010 at 12:42 pm
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has announced that a new network is being launched to improve the recycling of household items in the nation’s capital. The aim of the new network is to drastically reduce the amount of useable items that are being thrown away and ending up in landfill sites.
The campaign was jointly launched with actress Joanna Lumley, and will receive £8 million from the London Waste and Recycling Board. The London Community Resource Network, which comprises 35 separate organisations, has been commissioned to run the programme, which will be called the London Reuse Network.
The London Assembly claims that about 65,000 tonnes of household waste are thrown away in London each year. The new network will aim to divert as much of this as possible into being reused. This will include items such as books, fridges, furniture and other reusable household items.
Boris Johnson said that it is “common sense” to encourage people to hand in items that they no longer need but which can still be used by others. He hopes that they will be able to “slash the mountain of waste” that is currently sent to landfill.
Matthew Thomson, the chief executive of the London Community Resource Network, said that most of its members in London were small and so could only operate on a local level. The new network will allow them to combine their forces to achieve more.
Residents will all have one single number to phone, and wherever they live one of the social enterprises will be able to turn up and collect the items. There will also be a web portal for the whole city. The aim is that by 2015 the network will divert over a million items from being sent to landfill every year. Hundreds of jobs are also expected to be created.
WRAP urges councils to work together to sell recyclables
July 23, 2010 at 3:46 pm
The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) have urged local councils to work together to ensure they are getting value from the material they collect.
WRAP has also begun to investigate how to increase recycling rates for aluminium can and foil by working with the Beverage Can Makers Europe to analyse waste composition. This will include analysing what is stopping people from deciding to recycle as well as investigating the social demographics of those who choose to, and choose not to recycle these items, with the eventual aim of providing councils with more opportunities to increase the revenue they are able to raise through recycling.
As well as attempting to increase recycling rates to help councils generate extra revenue, WRAP’s director for local government services, Phillip Ward, has branded councils as ‘useless’ at getting value from the material they currently collect. To improve this, he has suggested that councils, which are looking for ways to increase their income, should look at working collectively to sell their recyclables, as many currently do when buying services. Ward’s suggestion is based on the example of 10 Hertfordshire councils who have already successfully generated extra revenue by joining together to send newspaper to Shropshire-based Newport Paper.
The increase in profits generated through this partnership has encouraged the councils to deepen their relationship by signing two year contracts with two UK companies, with the aim of sending all their plastic, cans, glass and Tetra Pak cartons to the two recycling firms, with the expectation of raising £560,000 a year in extra income.
Should the Hertfordshire experiment continue to produce success it appears likely that councils across the UK may adopt their methods.
iPhone 3G most-recycled phone
July 16, 2010 at 4:34 pm
As with all things Apple, the iPhone 4, the latest version of the all-conquering smartphone, was released to a fanfare of hype and expectation last month. Desirable it may be, but priced at anywhere up to £600, it certainly doesn’t come cheap.
That leaves many fans desperate to get their hands on the new phone facing a conundrum: how to afford the latest must-have gadget?
The answer seems to be through recycling their old iPhones.
Sell My Mobile, the comparison site for recycling phones, has announced that the iPhone 3G was the most-recycled phone on the market during June 2010. This points to the fact that many fans of the iPhone are so desperate to get their hands on the latest incarnation of the model that they are ditching their old versions to raise a bit of extra cash to pay for it.
And it’s not an insignificant amount: the average amount that can be raised from trading in an old iPhone is £77.75, with highs of up to £170 reported. Sell My Mobile confirmed that the price will fluctuate depending on the buyer, so it is always best to look around for a good deal.
This is a great advertisement for the recycling of phones. Mobile phones consist of materials that mean they should not be thrown away to end up in landfill sites. The more people that start to recycle their mobile phones, the better it will be for the environment. And at the same time, as this proves, there are some real financial incentives for doing so.
Fortnightly collections to be binned
July 9, 2010 at 3:47 pm
The new coalition government would like to see local authorities making a return to weekly bin collections across the UK.
Communities secretary, Eric Pickles, wants to scrap fortnightly bin collections claiming that they are "unpopular and unhygienic". He has written to the Audit Commission asking it to reverse its policy.
Fortnightly bin collections were introduced so local councils could save money and to encourage households to recycle more waste, in order to reduce landfill.
But in a letter to the Commission Mr Pickles said he was concerned that some councils were being "marked down" for not adopting fortnightly collections.
He asked the independent watchdog to repeal guidance and "stop giving perverse incentives to local authorities to cut the frequency of rubbish collections."
However, the Commission says that it has "no power" to issue binding guidance to local authorities on rubbish collections and has "never issued" such guidance.
According to the Commission it has encouraged local authorities to review bin collections but said that it was up to locally elected members to decide their own policies including refuse collecting.
The new government wants to work with local councils to freeze council tax and help improve the frequency of refuse collecting.
There have been concerns about the health impact of fortnightly collections, with flies and maggots being attracted to rubbish that has been left to accumulate over a two week period.
But a recent study conducted by the government funded website www.wrap.org.uk looked at the health implications on fortnightly collections. It revealed that there was no evidence linking the frequency of waste collecting and any health impact on householders or refuse collectors.
Government review to boost recycling and maximise revenues
June 25, 2010 at 12:43 pm
The waste problem in England is going to be addressed by a new review that the government has launched. Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, announced the government’s decision to launch the review at the Futuresource conference in London.
The government plans to review every aspect of waste strategy in the UK. It has been described as a “no-holds-barred look at every aspect of waste policy”.
The review will cover many areas. Overall, the aim is to reduce the amount of waste produced in Britain, and it will look into different ways to accomplish this.
Ideas that will be examined include starting up the practice of collecting only standard waste one week and only recyclable waste the next week, fines for leaving the wrong kind of rubbish for collection, a ban on all food waste from landfill sites and the introduction of shopping vouchers for the households who recycle the most. This has already been introduced in a trial run and has so far proved to be successful.
Spelman also said that she wanted to see the construction of more locations where recyclable rubbish can be processed, rather than simply sending it all abroad.
Spelman was critical of Labour’s waste policies when in opposition, and now she is seeking to implement far tougher plans. One of the areas she highlighted was the packaging for children’s toys. She said that her children are “constantly bringing items home in thick packaging, polystyrene and cardboard, and it’s really all about making the product attractive to buy rather than packaging it safely”.
No ‘pay as you throw’ charge, say councils
June 11, 2010 at 3:55 pm
A ‘pay as you throw’ (PAYT) recycling scheme, first pioneered by the Labour Party, has been thrown out by the communities secretary, Eric Pickles. The proposal, which would have seen householders charged or rewarded according to the volume of waste they throw away each week, was given the cold shoulder by councils.
PAYT plans are a prosaic part of politics, appearing every few years in slightly different packaging. The scheme is supposed to help the UK achieve waste management targets outlined by the EU, but critics are worried that PAYT plans could alienate householders, encouraging them to burn excess waste to avoid a ‘bin tax’.
In effect, PAYT could actually make England’s carbon footprint larger, upsetting the lawmakers in Brussels. Mr Pickles claims that the coalition government will now focus on rewarding diligent recyclers, instead of employing ‘bin police’ to monitor household waste. Incentive programs have been operating in Berkshire for a number of years.
PAYT schemes have never been popular amongst householders – in March, councils were accused of ‘waste surveillance’ by the Big Brother Watch Group, a privacy watchdog, after microchips were installed in 2.6m wheelie bins. Councillors claimed that the chips were used to identify a lost bin, however, and were unrelated to PAYT or ‘chip and bin’ schemes.
Whilst only an incentive scheme is likely to gain widespread support in the UK, continental PAYT programs are successful and largely unopposed by the public, according to a Labour advisor. Gordon Brown’s government used figures from ‘other countries’ to create a PAYT blueprint for Britain, which could indicate that the EU has become a poster child for recycling schemes.
If the new PM’s penchant for ‘borrowing’ ideas from other countries (Mr. Cameron has looked to Sweden and Canada for budget-slashing techniques in recent months) is as deeply engrained as it appears, European waste schemes could make a return to Britain’s shores in the very near future.
Coca-Cola joins forces with RecycleBank
June 3, 2010 at 2:29 pm
Drinks giant, Coca-Cola, has announced that it has become a top-tier sponsor for RecycleBank in the UK. This partnership has been forged in an effort to increase Coca-Cola’s environmental credentials, and to provide RecycleBank members with more options for rewards.
The RecycleBank scheme is an American idea which has proved popular across the Atlantic. Coca-Cola is also a main sponsor of the scheme in the US. The idea is that people are rewarded for the amount of products that they send for recycling.
A trial was recently launched in the UK in Windsor and Maidenhead, where 60,000 households are currently taking part. They have all been provided with wheelie bins that have been ID tagged. The amount of recycling that they produce is then weighed, and they are rewarded with points corresponding to how much they have managed to recycle.
The points can then be exchanged for rewards in various places. Now added to the list of rewards are money-off vouchers for Coca-Cola products, including £1 off a number of Coca-Cola drinks.
The citizenship manager at Coca-Cola, Liz Lowe, said that the company was “delighted” to partner up with RecycleBank in the UK. She added that “one of the most important ways in which we can get more recycled material to put back into our packaging is to encourage consumers to recycle.”
It is unknown yet just how successful RecycleBank will be in the UK, although its success in the United States looks promising. If it works out it could spread to other areas and will hopefully encourage more people to recycle across the country.
New Recycle.co.uk site finds homes for old items
May 28, 2010 at 12:56 pm
With recycling becoming increasingly important for the country as a whole, it is good news to hear that Recycle.co.uk has just re-launched its website.
Recycle.co.uk has the simple but noble mission of trying to prevent as much junk as possible from being sent to landfill sites. With its new website, it has made this easier than ever to achieve with a whole set of new features.
The main theme of the website is that rather than throwing out your old items, it is far better to find new homes for them. It achieves this effectively by providing an easier way to find new homes for old items, as well as helping people to search for old unwanted items.
Pretty much anything can be posted on the site, including common items for the home, the kitchen, the garden and many more. There is also the option of free advertising to assist in the search for a new home.
In addition, the website offers a service for exchanging old mobile phones for money, meaning people can actually make some good money from doing the right thing.
The process is quick and easy, and there are new ways to use the site that make it more intuitive. People getting rid of their old items can add their contact numbers to adverts, and people searching for items can set up email alerts to inform them when items they are interested in appear.
People can also take advantage of better search features that allow them to search by postcodes so that they can find items that are located in their vicinity.
Scotland struggles towards 40% recycling target
May 21, 2010 at 10:51 am
The government’s environmental watchdog has warned that Scotland still has a long way to go to reach its target of recycling 40% of rubbish by the end of 2010.
The latest figures released suggest that Scotland currently recycles 34% of all rubbish and will face a serious challenge to increase that by 6% or more over the coming year.
The rate of 34% is a success story given that it is nearly twice the amount recycled five years ago, but the rate of increase has slowed in recent years and 40% now looks unlikely.
In its recently published annual report, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) called the 40% figure ‘challenging’ and suggested that more needed to be done if Scotland was to meet its expectations.
Martin Marsden, head of environmental quality at SEPA, was keen to highlight the task that would be faced in the future. He stated that "even greater challenges lie ahead" and that everyone would have to accept lifestyle changes in order to "further prevent, reuse and recycle our waste in Scotland".
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government was keen to point out that many Scottish councils were now breaking the 40% target and that Scotland as a whole was taking huge strides towards reducing its dependency on landfills. She was quick to warn, however, that "we cannot take our foot off the pedal".
The zero-waste goals, which include a 50% nationwide recycling rate by 2013 and a 60% rate by 2020, were given further support in February when an extra £7 million was provided to local councils in Scotland in an attempt to help them reach their recycling goals.
Whether Scotland’s target of a 40% recycling rate can be achieved by the end of the current year remains to be seen, but it seems that in light of the most recent figures, Scotland has a long way to go to realise the goals of its zero waste policy.
Please replace the handset
May 7, 2010 at 2:37 pm
A report entitled ‘Please replace the handset: mobile phone recycling in the UK’ has just been published and provides answers to many of the questions that may cross your mind when you upgrade your phone.
Telecoms analysts, Ovum, who produced the report, say that the UK market is now far more “cut-throat”. The consumer, it seems, cares far more about the financial benefits of diverting their unwanted handsets from landfill than the environmental or charitable ones.
According to Ovum’s figures, some eight million mobile phones were recycled last year (almost double the previous year’s figure) and only 10% were melted for scrap. Many old mobiles now end up in developing countries such as India, China and much of Africa, but Hong Kong is another important destination with auction houses there buying and selling by the crate load.
Charities such as Shelter and Children in Need are feeling the pinch, both because in times of recession people hang on to their phones for longer and because the public is becoming increasingly aware of how much their old handset is worth to them. It is now possible to get cash for almost any phone, although obviously the better condition it is in, the more it is worth.
A quick look on the internet shows that sites such as Mazuma Mobile and Fonebank offer up to £280 for your unwanted mobile. According to Charlo Carabott of Mazuma this means that people are far less likely now to hang on to an old mobile to the point where it cannot be reused and so ends up in landfill.
