Real Nappy Week 2010 starts
April 28, 2010 at 9:38 am
With over 600,000 tonnes of disposable nappies being sent to landfill each year, the organisers of this year’s Real Nappy Week, launched on April 26th, are hoping that the message will get through that the reusable nappy is the way forward.
The last available figures from research carried out by Mintel in 2008 showed that only 9% of families used or had ever used reusable nappies. But the organisers say that there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of the green alternative becoming more popular. With an increasing number of High Street names, such as Boots, Waitrose and Mothercare, stocking alternatives to the disposable nappy it is easier than ever before for parents to switch, saving themselves money as well as being good for the environment.
The 14th Real Nappy Week aims to bring together those who already use reusable nappies and those who would like to, at real events and online. For the second year running the event has received no funding from the Waste and Resource Action Programme, being funded instead by its two hundred members who include councils, retailers and manufacturers.
Amongst the events being held around the country are Devon’s competition for the “fastest real nappy changer in the West”, Warwickshire’s Nappucino coffee mornings where advice on reusable nappies is available in addition to a discount on nappies, Southwark’s "give and take" event where parents can swap unwanted toys and children’s clothes, and Hackney’s Real Nappy party.
For more information on the campaign see the Go Real website.
Packaging recycling figure of over 70% targeted
March 26, 2010 at 1:56 pm
In support of its mission to increase packaging recycling rates across the country, the government has just released a new publication which contains plans to revise the Producer Responsibility Obligations Regulations 2007. In the new document it calls for the recycling of packaging to be increased to over 70% by 2020, a target that has attracted strong criticism from many quarters for being unreasonable.
One of the strongest sources of opposition has come from the plastics industry. The government wants to achieve a recycling rate of 56.9% for plastic packaging by 2020, compared to 22.8% at the moment. The British Plastics Federation has said that this is simply not achievable, and that, although it is in favour of increasing recycling targets, this is just too much, too soon.
Even with the funding, the British Plastics Federation claims that the target cannot be met by 2020. It has also warned that trying to increase targets too quickly could even have a negative effect by forcing the industry to increase its use of energy and water. It also claims that improved infrastructure and better recovery of materials are required in order to reach the new targets.
But it is not just the plastics industry that has complained: the aluminium industry also derided the figures as unachievable. The executive director of Alupro (Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation), Rick Hindley, said that “the proposed 70% target is not achievable” and that a “65% target would be a fairer target”.
DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), which released the targets, said in response to the criticisms that the targets were “stretching but attainable”.
Viridor opens WEEE recycling plant in UK
March 19, 2010 at 4:14 pm
The problem of WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) is one that has been growing in recent years. As this waste cannot simply be thrown out with normal rubbish and sent to landfill, often a lot of it ends up in third-world countries for sorting.
Now a new WEEE recycling facility has been opened in St Helens by Viridor. The plant will recycle electrical products from all over the UK, taking in WEEE from homes and businesses as well as hospitals and schools.
Viridor claims that the plant will be capable of processing 40,000 tonnes of WEEE every year – that’s over six tonnes every hour. The products will be separated out into reusable materials such as glass and metal, which can then be used in new products.
This is the second recycling plant for the company, with the other one situated in Perth. The St Helens facility cost £9 million to construct, and is divided into two sections, one for fridges and one for smaller WEEE. Recycling small WEEE is a completely new area for the company.
The managing director of Viridor, Mike Hellings, is quoted on letsrecycle.com as saying that the company “can recover 90%” of the materials from the products that go for recycling.
In separate news, another new WEEE processor has been opened by EnvironCom in Grantham. This is the biggest facility in the UK, consisting of four plants, allowing it to process and recycle over 100,000 tonnes of WEEE a year.
Such advancements in the recycling of WEEE products will hopefully lead to the UK recycling its electrical waste much more efficiently in the future, so less of it ends up getting dumped in other parts of the world.
New scheme offers live webcams to help customers beat the queue
March 12, 2010 at 2:18 pm
As the days gradually become longer and also are ultimately warmer, our thoughts tend to turn towards our neglected gardens. Trimming hedges, removing weeds and D.I.Y tree surgery all result in a lot of recyclable garden waste. What follows is an inevitable trip to the local recycling depot where unsurprisingly we discover everyone else has had the same idea.
Now a new scheme proposed by Buckinghamshire council intends to put an end to queues at recycling depots by beaming live pictures of recycling sites over the web thus helping customers to beat the queues. The aim is that when customers see the length of queues they will either wait for a quieter time or head for a different depot thus making the whole process more efficient.
The scheme which proposes to have webcams installed at all major recycling sites in Buckinghamshire has been met by a mixed reaction by the general public. Some people believe it is an excellent idea which they will take full advantage of, whilst others are bemoaning the council for wasting money, when cuts in other areas are both necessary and imminent.
Councillor for Waste, Martin Tate, believed the move showed that the council were beginning to really utilise the potential of their website and that it showed “real customer focus and commitment to improving things.” This was supported by Council leader, David Shakespeare, who said the scheme meant, "the public gets a real tangible benefit".
Whether customers choose to use the new webcams or whether they actually reduce queues is something which can only been seen over time, when the cameras are actually installed. However, should the scheme prove a success it will be interesting to see whether in the future we will all be logging on to our computers before heading out to our local recycling depot.
Extra funding to help Scotland reach recycling targets
March 5, 2010 at 2:34 pm
The Scottish government has pledged an additional £7 million to help local authorities in Scotland meet their recycling targets. The money will be put into the Zero Waste Fund and will go to the 14 of Scotland’s 32 councils that have not yet met the recycling target of 40% of municipal waste.
This target has been set for the whole country by the end of 2010, with the target figure rising to 50% by the end of 2013 and 70% by the end of 2025. In the year to September 2009, only 35.9% of municipal waste in Scotland was recycled.
Recycling figures for Scotland’s local authorities vary dramatically. Glasgow recycles only 20.3% and is missing its target by 67,000 tonnes a year. Aberdeen’s recycling rate is 25%, with Edinburgh at 30.7% and Dundee at 38.4%.
The Scottish Environment Secretary, Richard Lochhead, announced the funding boost and also announced plans for a national campaign to get everyone in the recycling habit. Despite only 18 out of the 32 local authorities reaching their recycling targets, Mr Lochhead hailed it as a ‘fantastic achievement for some local authorities to be now recycling nearly half of their waste’.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency’s national waste policy unit manager, Kenny Boag, said that while the increase in the recycling rate was very encouraging, changes in lifestyle were needed to meet the greater challenges ahead.
Speaking to the BBC, the spokesperson for Friends of the Earth, Rosiaina Browning, also welcomed the recycling rate rise but reminded people that enough waste to fill the National Rugby Stadium, Murrayfield, was thrown out every day.
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.
