Sainsbury’s starts bulb and battery collections
November 5, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Sainsbury’s has announced that it will become the first supermarket in the country to start recycling old batteries and energy-saving light bulbs at its stores, in a move that will be welcomed by green campaigners.
Sainsbury’s will team up with Recolight, a specialist light-bulb recycler that already collects bulbs from businesses across the country. The battery recycling will be dealt with by Valpak.
The move is well timed. Energy-efficient light bulbs are set to replace traditional bulbs by the end of 2012. They save a lot more energy and last longer, but disposing of them has been highlighted as a potential problem because of the mercury they contain.
The person in charge of environmental affairs at Sainsbury’s, Jack Cunningham, said that Sainsbury’s is “delighted to be the first national UK retailers to launch a co-collection scheme for both waste streams”. He also said that combining the collections into one would help to save on carbon emissions.
The scheme will initially be launched in five stores this December, but by the end of 2010 the collections should have been unrolled to a further 200 stores across the country. Both bulbs and batteries will be collected in specially designed containers with one flap for each.
The CEO of Recolight, Nigel Harvey, said that the new partnership is very exciting for the company. He also said that they are "committed to go beyond the legal minimums of the waste electrical and electronic regulations.”
The scheme will help a lot more people to recycle their old bulbs with ease as they become more common in homes across the country.
UK loses £650 million a year from failing to recycle
October 30, 2009 at 2:46 pm
The UK is throwing away a vast amount of rubbish that could be recycled, wasting hundreds of millions of pounds each year as a result.
In a report from Friends of the Earth entitled ‘Gone to Waste: The Valuable Resources that European Countries Bury and Burn’, the charity revealed that 24 million tonnes of recyclable products are being sent to landfill or being incinerated each year. If these products were sold, £650 million could be made each year.
Recycling these products would also reduce CO2 emissions by 19 million tonnes, by eliminating the need for the new products being made in the first place. It would also increase jobs in the green sector and help to reduce the reliance on imports.
The report looked into the EU as a whole, and found that a staggering €5 billion was being wasted every year due to the failure to recycle more.
Many materials are lucrative when recycled. A tonne of aluminium can be sold for around £450. The UK is wasting more on failing to recycle textiles and plastics, which can sell for £175 and £90 a tonne respectively, than any other country in Europe.
Dr Michael Warhurst from Friends of the Earth said that the low recycling rate in the UK is “economic madness,” adding that “it’s time we recognised the real value of the materials we throw away every day.”
Friends of the Earth is now calling for a ban on sending recyclable materials to landfill, as well as preventing the construction of more incinerators.
London worst for sending waste to landfill
October 23, 2009 at 4:22 pm
London has one of the highest rates of sending rubbish to landfill for any major city in Europe. More than half of the waste in London goes straight to landfill. It has also been revealed that Londoners throw away 520kg of waste a year, which is the fifth-highest rate of all the major cities on the continent.
In stark comparison, residents of Copenhagen only throw away 420kg per year, about 20% less. And on top of this, only a remarkable 1% goes to landfill.
The study was carried out by French group Suez Environnement, which studied the waste habits of 24 capital cities across the continent.
About 2.2 million tonnes is thrown away by London residents each year, of which 52% goes to landfill, or 270kg per household. Only 22% of rubbish is recycled, and the rest is incinerated.
These figures come despite the rising costs of sending waste to landfill. The government is keen to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, and as a result is increasing taxes on waste. In 2010-11, authorities in London will be forced to pay £48 per tonne of rubbish that goes to landfill, providing a strong incentive to increase recycling.
The study showed that there was also a stark difference in the frequency of rubbish collections across the continent. Londoners can only expect to get their rubbish picked up once a week, compared to once a day in Paris. In Bucharest, the figure is even more impressive, with collections twice a day during the summer months.
One of the reasons that London’s figures are so poor is because a lot of other countries incinerate more of their waste which is then used to create electricity and prevent the production of methane, a process which the UK hasn’t yet caught on to.
New intiative aimed at foil and aerosols
October 15, 2009 at 10:56 am
Many of us are unsure about recycling everyday items such as foil and aerosols. Figures produced by Alupro, (the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation), show that 26,000 tonnes of foil are used in the UK for packaging and wrapping, in addition to 29,500 tonnes of aluminium and steel aerosols, each year.
Although around two out of three local authorities provide recycling facilities for aerosols and foil the message is clearly not understood by the general public. Only 39% of people realise that they can recycle aerosols and only 59% think that clean foil can be recycled. An encouraging 84% of households said they would recycle aerosols if they were able to and 85% said the same for foil.
Last month, Alupro launched a campaign to get the message across to householders and to encourage the remaining councils involved in offering the facility to recycle these materials. The campaign is being funded by giant Unilever, the British Aerosol Manufacturers’ Association and the less familiar Coppice Alupack, Nicholl Food Packaging and Jena, all of whom are foil manufacturers.
Alupro is a not-for-profit organisation which is responsible for ensuring that targets for recycling packaging waste are met. Rick Hindley, executive director of Alupro, said that it has never been easier for local authorities and waste management companies to “handle the material effectively” but stressed that only empty aerosols with lids removed could be recycled and that any foil put out for recycling must be clean.
Some would of course argue that we should avoid buying aerosols in the first place, since they are environmentally costly to produce and the gases used can cause harm to the environment but, if you have no choice, then make sure that you find out whether you can recycle the empty containers in your area.
Corus resumes recycling, town rejoices
October 9, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Formed from the merger of British Steel and Dutch manufacturer, Koninklijke Hoogovens, in 1999, Corus Group is one of the largest producers of worked steel in the world. The firm fared badly throughout the credit crunch, cutting jobs up and down the country, and losing a key mill in the North West.
Since then, the Indian-owned company has taken steps to reinitiate dead schemes. The revival of the Corus CanRoute recycling campaign, for example, is testament to the firm’s recovery from the global recession. After a hiatus of almost a year, CanRoute is a partnership between the steel giant and two recycling plants in Pontypool, Wales, and Workington in Cumbria.
The sites will be rebranded in corporate colours, becoming Corus Approved Steel Packaging Recycling (CASPR) centres – a mouthful, to say the least.
Corus has yet to reveal how much it will pay for used cans, but the responsibilities of CASPR facilities have been made plain. Workington and Pontypool will collect and bail steel for Corus, before shipping it off to one of its UK plants. The sites can also store excess material, should the need arise.
Prior to the announcement, officials had issued an open challenge to steel hoarders, urging them to contact Corus: “We are starting to buy scrap again, including packaging. Any company collecting cans should look at getting in touch with us."
The firm is proud of its commitment to the environment, and claims to be the largest recycler of steel products in the UK. Suppliers were vocal in their relief; Corus had been sorely missed by the British and European recycling industry.
Trial of reward based recycling continues
October 1, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Following the announcement of a similar scheme in Windsor and Maidenhead, Halton Borough Council has decided to trial a reward-based recycling scheme. After half the residents in Windsor and Maidenhead signed up for the trial – earning themselves on average £20 in Marks and Spencer vouchers – Halton has decided to give the idea, which was recently endorsed by a report from Harvard University, a go.
The council has clearly decided that ‘stick’ methods such as bin police surveillance has angered residents instead of getting them to reduce the amount of household waste ending up in landfill sites. Using the ‘carrot’ approach, residents will be paid for every kilogram of recyclable waste they put in the correct bin. To avoid providing an incentive to raid neighbours’ bins for recyclables, Halton Borough Council will place a cap of £130 on annual earnings per household.
The decision to undertake this trial may have been influenced by the increasing pressure on local authorities to get residents to separate their recyclable and non-recyclable waste. Recent statistics have shown that last year alone a huge 54% of household waste in the Borough went to landfill compared to just 1% in Germany. One factor for this imbalance is that there is a landfill ban for household waste in Germany, one of several countries to have brought in this measure. Britain is expected to follow suit in about 2011 after a planned public consultation in early 2010.
As well as rewarding residents for separating their waste, the council is likely to be spared the job of weighing it as it is intended that microchips will be installed in the bins. It seems likely that, should these reward-based trials prove successful, they will become part of a wider national scheme to help promote a sustainable UK society by raising awareness through education.
Wales hits recycling targets a year early
September 25, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Welsh councils have hit their recycling targets for sending waste to landfill a year early. This will mean they will not face European Union financial penalties if they continue to recycle at the same rate next year.
The new EU initiative begins in 2010, and states that the rate of biodegradable waste such as food, cardboard and paper being sent to landfill must be down by 75% compared to 1995 levels. By 2013 this will be reduced by a further 50%, and will go down another 35% by 2020.
During 2008/09, Wales buried just 599,703 tonnes of biodegradable waste in landfill, marking a huge reduction of 154,879 tonnes in just two years. The Welsh Landfill Allowances Scheme allows for 788,000 tonnes to be buried each year, so this amount is 24% lower than the target. But more importantly it is 16% below the 2010 EU allowance, meaning if authorities continue at the same rate then they will not receive the heavy financial penalties for burying too much biodegradable waste.
It marks a huge turnaround for Wales. In 2008, only 11 of the local authorities were looking likely to hit their EU targets. But now they have beaten their targets a year early which is a great success for recycling in the country.
The Welsh Assembly Government has recently provided £24 million in funding for household waste collection and treatment across the country. In total, 18 authorities now have a food waste collection service up and running.
Environment minister, Jane Davidson, said that it was an “excellent achievement”. She said that simply burying waste to rot is something “from another era” and highlighted the possibilities it provided to “generate renewable energy through the use of anaerobic digestion”.
Doggy bags to clear nation’s plate
September 18, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, real-food campaigner and presenter of the River Cottage series of TV programs, has backed a supermarket campaign to reduce food waste by three million tonnes a year by asking diners to take uneaten food home with them.
In its official magazine, Waitrose supermarket implored readers to overcome their shyness and ask waiters for a doggy bag – a box or bag of leftover food.
William Sitwell, the author of the feature, took umbrage with the volume of waste produced by UK restaurants, calling it “appalling”.
An estimated 20m tonnes of leftover food items end up in landfill sites every year, according to figures published by government pressure group WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme).
Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall was quick to point out that chefs like to see their food eaten, not thrown in the bin: “I have asked for doggy bags in Michelin-starred restaurants. This isn’t something that is frowned-on."
Hugh’s enthusiasm is not universal, however. Several UK restaurants have banned doggy bags altogether, fearing legal proceedings, bespectacled lawyers and salmonella’s grubby fingers.
Visitors to the BBC website noted that today’s culture is too quick to seek compensation for minor infractions. Some restaurants may even ask customers to sign a legal waiver before handing over a doggy bag.
Despite the popularity of the phenomenon in the US, few UK restaurants are equipped to provide a ‘takeaway’ service.
The Love Food, Hate Waste website offers free recipes and advice for people who want to cut down on the amount of food that they throw in the wheelie bin.
Department for the Environment less than average in its recycling rates
September 14, 2009 at 2:47 pm
A recent parliamentary question has revealed that the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has only managed to recycle 29% of its waste during 2008.
Defra is the government agency charged with ensuring Britain meets its target of recycling 50% of its waste by 2020 as part of the Government’s ‘war on waste’ campaign and its vision of a more sustainable UK. However, the Department’s inability to generate higher recycling rates has left it lagging behind similar institutions. This is most striking when Defra is compared to some Local Authorities as some of these have been able to recycle more than 60% of their waste.
Perhaps the most worrying aspect for Defra should be that even companies such as Boots have been able to achieve recycling rates of 50% or more, demonstrating that the Department is lagging behind both the public and private sectors in its endeavours, leading opposition parties to attack the effort the Government is making in setting an example by achieving recycling rates as high as possible within its own departments.
In response to these claims, Defra has maintained that the figure does not take account of the fact that 64% of office waste is recycled. In addition the Department argues that a large proportion of the waste it generates cannot be recycled because it comprises hazardous materials, with a large proportion of these being incinerated to generate electricity.
This whole episode demonstrates both the improvements that have been made and the challenges that remain for the UK as we endeavour to reach our recycling targets and create a more sustainable society.
Carpet composting considered
September 4, 2009 at 4:16 pm
As the UK looks to cut down on the quantity of products ending up in landfill sites, Carpet Recycling UK has come up with a novel idea for composting woollen carpets.
At present the idea is in its trial stage with Derbyshire-based composters Vital Earth looking to see whether wool-fibre carpet can be composted successfully. The idea of composting carpets marks a change of focus on how best to recycle woollen carpets, with previous ideas exploring its insulation value amongst other things.
The original idea seems to have come from research conducted in New Zealand and, if the idea passes the trial stage, it has the potential to divert at least 35% of carpet material that has come from domestic waste towards composting to create a good quality fertiliser.
However, before the agricultural sector can look forward to the benefits of carpet composting, the UK Environmental Agency wants evidence that the carpet’s backing is biodegradable and will not cause harm to the environment. As well as this, there are fears that chemicals such as bleach that are used to treat fibres mean that the final product may not pass the PAS 100 accreditation that would enable it to be used as feedstock.
Despite this, the project can only be seen as a positive development as the UK moves towards a more sustainable society and as such it has received the support of the Environmental Agency. Whether the initial trials are successful or not, Carpet Recycling UK can already be pleased that their work is generating interest in carpet composting that was previously unseen.
