Food waste to have its own recycle bin
June 2, 2009 at 1:32 pm
There have been a number of councils all over the country that have made the very brave decision to collect potentially mouldy substances from our homes. The bins are normally blue, which, together with the green ones for normal recycling and then the black ones for everything else, make our front gardens look like a cluttered rainbow of bins.
This month sees South Oxfordshire announce that as of June this year residents will have to think twice before chucking eggshells in the bin. The local council seems very excited about the prospect of a greener area thanks to the new bins, but it would be fair for some of the residents to be slightly anxious about the way in which the collection is going to be carried out.
If you or the council miss a normal recycling collection one week, then a glass bottle or aluminium can sitting in the garden isn’t going to hurt anyone. But swap that for some fish bones, or fresh fruit and you’ve got a whole catalogue of things that might go wrong. This is something the residents of Eastville in Bristol found out when they had a smell so bad following a missed collection they decided to dump the bin on their councillor’s own front doorstep.
DEFRA and all the local councils are very keen to stress the importance of recycling our food waste in the future. Not only does it save on what goes into the landfills but also the process of anaerobic digestion, which happens at the plant, produces effective biogas that can be used in the National Grid. It’s just going to be a case of collecting the bins before the maggots find them.
New rules and regulations for battery recycling
May 22, 2009 at 4:10 pm
What happens to all those thousands of batteries when they have used up every last dribble of power? When you’ve twisted them around in the remote control more times than you can remember where do they finally go to die? At the moment the news isn’t good for the environment, as it’s the poor old landfills that get nearly all household batteries in the UK – which are the AAs and the mobile phone batteries. Very few are recycled at present. Thankfully that isn’t the same for the huge car batteries that are nearly all recycled.
As of this month though a brand new set of regulations has been outlined by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) called the Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009. It might not sound like the most interesting of reports to look through but it’s going to shake up the world of batteries and their unnecessary and toxic disposal.
All companies producing batteries of any kind must now sign up and declare themselves an official manufacturer. They must give an accurate account of their plans for recycling and report back to DEFRA on their measures to maintain the standards expected of them.
A Battery Compliance Scheme has also been set up, which will make the manufacturers inform their customers how and where to recycle their products appropriately. The goal is to get the rate of portable batteries recycled up to around 45% before 2016. This is a huge jump from what it is now though and it’s not too clear when any of us will start to notice the difference or be told of how to change our ways. As early as 2010 many retailers will have to accept responsibility for used batteries and will be taking back the empties, as it were. It might be worth starting to think before you throw the old batteries away from now on.
BatteryBack is the official recycling scheme for the new battery regulations. From the 1st January 2010 BatteryBack will provide FREE nationwide battery collection and recycling.
Nuclear recycling plant a waste of money
May 15, 2009 at 4:10 pm
There has been widespread condemnation of the Mox (Mixed-oxide) nuclear plant at Sellafield after it was revealed that the plant has become a huge white elephant costing the taxpayer billions.
The plant was constructed with the promise of converting unusable nuclear waste into a usable fuel, with the promise of delivering 120 tonnes of fuel a year. It sounded like a perfect way to help to deliver upon the country’s greenhouse gas targets, as nuclear fuel is expected to play a large role in that.
If running properly, the plant was to have generated a profit of £200 million throughout its lifetime, even though there were concerns voiced about its cost when it was built.
However, the reality has just been exposed, and it is not pretty. After seven years of operating, the plant has managed to produce just 6.3 tonnes of fuel, well below what was required. And on top of that, the costs have been astronomical. £626 million has been spent in operating costs alone, and £637 million extra has been spent on construction and commission costs.
This is all very bad news indeed for the government, not just because it does not go any way towards helping their green house gas emission targets, but because there are now calls for a public enquiry, and the word ‘scandal’ is not far from many people’s lips.
Michael Meacher is a Labour MP who was against the plant from the start, and even tried to block its approval while he was the Environment Secretary. He is quoted in The Independent as saying it is an “unforgivable” waste of taxpayers’ money.
Budget introduces £2000 metal scrappage scheme
May 8, 2009 at 3:01 pm
In his budget last week Chancellor Alistair Darling introduced a scheme welcomed by the scrap metal sector whereby motorists will receive a £2000 discount when they trade in a vehicle over 10 years old for a new one.
The scheme applies not only to cars but also to commercial vans of up to 3.5 tonnes. The £2000 on offer will consist of £1000 from the government and £1000 from the motor manufacturer.
It is hoped that the initiative will assist the flagging automotive industry which has suffered badly from falling sales due to the recession, the scrap metal industry which is experiencing a reduction in volume, the motorists who are having to tighten their belts and of course the environment which will benefit from getting the heavily polluting older cars off the road.
Dealers will be responsible for the paperwork involved in administering the scheme and for organising the scrapping of the old vehicles.
As with any scheme which the government introduces there are of course critics. There is, for instance, concern within the scrappage industry that dealers who are not members of Autogreen and Cartakeback will be discriminated against and environmentalists have also waded in saying that there is life left in many 10 year old cars and so to scrap them is just pouring money down the drain.
Motorists themselves are anxious that the motor industry will try to claw back their contribution by reducing the discount which can normally be negotiated by the purchaser. In addition, the old car needs to have a current MOT certificate which could well be a deal breaker for many.
Recycling business loses out to recession
May 1, 2009 at 4:02 pm
The global recession has had a huge effect on many industries, but one of the hardest hit has been the waste industry. Before the economic crisis, waste was a huge business. Thousands of tonnes of waste to be recycled were shipped off to China, and the UK recycling sector was booming. Now, demand has dropped massively, leading to a huge reduction in the value of waste, and businesses are starting to suffer.
The plight of recycling companies has just been made even more clear by the collapse of Greencycle, a recycling company based in Durham. The company experienced a huge drop in demand from its main customers abroad, and as a result was forced to try to renegotiate its contracts with the council, who rejected the new offer. Eventually the company has gone bust, and when it went into administration it owed £1 million to the banks and £1.2 million in taxes.
The council is now faced with the huge dilemma of what to do with all the rubbish. It cannot simply dump it into landfill, as this would incur hefty fines from the government, which has strict targets for the amount of material that is to be recycled. Its aim is to recycle 50% of all waste by 2020, but at the moment the figure is only 34%.
However, Durham County Council has promised that the material will still go to be recycled as it would have done originally, although there will be some delays expected. The Council has even announced that it is now hiring a large number of Greencycle employees.
However, in these uncertain times for the waste industry, the fear is that many more recycling companies are going to face a similar fate in the near future, so we can expect to hear more bad news soon.
In-store recycling scheme comes to Tesco
May 1, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Tesco is now leading the way with its recycling services, and has just come up with a new scheme which could affect the way it packages food in the future. The new trial scheme is to take place at two supermarkets, the Tesco Extra stores in Ilminster and Guildford, as part of a six-week trial.
The idea is for customers to leave behind any packaging that they do not want or that they think is a waste which will then be sent for recycling. This is to make the process of recycling easier for customers, as it involves less work on their part, and as a result of the trial it could become more widespread at other Tesco stores in the future.
Tesco is currently leading the field when it comes to recycling in supermarkets. It has stated that it has 3,500 projects up and running at the moment to reduce waste, and has also claimed to have diverted 87% of its waste from landfill. It is hoped that this latest scheme will add to that record.
On top of allowing customers to recycle more easily, the secondary aim is to help Tesco work out how much packaging is required for certain products. If shoppers continuously reject certain packaging then this could lead to changes by the store to prevent manufacturers from using so much in the first place.
However, there will be a limit to how much packaging can be got rid of. Certain packaging has information on ingredients and other important advice, and shoppers will not be able to do without this.
Is £1billion worth of recycled waste enough?
April 24, 2009 at 4:27 pm
As the banking world hangs its head in shame at billions of pounds worth of losses, the UK’s recycling world can pat itself on the back. This year sees the UK proudly boasting a total of over £1 billion worth of recycling waste since 2003. Add up all the paper, the glass, the metal and the plastic that that we’ve prevented from going to landfills this decade, and it comes to £1.1 billion. It’s even more if you take into account the costs saved on landfill charges too.
According to the green website Recycle Now, households in the UK have seen at 30% growth in their daily recycled waste, which is roughly double the amount recycled in 2003. If you want even more statistics, then, in terms of weight, we’re looking at around 34 million tonnes of recycled waste over the last five years. It’s not just been good for the planet though. The boom in the UK’s recycling industry had led to the creation of thousands of new jobs in this sector; from collectors to crushers. It’s an industry that is providing the UK’s currently hard-pressed economy with a staggering £5.5 billion per year.
But could we be doing more? Is this enough? According to famous eco-designer Oliver Heath, who has pioneered some of the UK’s most innovative and environmental ideas for homes, there is always more we can do to push us towards a 100% recycling nation. At the moment we save nearly two-thirds of waste from landfill, but countries such as Holland, Germany and Belgium are still quite some way ahead.
Being in a deep recession it’s natural for prices all over the board to drop. The price of recyclable waste has not been an exception. There are some worries coming from environmental groups that we might start going into reverse, but the general consensus is that, with stats like 30 millions tonnes of CO2 emissions being prevented since 2003, we are certainly on the right road here in the UK.
Call for landfill tax to be returned to councils
April 17, 2009 at 2:26 pm
As of April 1st, the cost to councils of sending waste to landfill sites is to increase by £8 a tonne, raising the figure from £32 to £40. Calls are now being made both by the LGA (Local Government Association) and Friends of the Earth for the taxes to be paid back to councils in order for them to improve their recycling infrastructure.
The tax is likely to amount to £620 million in the financial year 2009/10, equivalent to around £30 per household. The chair of the LGA’s environment board has said that landfill tax is “quite literally costing councils the earth” and he is concerned that the costs will be passed on to the householder, by an increase of £70 in council tax.
He has said that it is incumbent upon the government to show in a “clear and transparent way” just how councils are reaping the benefit from the landfill tax paid. He feels that taking punitive measures against councils and householders who do not recycle sufficiently is not likely to improve recycling rates. Instead he would like to see landfill taxes being made available for councils to make recycling schemes even easier for householders to adopt.
Friends of the Earth have backed the LGA’s remarks and have said that they would also like to see a tax being imposed on councils who incinerate.
Council leaders are being urged to participate in the Landfill Tax campaign by writing to the appropriate minister outlining the effect on their council’s budget and services. For further details see the LGA website.
RecycleBank scheme to be introduced
April 9, 2009 at 4:21 pm
The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead agreed at a meeting last month to be the first council to trial the RecycleBank initiative which has proved so popular in America. It will start in May and there are high hopes that it will prove to be as successful as it has been on the other side of the Atlantic.
Special radio frequency identifiers will be fitted to bins which will calculate the amount of recycling put out by each household and rewards will be given by means of discounts and tokens which can be redeemed at participating stores.
No details are available yet to indicate where householders will be able to use the vouchers in the UK but in America companies such as Coca Cola, Evian, Foot Locker, IKEA, and Starbucks are key players.
The Conservative party has been keen to see whether using incentives rather than punishing people for not recycling will help the UK’s efforts and shadow environment minister, Nick Herbert, has praised the “fresh and positive approach” taken by Windsor and Maidenhead.
When Boris Johnson was elected Mayor of London last May he named RecycleBank in his environmental manifesto as a prime example of householders being rewarded for doing the right thing rather than being fined for doing the wrong thing. In the 500 American cities which have introduced the scheme, recycling rates have increased to as much as 40%. If it is successful in Windsor and Maidenhead it is hoped that the scheme will be introduced in other Conservative run councils throughout the UK.
Tesco pilots all-in-one recycling system
April 3, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Leading supermarket chain Tesco this week unveiled an exciting new way to recycle at its Shettleston store in Glasgow. Many Tesco stores already have recycling bins, but the new facility is an "all-in-one" system which simplifies the process and saves time and space. Designed in Scandinavia, the cutting-edge TOMRA machine allows consumers to recycle several types of waste at the same time, as well as recognising, sorting and compacting materials at the point of collection.
Shettleston’s £150,000 machine accepts glass, steel, aluminium and various types of plastic. The machine’s internal laser scans the material, before it is sorted and compressed or granulated. Crushing the material means fewer collections are required, which in turn means less lorries rumbling on our roads. So TOMRA offers a double carbon-saving solution: reducing waste going to landfill and cutting down on the fossil fuel used in collections.
At the official opening of the facility on 4th March, Scotland’s Secretary for the Environment, Richard Lochhead, said he was "delighted to open this automated recycling centre and try out this new facility for myself." Mr Lochhead also praised Tesco’s commitment to recycling, which is shared by the Scottish Government, and felt that close collaboration between the public and private sectors was the best way to reduce environmental impact.
Louise Goodland, speaking on behalf of Tesco, explained that the TOMRA machine had been introduced due to consumer demand, stating that customers has asked Tesco to make recycling "easier, more fun and more convenient." And as an added incentive, Tesco is offering green Clubcard points to customers for the items they recycle using the machine.
The supermarket giant intends to roll out the idea to further stores if the Glasgow pilot is successful. Stores earmarked include Ayr, Alloa and South Queensferry.
