If asked to say which was worse for the environment, plastic carrier bags or paper carrier bags, most people would hardly hesitate to say plastic, plastic, plastic! Paper is a natural material and completely biodegradable after all. So why don't supermarkets just switch (or switch back) to paper bags? Isn't that the simple answer to the environmental damage plastic bags are causing? Well the t...

School’s out and when the inevitable rainy afternoon brings young children and their accompanying adults to the cinema, Disney may well encourage them all to go home and recycle (after seeing WALL-E, that is). Along with Pixar, the animators who have previously brought us Toy Story, The Incredibles, and Ratatouille, Disney’s summer blockbuster ...

According to some estimates, there are 90 million unused mobile handsets sitting around in homes across the UK, collecting dust at this very moment. People are constantly reminded not to throw away their old phones due to the toxic properties of some of the ingredients and as a result they are unsure of what to do with them. If you have an old handset (or even a few) lying around at ho...

Much has been made in the press of the chip-and-bin plans, whereby householders pay according to how much waste they produce. However, the failure of a trial in Norfolk, which started in 2002, could be bad news for the Government. Computer problems, the irritation of local residents over the Big Brother type surveillance and a two-and-a-half fold increase in fly-tipping have brought t...

Stand by Dorset, because you’re soon going to be getting a £15 million recycling plant that will end up seeing over 120,000 tonnes of waste coming through its doors every year. Just outside the quaint west-country town of Wareham will stand a three-in-one recycling plant, consisting of an inert recycling facility, an in-vessel composting centre for food and kitchen waste, and a materials recycl...