Reading Festival goes green
August 8, 2007 at 10:47 am
The last thing on people’s minds when attending a music festival is their waste. However, the annual UK music extravaganza that is Reading Festival is planning on bucking the trend by helping out the environment this year. ‘Green’ is very much on the agenda, with organisers Mean Fiddler putting together a sensible and thorough strategy plan to help its visitors do their bit for the environment. Here are some of the plans:
- A green bag will be issued on arrival for empty bottles, a clear one for cans and a black one for all other rubbish. The reward for the returning of a filled up bag will be a beer.
- A returned plastic beer cup will mean a 10p reward.
- Recycle bins will be located all over the site for all materials.
- Returned gas canisters and aerosols could win lucky people tickets to the festivals in 2008 if their raffle ticket wins.
- Charity Global Hand will ask for any unwanted tents, sleeping bags or sleeping mats after the weekend for the homeless.
- The Lift Share website, which encouarages people to find others to travel with to reduce the traffic pollution, is helping to provide transport to the festival.
- Coaches are to be put on especially for the festival from National Express.
- Eco-friendly shower gel will be distributed free of charge, which is less harmful to the land after its use. There are free showers onsite too.
- Eco-friendly recycled toilet paper will also be handed out free.
Many other tips for helping the environment whilst at Reading are on their website but the question is, how green can a festival ever really be? A specially designed ‘green only’ festival was put on in Scotland, near Aviemore, in June 2007, where there were similar ideas like car sharing, free trade, and organic food in biodegradable packaging, but it failed to make many headlines for its initiatives. Moreover, both Latitude Festival in Suffolk and T in the Park in Scotland took a simlarly green approach this year. The latter claimed to be carbon neutral and its carbon footprint was offset to forestry in Scotland and Southern and Central America.There are currently over a 150 music festivals each year in the UK and, in 2003, a website called Virtualfestivals.com was launched to grade them all. The most ‘green’ of all was the Sunrise Summer Solstice Celebration held at the end of May each year near Yeovil. It won the Shelter Award for Most Socially Responsible Festival in the UK and plans to be totally carbon neutral by 2008. According to its website, in 2007 the entire festival was run on renewable energy such as biodiesel, solar, wind and pedal power. It is leading the way in recycling programs, uses compost toilets, all organic food, and it is planting trees to offset the carbon. Although this may sound extreme now, with major festivals like Reading making similarly bold moves, this may well be the future.
Scotland lagging behind on recycling
August 7, 2007 at 6:38 am
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), has recently published figures on the country’s household and business waste in 2005/06. The data shows that the volume of waste in Scotland has risen substantially – by 10% compared with the previous year. This surge in waste production is linked to a recent building boom. Construction material accounts for the lion’s share of the 22.2 million tonnes of waste, with building and demolition contributing 10.6 million tonnes to the total, compared with only 7.3 million tonnes in the previous year.
Household waste amounted to 2.89 million tonnes, of which 24.4% was recycled or composted. Given that the Scottish Executive’s recycling target was 25% by the end of 2006, this seems a sign of healthy progress. However, of the 893,000 tonnes of waste collected by local authorities which was destined for recycling or composting, almost a third (32.2%) was composted, not recycled. According to the report, it is likely that householders are making greater use of local authority composting and garden waste collection services, whereas previously this organic matter would have been composted at home. So the increased volume of waste being recycled or composted is due at least in part to an uptake of composting facilities rather than a greater commitment to recycling.
On average, a Scottish household threw away 1,197kg of rubbish in 2005/2006, up 26kg from 2004/2005. Over 72% of this waste ended up in landfill sites, and 207kg per household was recycled. This equates, on average, to a recycling rate of 17.2%, compared with an average across England of 27%. A breakdown of recycling in the English regions, published by Defra, shows 4 English regions are recycling a third of their household waste. The South West, with a rate of 33%, recycles almost twice as much as Scotland.
But the outlook isn’t entirely bleak for the UK’s northernmost country. The deleterious effect of Scotland’s construction industry on their waste profile is matched by a positive attitude towards recycling at a broader level. Indeed, a country-wide campaign known as Waste Aware Scotland, is helping to educate the public about recycling by introducing the three R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – and launching more than 80 local Waste Aware programmes. Moreover, the DEPA report does show that the increase in materials collected for recycling corresponds to a decrease in household waste, suggesting that the message is slowly getting through.
However, Bill Proctor, who works at SEPA’s Environmental Data Unit, admits there is still work to be done: “Although we are seeing a significant drop in the amount of waste being sent to landfill, there is still a great deal of work to be done to ensure…targets are met. Much of the progress to date is being achieved through the implementation and delivery of Scotland’s National Waste Plan”. Therefore, while Scotland’s attitude to education on recycling shows promise, there is still much work to be done in the future.
Plans to recycle polystyrene in the pipeline
August 6, 2007 at 11:23 am
Each year British landfills receive almost three thousand tonnes of waste polystyrene. In an attempt to deal with the problem, Purex International is embarking on a project to develop machines which can “thermally densify” polystyrene. The new technology, known as Styromelt™, will allow waste polystyrene, otherwise destined for landfills, to be converted into a form that can be used to produce fuels and other materials.
Polystyrene (or expanded polystyrene (EPS) as it is technically known) is manufactured from liquid hydrocarbons commonly in the chemical industry. This material has a number of uses. Polystyrene has gained popularity as a packing material due to its physical properties; it is light, yet highly impact resistant. In addition, fast-food restaurants often use polystyrene containers to package food as the material also provides good insulation when it comes to keeping food warm.
However, polystyrene does not decompose easily and it is therefore harmful to the environment. Whilst a number of cities in the United States have banned the use of polystyrene, little has been done to combat the problem in the UK. Few companies are interested in recycling the waste polystyrene they generate because of the substantial costs involved. In most cases, waste EPS eventually makes its way to landfills across the country. In addition, because polystyrene has a very low density, its volume is significantly greater than its weight – the 300,000 tonnes of waste polystyrene created in the UK in a year would fill up to 15,000 Olympic swimming pools.
Until now, polystyrene has not been recycled widely, as many manufacturers remain unaware about the facilities available. The Styromelt™ machine, according to its manufacturers, provides an efficient way of dealing with waste polystyrene: “The machine has a loading area of approximately two cubic metres, which is filled with EPS, the door is then closed and locked and the machine switched on. Two temperature controlled thermal plates then heat the EPS to melting point where it releases all the air and other gases it contains forming a thick liquid, which is collected in a tray where it cools. Once cool, the now solidified block is removed from the tray and stored for recycling.” The process, once complete, reduces the waste polystyrene to 95% of its original volume. The compressed polystyrene can now be transformed into a whole variety of products, ranging from coat hangers and CD cases to picture frames and disposable cameras. It can also be used to produce environmentally-friendly fuel such as green diesel and LPG. Compressed polystyrene can also be burnt. This process releases a considerable amount of energy – almost twice as much as an equal volume of coal.
Recycling in Camden – a load of rubbish?
August 2, 2007 at 11:41 am
Camden Council seems to be taking green issues seriously. A comprehensive recycling programme which includes street and doorstep collections and recycling centres has encouraged a large proportion of residents to recycle their waste. But is Camden achieving what it has set out to do – to reduce damage to the environment by saving energy and water? The Council’s Sustainability Task Force thinks not. The task force, which includes representatives from all the political parties on the Council, believes current recycling initiatives are falling short of the ideal.
At present recyclate (recyclable material) is not sorted by householders, who can place paper, glass, cans, cardboard and plastic bottles in a “green box” which is collected weekly. It is this co-mingled waste which is causing concern. Alexis Rowell, the Liberal Democrat councillor who heads up the task force is “not convinced that what we are doing is the most environmentally friendly option,” adding “they brought in co-mingling to increase the tonnage, which we should not compromise, but is that the best way to recycle?” Another member, Maya de Souza, believes the laborious collection and sorting process could be using more energy than is being saved. A Green Party councillor as well as a member of campaign groups Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, she says “we need to be confident we are doing the right thing.”
Co-mingling of waste is a popular strategy with local authorities keen to increase the volume of waste destined for recycling, and to reduce the cost of hefty taxes by diverting rubbish from landfill, but increased tonnage comes at a price – a reduction in the quality of recyclate. Contaminated recyclate can even end up going to landfill after all – which makes the sorting and collection of material a huge waste of resources, both for the householder and local authority.
Camden’s task force wants the Council to review its policy, looking at ways to reduce the amount of waste produced in the first place (for example, by helping manufacturers to eliminate unecessary packaging) and pushing the idea of quality recyclate. Chris Knight, another task force member, recently visited a glass recycling plant, based in Greenwich. He was surprised by the huge impact of contamination on the value of the end product. He comments: “White glass is worth money, but it keeps being contaminated by green and brown glass. Residents can use the on-street recycling bins to keep it separate.”
If the Council acts on the task force’s recommendations, a policy reframe is likely to be needed to secure Camden’s green credentials.
Councils offered free carton-recycling services
August 2, 2007 at 11:27 am
In an attempt to increase recycling rates in the United Kingdom, the carton manufacturer, Tetra Pak, has agreed to provide local councils with free carton recycling services. At the moment, some 2 billion Tetra Pak cartons are sold in the UK annually, but existing carton-recycling facilities are limited in nature. As it stands, it is not possible to deposit Tetra Pak cartons at the recycling facilities provided by most local councils. Tetra Pak intends to carry out this initiative with the help of the organization, Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment in the UK (ACE UK). Tetra Pak also hopes that its recycling initiative will help dispel commonly-held beliefs that cartons cannot be recycled at all.
The Tetra Pak recycling program will operate as follows. Tetra Pak cartons, which are usually produced using a combination of paper, plastic and metal, will be sent to the company’s reprocessing facility in Orebro, Sweden. At the moment, carton recycling facilities in the United Kngdom are highly limited, as John Rose, Tetra Pak’s director of marketing, notes, “The economic drivers for recycling cartons in the UK are not that strong and they are a tiny part (0.2%) of the waste stream. The technical level in the UK also means that most places require capital investment to be able to recycle cartons which with rising energy costs is hard to justify.”
This initiative is part of a broader plan by Tetra Pak to ensure that its production and distribution operations meet rigorous environmental standards. The company has spent several thousand pounds conducting research about the most cost-efficient methods of recycling its cartons. It has also engaged in consultations with public organisations such as Defra, WRAP and the LARAC. According to John Rose, “Carton recycling for us is something that needs to be sorted. Tetra Pak will provide a limited but full bring bank service to councils and our model is five banks per district. The response has been very positive from local authorities so far and at the moment we are putting bins on the ground for three to five councils every day.”
Tetra Pak’s recycling initiative is expected to last two years. The company hopes that this initiative will encourage the British government to improve carton-recycling facilities sufficiently so that local councils can take over the process once Tetra Pak has reduced its funding for the program. Kerbside collection points would allow residents to deposit empty cartons alongside other recyclable materials. The more households willing to contribute, the greater the impetus for reprocessing mills in the Unted Kingdom to develop their carton-recycling facilities. A Tetra Pak spokesman reiterated this view in a recent interview, stating: “If more volume comes through the business case will get better and better and we would hope to see a UK carton reprocessing facility in the not too distant future.”
Further information about Tetra Pak’s recycling initiative may be found at www.tetrapak.com.
UK leading the way in Europe’s tyre recycling
August 1, 2007 at 11:17 am
One of the most successful recycling stories of late has come from the recovery and recycling of rubber tyres, both within the UK and across Europe. More than 87% of tyres in Europe are now being recycled and avoid going to landfill. The figures, from the European Tyre and Rubber Manufactures Association reveal that the UK made a 3 percentage point rise in the tyre recovery rate in 2006, which was spurred on by tough new laws laid out by the Landfill Directive. The Landfill Directive is a piece of legislation issued by the European Union to safeguard environmental issues and govern the handling and disposal of waste.
Just shy of the outstanding 100% tyre recovery rate achieved by countries such as France, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, the UK’s 93% was still an improvement from the previous year and in terms of actual tonnage being recycled, the UK came out on top with 254,000 tonnes in 2006.
A great deal of the improvement has come from the manufacturers themselves having to take responsibility for the recycling of the old tyres. A four million pound modern tyre recycling plant in South Wales will soon be capable of recycling up to 4 million tonnes of used tyres per year (100 tonnes a day) and then turning the rubber into what is known as ‘crumb’.
The process at the plant involves submerging the old tyres in liquid nitrogen, which then freezes the rubber into shreds at -80oC. When they are brittle enough they are then smashed into tiny crumbs. After this the crumbs have many uses particularly in the manufacture of artificial sports pitches, insulation products, rubber flooring etc.
Chairman of the company in charge of the Welsh plant, Andy Hilton, said “Chipping and processing facilities allow us to make waste tyres from the point of disposal all the way through to them becoming a useful product again” (Tyre Trade News). Besides the ‘crumb’, the plant in South Wales, and others like it, also produce steel and fibre from the process. The resulting steel is very strong and goes into a wide range of products whilst the fibre, currently used in insulation and cattle bedding has potential for the production of energy.
The tyre campaign started in 2006 by DEFRA, the Environment Agency, will hopefully prevent the illegal fly tipping of tyres (which can result in a 2 year imprisonment or unlimited fine) and also provides a help line for people wanting to find out the correct ways, both in terms of the law and the environment, to dispose of their tyres.
Friends of the Earth calls for weekly food waste collections
July 30, 2007 at 10:53 am
Leading environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth has called for local authorities to introduce weekly food waste collections as part of the government’s strategy to cut waste, increase recycling and tackle climate change. They say the move would help counter concerns about fortnightly rubbish collections.
Refuse collection hit the news again in the wake of a report from the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Committee. MPs described plans for financial incentive schemes to reward recycling as ‘complex and timid’. They also said that while alternate weekly collections of waste worked in some areas, they were problematic in cities and urban areas.
Members of the public have expressed concerns that storing leftover food for a fortnight leads to bad smells, maggots and vermin. National newspaper The Daily Mail is running a campaign to save weekly rubbish collections. Research to date has found no increased risk to public health linked to alternate weekly collections, but the Commons report called for wider investigation.
According to Friends of the Earth, food waste makes up around 20% of household waste. If collected separately, it can either be composted or used to produce renewable energy. Campaigners say that recycling and composting help us use the earth’s resources more efficiently and play a vital role in the fight against climate change.
Friends of the Earth want more to be done to cut waste all round, not just that coming from households. They are asking the Government to announce a date after which it would be illegal for companies to bury or burn anything that can be reused, recycled or composted.
Recycling regulations could inadvertently hinder higher recycling rates
July 28, 2007 at 10:35 am
If you are looking to do your bit to help protect the environment, then recycling used items seems the logical way to start. Each year millions of tonnes of recyclable plastics, paper and glass are dumped into landfills worldwide. Many of these materials do not decompose quickly and when they do, they release toxic chemicals into the environment. However, government regulations and poor collection and sorting facilities often hinder communities from achieving higher recycling rates. This is rather paradoxical given that these regulations were often introduced in the hope that they would allow for greater transparency within the recycling industry.
However, as recent developments demonstrate, not all organisations are restricted in their activities by regulatory barriers. McDonalds recently decided to run its delivery vehicles on bio-diesel, proving that large firms are able to deal easily with the existing framework of regulations. This, however, is not usually the case when it comes to recycling on the household level. Even smaller co-operations often find recycling used materials difficult. In the light of this situation, the Better Regulation Commission has been examining the current regulation surrounding the use of bio-diesel. In meetings with authorities, representatives from the organization have recommended that the government ease controls on the conversion of used cooking oil to bio-diesel, so that more firms can follow the example of McDonald’s green initiative. According to the Commission, the regulators must act as “a champion of progress and enterprise, as well as being a protector”, rather than frequently acting to hinder progress.
Improving the regulatory environment is essential particularly as far as renewable fuels are concerned. As it stands, road transport fuel targets demand that 2.5% of vehicle fuel be obtained from renewable sources by April 2008. This amounts to approximately 500,000 tonnes of vegetable oil. It is hoped that the current target will be increased to 5% by 2010. Whilst the United Kingdom does manufacture some 2 million tones of rapeseed oil each year, it makes sense to satisfy at least part of the fuel target through the use of fast food restaurants’ waste cooking oil.
However, the current regulatory framework makes producing bio-diesel from used cooking oil difficult. Lorries carrying waste oil must be registered to transfer waste and must be in possession of a waste transfer note. In addition, the individual responsible for transporting the waste must carry out numerous checks on the material before passing it on to the recipient organization.Then there are the pollution regulations that firms need to be mindful of. As Rick Haythornthwaite, chair of the Better Regulation Commission notes, “Turning waste cooking oil into bio-diesel, even on a small scale, is covered by the pollution prevention and control regulations because the UK has interpreted the term “industrial scale” in the relevant European directive as “for commercial purposes.”
Whilst the need to monitor the operations of firms within the recycling sector is essential, it is necessary to achieve a balance between having sound controls and ensuring that regulations do not prevent progress. As it stands, the current regulatory framework fails to meet this basic requirement.
The world’s first recyclable vehicle
July 26, 2007 at 3:28 am
The world’s first recyclable vehicle could be a step closer to becoming reality thanks to an agreement between Defra (the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), car manufacturer Ford, and Hemcore, the UK’s largest grower and processor of hemp.
The Government is putting £500,000 into the project to develop new materials from hemp, flax and willow fibres which will be used as substitutes for metals, glass fibre and oil based plastics in car manufacturing. Once mixed with polypropylene, the new material will be moulded to create components likely to include accelerators, brakes and clutches. It is hoped that it will eventually be used for body panels and larger car components. Early estimates suggest that it could eventually replace up to 100kg of other materials in an average sized car.
Because cannabis (the psychoactive drug rather than the plant genus) is a product of hemp, cultivation is strictly regulated. Hemcore has a licence to grow 3,000 hectares of industrial hemp, producing sufficient material for 60,000 cars. The fibres will be extracted at a factory in Essex. Hemp is already used in the production of clothes, paper and rope – its fibrous stalks are ideal for these products. Despite the fact that a “hemp car” would have low raw material and energy costs plus a low impact on the environment, Friends of the Earth is unimpressed. The charity feels that the government should be concentrating on trying to get cars off the road rather than investing in new technology to make them less damaging to the environment.
Oxfordshire recycling rates hit all time high
July 26, 2007 at 3:18 am
A recent poll has revealed that Oxfordshire has taken the lead in the UK when it comes to recycling. Residents of the city of Oxford now recycle over 40% of all household waste. Last November, a new recycling scheme was introduced to deal with the county’s growing waste problem and local authorities have impressively succeeded in raising recycling rates to their current level within the space of just seven months. It is hoped that the current initiative will further bolster recycling efforts across the United Kingdom.
A few years ago Oxfordshire had a truly abysmal record when it came to recycling. The sector lacked investment: collection points were few in number, sorting facilities were poor and recycling plants were highly inefficient. Today, however, few counties surpass Oxfordshire in terms of recycling and rates here have exceeded all expectations. According to Oxford City Councillor Jean Fooks, current figures, whilst only reflecting recycling rates for the month of June, are indicative of a general trend.
According to Councillor Fooks, “In recent months we have witnessed a steady increase in recycling since the beginning of the year and to achieve 40 per cent so soon is great news. (This) demonstrates that the vast majority of Oxford residents have made good use of the new recycling services we have put in place.” Oxford City Council has asserted that over 11,000 tonnes of waste, otherwise destined for county landfills, have been recycled under the new initiative. In addition, “Council field officers and enforcement teams are out day by day…helping people to play as big a part in the scheme as they can.”
However, doubts have surfaced with regard to the viability of this program. Most skeptics of the initiative see the program as having little chance of success, pointing to Blackburn, where a similar scheme was eventually discarded due to poor implementation. At the moment, recyclable waste is collected from residents’ homes on a fortnightly basis. However, many residents believe that they would be able to recycle far larger quantities of waste if local councils reverted to a system of weekly collections.
In addition, there are fears that the aforementioned recycling figures as produced by the Oxford City Council have been exaggerated. Indeed, proponents of this view suggest that members of the public are unlikely to obtain accurate recycling figures until after the elections in May 2008. According to one activist, Eric Murray, it is likely that “There are no actual figures, only estimates. I do think that as we are suffering under this abhorrent scheme the residents should at least be able to rely on factual figures and not probable estimates.” Mr. Murray’s accusations have been challenged by members of the Oxford City Council who assert that “the recycling rate was calculated according to a formula specified by DEFRA and the Audit Commission.”
Further information about this initiative may be found on the website of the Oxfordshire County Council.
