A need for regulation?

The Conservative Party has announced that it will implement more voluntary agreements that focus on waste rather than rely on regulation.
This issue was also discussed at a recent London Remade conference I attended.
Although I think some regulation can cause red tape and be a burden, others can let people take action and tackle waste.
The recent announcement by retailers that they narrowly missed their voluntary single-use carrier bag targets shows that sometimes voluntary agreements do not necessarily force businesses to meet their targets.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the future on this issue.

Education is the key to recycling

As the Government announced around four different reports last week on cutting carbon emissions, expanding anaerobic digestion, creating green jobs and more,it seemed as though it was actually taking practical action against climate change.
However, I think a key action it has missed is informing the public about just how important these measures are. Because of this many people are still quite cynical about the new technologies being invested in.
For example, I know about anaerobic digestion only because I work in this industry but I had never heard of it before I started this job - which was only three months ago. If my local authority were to bring in food waste collections I think many people in the area would be concerned about it attracting pests and wonder if it was truly necessary, because I know that thought would have previously crossed my mind.
The Government has neglected to explain to the people what AD is and why we need to do it. I believe the same problem lies with combined heat and power plants and even understanding the basic importance of recycling as much waste as we possibly can.
Well done to the Government for its efforts, but action won't be taken unless the public really understand it and accept it.

Tiffany Holland, Reporter, MRW

The scheme is a load of scrap!

The Government's car scrappage scheme was a funny one from the start. The Government initially branded it a green initiative, which was later abandoned as one of the key motives and reduced to simply advising people to buy more efficient vehicles. Then the primary issue for the scheme was to boost the car manufacturing industry with no real mention of how it might help the struggling scrap industry.
However, I wanted to flare up the fact that although it may not have a been a brilliant success boosting British business - as it seems that many of the foreign car manufactures have taken most of the sales - it has kept many Brits in work, with some manufacturers even having to expand their workforce.
Most importantly, regarding the recycling and waste management sector, the scheme has definitely helped out those in the scrap industry who are apart of the action. I would say this has been a fantastic scheme in that respect.
The success has been patchy as only a predicted 30 per cent of Approved Treatment Facilities are apart of the scheme, so there is room for improvement but I'm still pretty chuffed that after all the negative speculation it has made a bit of a difference.

Tiffany Holland, Reporter, MRW

Ads aiming to save the planet

This isn't exactly waste and recycling specific, but it's worth having a look at all the same. It's a picture story showing what the Guardian thinks are the 'Best adverts to save the planet' and is worth taking a look at:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/jul/01/act-responsible-environmental-advertising?picture=349628871

Andrea Height, MRW, deputy editor

Festival Litter

I attended this year's Wireless Festival at Hyde Park (05 July). It was a good experience. The atmosphere was nice, the people were chilled and the music was good.
There was just one thing - the litter on the floor.

Any litter you can name was on the floor - mainly empty plastic beer bottles. It was like walking through the Red Sea of litter. I have never seen anything like it. When performers came on people threw their plastic bottles in the air and I got doused in beer plenty of times (not great). The more they liked the performer the more they threw their bottles.

The promoter of the festival was Live Nation. On its website it states the following: "Recycling systems will be in place to segregate all cardboard, plastic, paper and cans from back of house and the waste from the audience will be sent through a sorting process to extract all recyclable elements. All vendors will be using biodegradable packaging and wooden utensils across the site to avoid plastic packaging including polystyrene."

But what it fails to mention is that festival goers have no place to throw their rubbish so they just use the floor. There were bins at the event but not enough.

It seems as if litter pickers were just paid to pick the litter - poor them.

If we do not target the young to give out the message that it is not cool to throw litter then that generation will grow up thinking that it is OK to do it.

I think nobody is brave enough to challenge anyone, young or old, who drops litter nowadays for fear of getting into a confrontational situation.

Liz Gyekye, Senior Reporter, MRW

One man's rubbish is most certainly another man's treasure

Sitting behind my stall selling parts of my wardrobe that haven't seen the light in years at a bootsale on Sunday, it was interesting to see how crowded it became as clothes were flying off the stalls and jewellery was a must-have.
Of course, selling on unwanted goods is not a new thing as websites like ebay have proved hugely popular. But ebay tend to be more useful for items you expect a decent price for and for those who are willing to tackle the post office for each item. This is where bootsales come into their own as prices are spectacularly low and people can sell in bulk to anyone.
Speaking to friends at the weekend, a few of them told me how they have recently made their way around bootsales in search of a bargain, something which may not have been voiced so freely before. Proud of their resourcefulness as the recession bites, it felt as though bootsales are now the cool way to get over the Saturday night hangover.
We successfully sold half the clothes on our stall, making £90 in total, helping to fund new clothes to fill the gap in my now empty wardrobe.
So, it seems people are realising that their unwanted items are not rubbish but resources. But this is something that needs to be emphasised when it comes to all unwanted things including normal household waste.

Tiffany Holland, Reporter, MRW

Second anniversary of WEEE

It's now July 2009 and just over two years since the WEEE directive came into effect in the UK.

Personally, I haven't seen very much in the way of publicity to the general public about what they need to do with their old electronic waste, and I'd say that most of my friends wouldn't know what to do with their electronic and electrical waste, which is rather worrying.

With large items such as washing machines and fridges these are more likely to go into the proper channels as they are bulky and require special pick ups or would have to be transported to CA sites. But a friend told me how he had just put his old hi-fi in the bin the other day, and it is this type of smaller electrical and electronic waste item that I fear is still getting into the general waste stream - and an area where we really need to step up our recycling efforts.

Andrea Height, MRW, deputy editor