Think Green

Recycling still the most effective Foul Beaches Costing a packet

Electric car sales Will Boost

After more than US$400 million in outlays and months behind schedule, dozens of electric cars have hit the road in Israel, the test site Agassi chose for his Better Place venture. Four stations where the cars can get a new dose of juice when their batteries run out are operating, and the plan is to ramp that number up within months. The concept: to wean the world from oil and eliminate the biggest hurdles to environmentally friendly electric cars - high cost and limited range. To do this, Better Place has jettisoned the fixed battery. Instead, drivers can swap their depleted batteries for fully charged ones at a network of stations, receiving a full, 160- kilometre range in five minutes. Better Place owns the batteries, bringing down the purchase price of the cars using the network. People driving shorter distances, the vast majority of customers, can plug in their batteries each day to chargers installed at their homes, offices and public locations, which will fully recharge in six to eight hours.

Text taken from... http://www.guardian.co.uk/ environment/2012/may/01/ vauxhall-ampera-electriccars

Electric car sales Will Boost

The sluggish take-up of electric cars is expected to get a boost on Tuesday as a new model arrives in showrooms with the intention of ending fears over range anxiety due to limited battery life. Vauxhalls Ampera, which launched last year to acclaim in the US as the GM Volt, joins Renaults Fluence ZE [zero emissions], a family car that went on sale last month as one of the newest eligible for a 5,000 plugged-in car discount from the government. Last year, the then transport secretary Phillip Hammond said: 2011 could be remembered as the year the electric car took off, as he launched the grant scheme that covers nine different models. But only around 1,000 were sold last year, and figures for first quarter sales in 2012 show that registrations of new electric cars have largely flatlined, and only half of the allocated budget for the grant scheme is likely to be taken up. Of the 563,556 cars sold in Q1, only 278 were pure electric models, up from 218 on the year before. But Vauxhall forecasts it will sell 3,500 units of the 30,000 car this year, or 5,000 in a full year. A spokeswoman said its target of 10,000 sales across Europe in 2012 was in our reach quite easily. The Amperas big selling point is that when its battery runs out after 50 miles of electric power, a petrol engine provides back-up power for a further 310 miles. But because the petrol still drives the electric motor, the company says the vehicle should be considered a range extender, not a hybrid car like the Toyota Prius. The car goes on sale in 24 dealers across the UK on Tuesday, with Vauxhalls spokeswoman predicting it will be a conquest model that will lead motorists to buy from the company for the first time. The Fluence ZE is one of four new electric models from Renault, including a wackily designed two-seater called the Twizzy that also just went on sale, and the Zoe, a Clio-sized car that arrives later this year and the company expects will make up most of its electric sales. At 17,500 and up, the Fluence drastically undercuts the Ampera on price, by leasing the battery the most expensive component of electric cars from 76 a month. The battery will manage up to 115 miles in between charges, and the leasing arrangement means it can be swapped out later by Renault. A Renault spokesman would not talk about sales figures but said that, along with Nissan which it has an electric vehicle partnership with, it will have sold 1.5m electric vehicles globally by 2016. Marc Rinkel, senior analyst at analysts IHS Automotive, suggested the new cars would become popular among corporate clients. In 2011, the Nissan Leaf accounted for most of electric vehicles sales in the UK. The launches of the Vauxhall Ampera and the Renault Fluence ZE are a stepping stone to broaden the electric car offering. In addition to the Leaf, early adopters can now go for the range extender with the Ampera or a cheaper option with the Fluence. Although currently low consumer spending is not in favour of expensive vehicles, these models shall become popular amongst company car buyers the exemption of company car tax for electric vehicle drivers looks very appealing indeed, he told the Guardian. Nissans Leaf, which went on sale in the UK last year, recently took 2% of the total car market in Norway, with the company selling 1,000 units in six months. By : Y&R Chicago Taken from: http://www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/ prints/hotels-feet-8035405/ http://birminghamcityads.co.uk/the-dfs-furniture-sale-ends-5pm-sundayfinal-5-days-to-save-middleway-1947.html

Photo taken from... http://www.ibelieveinadv. com/2011/10/mitsubishi-i-miev-imiev-electricbillboard/ Advertising Agency: Clemenger BBDO, Sydney, Australia Executive Creative Director: Paul Nagy, Mike Spirkovski Creative Group Head: Adam Whitehead, Matt Vandermark Art Director: Adam Whitehead Copywriter: Matt Vandermark Group Account Director: David Hallett Agency Producer: Vincent Prochillo
taken from http://www.emercedesbenz.com/autos/mercedes-benz/c-class/mercedes-benz-c63-amg-coupe-black-series-print-ads/

The needles, used again and again, kill at least 300,000 people a year.
The needles, syringes and other medical waste that have washed up on beaches this summer point to a larger problem confronting every medical institution: how to deal with infectious wastes that are increasingly barred from the hospitals own incinerators. State regulations are becoming extremely stringent, said Arthur E. Weintraub, president of NorMet, the regional association that helps hospitals increase their operating effectiveness. Many incinerators built recently dont meet current standards. But when hospitals must dispose of the wastes off-site, he said, it is a situation that represents real economic hardship. Using private carters, Mr. Weintraub added, also reduces a hospitals control over the disposal process and hospitals are caught in the middle. Hospitals want to be leaders in serving community environmental-health needs, Mr. Weintraub said, but if they dont have a place to put their infectious wastes, it becomes more than an issue for a single hospital. As a society, we have a problem. Mr. Weintraub said the 40 hospitals that are members of his association, which represents a seven-county region including Westchester, have called on state officials to form a task force to study the problem, including finding regional sites for incineration. As it is now, he said, the situation lends itself to violations of the law. year for which figures were available; 54,000 pounds were incinerated on site while 44,000 pounds were shipped out of the county for disposal to sites as far away as South Carolina. Infectious waste, commonly referred to as red bag waste because state law requires that it be segregated in red disposal bags, includes any surgical, obstetrical or pathological material, Mr. Weintraub said, and all blood-soiled materials. State law requires all such material to be incinerated. Review of Disposal Options Several hospitals in the county are reviewing their disposal options, with some electing to build onsite incinerator units and others hiring private carters. Some hospitals own incinerators that do not comply with existing state regulations and therefore are not supposed to be used.

Medical Waste Is Piling Up

AS beach patrols keep a wary eye out for improperly discarded hypodermic needles and blood vials this summer, environmentalists, hospitals, refuse handlers and Government regulators are grappling with a more serious public health problem: even properly handled medical waste is becoming harder to dispose of safely. The volume of medical waste and the costs of disposing of it have grown steadily over the past decade or more, fueled in part by the growth of single-use disposable items and in part by the growth of small clinics and home care services, whose combined waste already rivals that of big hospitals. Infectious waste, the most troublesome component of medical waste, has become an environmental pariah. Fewer and fewer landfills accept it, even after it has been sterilized, and most of it cannot be recycled. That leaves incineration, the solution long followed by most American hospitals. But there is wide agreement that too many hospital incinerators are so old, obsolete and improperly operated that they cannot meet increasingly stringent emissions standards. Some environmentalists say this poses a more serious health hazard than the highly publicized incidents of vials and syringes washing up on beaches last summer. The situation is likely to be complicated, some experts have concluded, by a new Federal law designed to track and contain medical wastes. Experts say the tracking requirements, which took effect last week, are likely to encourage hospitals to circumvent the expense and effort they require by burning more waste in their own incinerators than they do now. The problem is also compounded by a growing flow of waste from walk-in clinics, doctors and dentists offices, nursing homes, dialysis , centers, blood banks and home sickrooms. In particular, the rapid growth of walk-in clinics is believed to have helped swell the volume of nonhospital medical waste to the point where it approaches the flow from hospitals, now believed to constitute 2 to 5 percent of the nations municipal solid wastes. In all settings, the ballooning use of disposable items has increased the volume of waste.

Text by By TESSA MELVIN Published: August 14, 1988 new york times website: http://www.nytimes. com/1988/08/14/nyregion/copingwith-medical-waste.html?src=pm

Test by By WILLIAM K. STEVENS Published: June 27, 1989 Taken from New york times http://www.nytimes. com/1989/06/27/science/ medical-waste-is-piling-upgenerating-new-concerns. html?src=pm

Local hospitals, the organizations data indicate, are using both methods to dispose of medical waste. Westchester hospitals burned 98,000 pound s of infectious waste in l986, the last http://www.jennwarren.net/#/slumdog-scandal/jw_syringe008

http://www.jennwarren.net/#/slumdog-scandal/jw_syringe008

Medical Waste Foul Beaches, Cruise Ships Foul Water

One of the dirty secrets of ocean pollution is how much of the garbage and miscellaneous plastic crap that ends up there blows or seeps in from landfills. Last week in Hawaii, rainstorms washed medical waste and other trash out of a hillside landfills holding pond, through storm drains and straight into the ocean. A few days later, the Waimanalo Gulch Landfill operators claimed the mess had been cleaned up, but workers were still plucking hypodermic needles, vials filled with blood and urine, and other hospital waste from the beach. One worker described vials popping up like minnows in the surf break. Much of the garbage is no longer on the beach; it has been washed out to sea or caught up in the surf. Cleanup supervisors wonder about the chemical and biologic waste that was part of the landfill and has now been swept into the ocean, where it can never be extracted. The mid-week storm dumped 11 inches of rain. Youre talking an awful lot of water accumulating, said the Ko Olina director of the local Department of Environmental Services, comparing it to a tsunami of water rushing off the slopes. Waste Managementthe giant, national garbage company that owns the landfilland city officials blamed mother nature for the accident. The reality is that Waimanalo Gulch, like thousands of landfills across the U.S., is built right at waters edge. Signs have been posted at the beach to discourage swimming, and the landfill has been closed, for now. The accident points to an endemic problem: Too often when we put our trash, even recyclables, on the curb to be picked up we think thats the end of our debris. Out of sight, out of mind. In fact, most of that garbage is headed to a new life, somewhere else, which may include contributing to the worlds largest garbage dump, the ocean. You can view the environmental impacts of the cruise industry from a variety of angles. From my perspectiveand Ive traveled on a wide variety of shipsthose monster eyesores carrying multiple-thousands are little more than floating shopping malls packed with bargain hunters who rarely care much about the places they are motoring past. Some of the smaller operations, carrying passengers in the hundreds, offer a pretty cool mode for people to see parts of the world they might not see otherwise, with minimal impact and a big gain of knowledge about the places visited. But all of these ships far too often use the ocean like a giant toilet bowl. No matter the size of the boat nor the environmental message spread onboard, all ships leave in their wake food scraps, shredded paper and cardboard, ground-up plastic, various detritus blown off decks, sewagetreated and otherwiseand leakings of motor fuel and oil.

The regions most hard-hit by onshore dumping are the most popular stretches for cruisers: the coasts of Alaska and British Columbia, beaches throughout the Mediterranean, and increasingly, the coastline along the globes most popular route (because its furthest from potential terrorism and piracy)the run from Rio de Janeiro around Cape Horn and up to Valparaiso, Chile. Cruise companies get away with dumping both black water (waste from toilets and medical facilities) and gray water (from showers and sinks) far too close to shore due to the complexity of international, federal and local laws the companies choose to either follow or ignore. Borders on the ocean are hard to define; laws are very hard to enforce. Most solid waste is burned onboard, and the incinerated ash falls into the sea. Plastic is often chipped, pulped or ground into tiny pieces and dumped overboard. The ships that carry solid waste back to shore hand it off to haulers on land, who may take it to landfills, or perhaps dump it straight into the sea themselves. The maritime business is the last under-regulated bastion of the corporate world, Fred Felleman, Northwest consultant for Friends of the Earth, told Seattles InvestigateWest. Because it falls between the borders of the world, its been hard to figure out how to get our arms around it. A new U.S. federal law would forbid ships of more than 300 tons from dumping treated or untreated sewage within three miles of Californias 1,624-mile coast, which would close a major loophole in state law; the law is expected to be enacted in 2011. The EPA suggests the law would prevent 20 million gallons of sewage from swirling into the states coastal waters and improve the overall quality of Californias beaches. Last year, the EPA studied California beaches and found that 85 percent of San Franciscos had experienced advisories for high levels of pathogens; in L.A., all beaches had advisories, as did 75 percent of San Diegos. While some of that pollution is attributable to runoff from shore, the EPA estimates that cruise ships spill more than 25 million gallons of sewage into California waters each year. According to the cruise industry, most boats have been complying with the three-mile zone for the past five years; many even wait until theyre 12 miles offshore to dump treated waste into the ocean. Out beyond three miles, few laws apply to most sewage. Most pollutants are not supposed to be dropped into the ocean until ships are 25 miles from the coast; discharge of oil or oily water into U.S. navigable waters cannot take place within 200 miles of shore. The saddest aspect of this story, to me, is that dumping into the ocean is still legal, almost everywhere. Shouldnt all ships garbage and waste be cleaned and re-cleaned and cleaned again, and brought to shore where modern systems can dispose of and or recycle it? Shouldnt that be the law, around the globe? Text taken from, http://neptune911.wordpress. com/2011/01/20/medical-waste-foul-beachescruise-ships-foul-waters/

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that passengers aboard a typical cruise ship will, on an average day, generate 21,000 gallons of sewage, one ton of garbage, 170,000 gallons of wastewater from sinks, showers and laundry, more than 25 pounds of batteries, fluorescent lights, medical wastes and expired chemicals, up to 6,400 gallons of oily bilge water from engines, and four plastic bottles per passenger (which factors to about 8,500 on average aboard the Carnival Spirit, which can hold 2,124 guests, 1,000 crew, has 16 lounges and bars and carts about 900,000 tourists in and out of the port of Seattle and up the British Columbia and Alaska coastlines each year).

Cruise ships are supposed to dump sewageblobs of concentrated toxins from the bottom of wastetreatment facilitiesat least three miles from the coastline. Given the number of fines dished out in recent years, even that small request is clearly being ignored by many companies. The good companies talk about using cleaner fuels, recycling more, boosting the efficiency of sewage and gray-water treatment systems. But its hard to judge just how much the ships are improving. Even the best onboard waterquality systems still allow high levels of ammonia, bacteria and other pollutants to escape with the mix into the ocean.

Hospital saves fortune just by swapping rubber gloves.

The government hopes smarter procurement can help the NHS in England to save more than 15bn over the next three years - and some hospitals are already proving it can be done. One of Londons top teaching hospitals has saved the taxpayer more than 300,000 a year - just by changing its order for rubber gloves. Barts and the London NHS Trust used to buy 20 different types of examination gloves for medical staff. But by limiting the choice to just two, the trusts procurement team has nearly halved the bill. We spend over 700,000 a year on examination gloves. What we have done now is to move to one supplier, and we will be saving 320,000 this year just by standardising to a better value product, says Zoe Greenwell, who leads the trusts procurement team. It is the kind of common-sense saving that the government is hoping all 168 hospital trusts in England will make. Ministers want to save between 15bn and 20bn from the NHS budget in England over the next three years. And at least 1.2bn of that is expected to come from the hospital procurement budget. But there is a problem for the government. By 2014 nearly all hospitals will be run as independent foundation trusts, and ministers will have little direct control over their spending priorities. A National Audit Office (NAO) report found that there is already a lack of standardisation and bulk buying by NHS trusts when it comes to the everyday consumables that fuel a hospital - everything from A4 paper and rubber gloves to cannulas, the plastic tubing used to administer drips. We found that trusts bought 21 different types of A4 paper and 652 different types of rubber gloves and somewhere over 1,700 different cannulas, says Mark Davies, director of health value for money studies at the NAO.

Hospitals are also paying a wide range of different prices for exactly the same item, with some paying 50% more than the best performers. We estimate that there is something like 500m being lost every year on spending of 4.6bn. Its the prize thats being lost by the NHS if only they could get themselves together and procure more efficiently, says Mr Davies. Health minister Simon Burns insists that the waste must stop: It is absolutely crazy; this is why we need to get greater transparency into the system, to get better practice and for trusts to look more at how they can bulk purchase, he says

It was going to cost an extra 100,000 a year to procure our prostheses via the hub rather than carrying on doing it ourselves because we had already achieved very low costs locally with our suppliers, says orthopaedic surgeon Andrew Brown. My expectation would be that the hub should look at the lowest price currently being paid, and bring everyone to that lowest price, because unless the companies are selling at a loss to ourselves, theres no reason why everyone else shouldnt be buying things for the same price as we do. What it seemed to end up with was an average cost across what people were paying at that moment, which meant there were always going to be losers within the system. Leicester decided to go it alone for orthopaedic supplies, and the East Midlands procurement hub has now folded. The NAO inquiry concluded that there were too many NHS hubs in the marketplace, says its author, Mark Davies. There is no consistent basis for measuring their performance. So you have got this vicious circle that individual trusts dont know if theyre getting value, he says.

You cant lose sight of the fact that the NHS trusts are independent organisations, he says. It is important that they have got the freedom to be able to make the commercial decisions that they believe are right for their community including the products that they buy. But what we are doing is working with the existing networks to raise awareness of efficient procurement practice. This is something that needs to be recognized at a trust board level, and we are developing standards for good procurement so they can be understood and brought in throughout the organisation.

Text and photo 1: Taken from File on 4, BBC Radio 4 By Andy Denwood on 27september 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14971984 photo 2: taken from http://static.tumblr.com/mum7bpy/VfMlfyj6m/elasticbandages-6w-yards-ben-_i_lbm40669.jpg

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Hospitals like Barts in London are already successfully collaborating with other trusts in England to compare prices and reduce costs. But attempts by hospitals to work together to maximize their buying power with suppliers have not always worked. Orthopaedic surgeons at the University Hospitals of Leicester tried to secure a better deal on the price of knee joints by banding together with other hospitals in a body called the East Midlands procurement hub. Figures nationally suggest the price paid by trusts for the same knee joint can vary from 1,400 to 2,500. Orthopaedic surgeon Andrew Browns department is already saving thousands of pounds on knee joints With Leicester performing 1,600 knee and hip replacements each year, the trust hoped to make significant savings. However, it found that its existing deal was better than the average price the hub was able to deliver.

They think if they go to a hub that they might get a better deal [but] they dont really know what a better deal looks like. The hubs may be competing with each other in a not very effective way. Our conclusion in the report was that there needed to be a fundamental rationalization of the hubs, because too many of them are doing the same thing not very effectively. By not setting procurement as a performance target, the government is banking on trusts taking the initiative. It hopes a new system of barcoding hospital supplies will help trusts shop more effectively for low-cost, high-value consumable goods, and wants trusts to cooperate more to negotiate the best deals from suppliers. Health minister Simon Burns insists that the impetus must come from the trusts themselves:

Food waste on staggering scale

People are needlessly throwing away 3.6m tonnes of food each year in England and Wales, research suggests. The Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) found that salad, fruit and bread were most commonly wasted and 60% of all dumped food was untouched. The study analysed the waste disposed of by 2,138 households. Environment Minister Joan Ruddock said the findings were staggering at a time of global food shortages and WRAP added it was an environmental issue. Value of food The study found that 9bn of avoidable food waste was disposed of in England and Wales each year. It is mostly food that could have been consumed if it had been better stored or managed, or had not been left uneaten on a plate. Much of that food waste goes into landfill rather than into council food disposal and composting programmes, it said. Based on the data for England and Wales, WRAP estimated that householders across the UK throw away 10.2bn of avoidable food waste every year. Using the same extrapolation, they also estimated the average UK household needlessly throws away 18% of all food purchased. Families with children throw away 27%. The study also suggested 1bn worth of food wasted in the UK was still in date. Nearly a quarter, in terms of cost, was disposed of because the use by or best before date had expired. Liz Goodwin, chief executive of WRAP, said food waste had a significant environmental impact. What shocked me the most was the cost of our food waste at a time of rising food bills, and generally a tighter pull on our purse strings, Ms Goodwin said. It highlights that this is an economic and social issue, as well as about how much we understand the value of our food. The study also found that: Bakery goods made up 19%, by weight, of all avoidable food waste. Vegetables contributed 18%. Meat and fish also made up a large proportion - 18% - of the total money wasted on food. WRAP said 5,500 whole chickens were thrown away each day in the UK. Mixed foods like ready meals made up 21% of the total cost of waste, with 440,000 thrown away each day. The two most significantly wasted foods that could have been eaten were potatoes and bread Yoghurt was a commonly abandoned product, with an estimated 1.3m unopened pots disposed of each day. WRAP receives government funding from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The body says The Food We Waste survey is the first of its kind in the world, surveying both household habits and the actual waste they throw away. The survey interviewed 2,715 households in England and Wales and several weeks later, analysed the rubbish of 2,138 of them. Ms Ruddock said: This is costing consumers three times over Not only do they pay hard-earned money for food they dont eat, there is also the cost of dealing with the waste this creates. And there are climate change costs to all of us of growing, processing, packaging, transporting, and refrigerating food that only ends up in the bin. taken from. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7389351. stm

RECYCLING HOUSEHOLD WASTE

About 29 million tonnes of municipal waste, 87% of which was household waste, was produced in England in 2003/04. Most waste ends up in landfill sites; only 19% of household waste is currently recycled or composted. Recycling is widely assumed to be environmentally beneficial, although the collection, sorting and processing of materials gives rise to some environmental impacts and energy use.summarises the environmental impacts of recycling household waste, and examines some of the reasons why recycling rates are still relatively low. Background Responsibility for waste is devolved. This note deals with England only. England disposes of 72% of its municipal waste in landfills, yet much In 2003/04, Englands municipal waste recycling and composting rates increased to 19% from 15.6% in 2002/031. It is difficult to compare recycling rates between countries as different measurements are used. Nevertheless, other EU countries such as the Netherlands, Austria, and Belgium appear to achieve much higher levels of recycling: more than 50% in some cases. The 2005/06 household waste recycling target for the UK is 25%2. Policy The main statutory driver behind household waste reduction is the 1999 EU Landfill Directive, which aims to prevent or reduce the environmental effects of landfilling waste3. The Directive requires that the UK reduces the amount of biodegradable waste going to landfill to 75% of 1995 levels , by 2010. The focus is on reducing the amount of biodegradable waste sent to landfill because it decays to produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. Although household waste accounts for only 9% of total UK waste, a high proportion is landfilled and recycling rates are low. The then Department for Transport, Environment and the Regions Waste Strategy 2000 set a target of increasing recycling rates of municipal waste to 30% in England and Wales by 20104. Government recycling initiatives The Household Waste Recycling Act was introduced in 2003. It requires all English local authorities to provide kerbside collections for a minimum of two recyclable materials for all householders by 20105,6. Nearly all local authorities in England have schemes to recycle the largest fractions of recyclable household waste (paper/cardboard and glass), and 79% of households are

now served by kerbside collection schemes. To improve recycling, the government established WRAP7 (Waste & Resources Action Programme) in 2001 to stimulate markets for recycled materials. Recycling Recycling is widely assumed to be environmentally beneficial, although collecting, sorting and processing materials does give rise to environmental impacts and energy use. The pros and cons of recycling some common components of household waste, that is, paper, glass, metal cans and plastics, are outlined in box 1. Table 1 summarises the current impact of recycling in the UK, compared with manufacture from raw materials. The elements of household waste most commonly collected for recycling are garden waste for composting, then paper and third glass. Metal cans make up only 1% by weight of the material collected for recycling, but recycling them offers high energy and material savings Plastic recycling is not very common, partly because few facilities exist to handle the material. Collection is complicated by the need to segregate waste plastics into the various different types. Since plastic bottles are made from only three different types of plastic, collecting them offers the greatest potential for increasing household plastic recycling.

Plastic bags make up only 1% of household waste by weight, but some 20% of total household plastic waste. Some groups argue that we should recycle more plastic bags as they are a highly visible and persistent feature of the litter stream that also pose a threat to wildlife. However, plastic bags are not routinely collected by kerbside recycling schemes. One of the reasons for this is that their low density makes their collection and recycling uneconomic. Government recycling targets currently focus on weight of waste rather than volume, so plastic recycling schemes are difficult to operate economically because plastic is so light. This approach was criticised in a 2003 report on waste management by the Commons Environment, Food & Rural Affairs Select Committee, which recommended that the government move away from targets based purely on weight8.

Taken from http://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/postpn252.pdf

Costing a packet minimising packaging waste.

Everyone, including manufacturers and retailers, wants as little packaging as possible. However, the UK produces approximately 11 million tonnes of packaging waste every year1. Defra estimates that around half of this packaging waste comes from the commercial and industrial waste stream and half from household waste. The vast majority of consumer packaging waste is collected by local authorities, through their collection schemes, predominantly from the kerbside. There is a hefty cost to this, but local authorities receive no financial assistance from the producers/packers/fillers or retailers, all of whom profit by its use. Most packaging is essential for our daily lives and overall it prevents 10 times more waste than it generates. Retailers and the packaging industry have set out a lot of positives to packaging and its use within the UK as outlined below: Although packaging has an obvious role in containing products and displaying information, its main purpose is to stop goods being damaged or spoiled e.g. in store wastage of grapes2 packed in bags or sealed trays is 20 per cent less than the waste from those sold loose. Households generate far more food and drink waste (8.3 mt pa3) than used packaging (4.7 mt). Almost half (44%4) of this packaging is collected for recycling5. Manufacturers and retailers are working to make packaging more resource efficient and, where possible, reduce it and use recycled materials. Figures for 2007 from the European Union show that the UK uses less packaging per person (175kg) than many other European countries including the Netherlands and Italy (212kg), France (202kg) and Germany (196kg)6. Progress has been made in reducing packaging. Glass containers today are on average 20 per cent lighter than they were in 1990; the weight of cans has fallen by 30 per cent, yogurt pots 40 per cent and carrier bags 45 per cent7.

The root of our current policy is the EC Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste (94/62/EC), as amended by Directive 2004/12/EC). The Directive was introduced to create a single market for packaging and to increase recycling and recovery levels across the EU. Two sets of regulations transpose the Directive in the United Kingdom. The UK Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations 2003 (as amended) cover, among other things, the Directives provisions on minimisation, requirements for recoverable and re-useable packaging, and excess packaging. These Regulations require packaging to be manufactured so that its volume and weight are limited to the minimum adequate amount to maintain the necessary level of safety, hygiene and acceptance for the packed product and for the consumer. (BIS) The Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 2007 (as amended) require businesses with an annual turnover in excess of 2 million and which handle more than 50 tonnes of packaging a year to recover and recycle a proportion of the packaging they handle. (Defra). The UK Government has set business targets which must be met by obligated companies each year to ensure that the UK meets its national targets as set under the EU Directive. The UK business targets are higher than the Directive targets because under the UK system smaller businesses, and the packaging they produce, are exempt from the obligations, whereas the EU directive targets apply to all packaging waste. In December 2011, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) published a consultation paper on increased recycling targets for packaging producers from 2013 to 2017 and on a sub-target for recycling of glass into re-melt applications. A final decision will be made in the 2012 Budget. Text from Costing a packet minimising packaging waste:a London Councils position paper. by London Councils http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/policylobbying/environment/ waste/costingapacket.htm

Often packaging of fruit and vegetables comprised plastic bags, although the market did provide paper bags. This is an approach that could be taken by more retailers to improve the proportion of their waste that is recyclable. The majority of packaging on the meat products was rubbish. The packaging on a fresh pizza varied between retailers, from a simple cardboard box or a cardboard base and shrink-wrapping - both good approaches - to a plastic or polystyrene base, shrink-wrapped and contained in a box. While the cardboard box is recyclable, the number of layers in these cases seemed excessive.

The plastic tubes provide sufficient packaging for the cookies but in some cases a tray was also part of the packaging, providing further waste in a layer of packaging that could be considered unnecessary. Retailers could also focus on reducing the size of the packaging in relation to the volume of the product, to reduce the quantities of waste produced. The market set a good example by providing a loaf of bread in a paper bag, whilst the seven other retailers had wrapped the bread in a plastic film or plastic bag. The baked beans, jam and milk came in the same form of packaging for all retailers: a can for the beans, a glass jar for the jam and a plastic bottle for the milk. Apart from the tops on the jar and milk bottle, the packaging for these products were all recyclable. The objective of this research was to inform the Local Government Associations War on Waste campaign, which seeks to address the amount of rubbish produced and the way in which it is thrown away. BMRB Social Research were commissioned to monitor food packaging levels in a shopping basket, in terms of amount of packaging (including in relation to volume of food)

War on Waste Food Packaging Study

Each year the UK generates about 30 million tonnes of waste from households1, most of which ends up in landfill. Britain dumps more household waste into landfill than nearly all other countries in the European Union (around three-quarters of its municipal waste goes to landfill; only Portugal and Greece put more there2). The objective of this research is to inform the Local Government Associations War on Waste campaign, which seeks to address the amount of rubbish produced and the way in which it is thrown away. This study monitored food packaging levels for a basket of 29 common food items that had been purchased from eight retailers. These were: ASDA Lidl Marks and Spencer Morrisons Sainsburys Tesco a local high street a large market. The over all results showed that On average, 5% of the total weight of the shopping baskets were made up of packaging. The average weight of packaging in a basket was 748.5 grams, but this ranged from 684.5 grams for Tescos basket to 799.5 grams for Lidls basket. Overall, the best performing retailers have low levels of packaging, but also a high proportion of recyclable waste. They were Asda and the market. The total weight of packaging in the basket from Sainsburys was 749g, of which 70% (525g) was made from recyclable materials. Within their basket: The sugar was packaged in a recyclable paper bag. The pizza was on a polystyrene base and shrink-wrapped (rubbish), but then packaged in a recyclable cardboard box. Four of the ten fruit and vegetable items were available without any packaging. The total weight of packaging in the basket from Marks and Spencer was 782g, of which 60% (469g) was made from recyclable materials. Within their basket: The pizza was shrink-wrapped onto a polystyrene base, although it had an outer cardboard layer that was recyclable. The

and composition of that packaging (for example, whether the packaging is recyclable). A range of common food items (29 items), representing a regular shopping basket were purchased from eight retailers (six supermarkets - ASDA, Lidl, Marks and Spencer, Morrisons, Sainsburys and Tesco - a local high street and a large market) Analysis involved recording the total weight of the product and recording the total weight of the packaging. The component parts of the packaging were weighed separately to measure the proportion of packaging that was recyclable or rubbish. An estimate of the volume of the food in relation to the packaging was also provided, to consider cases of excessive packaging. Photographs of the shopping baskets were taken before analysis and of the piles of waste created. This exercise will be repeated every six months for two years, in order to record the trends in food packaging over time.

Five of the ten fruit and vegetable items were available to purchase without any packaging. The researchers drew the following conclusions: There were some items on the shopping list that appeared to be somewhat over-packaged, such as shrink-wrapping on peppers and broccoli, or excessive layers of packaging, or packaging that was much larger than the contents of the product and had low volume measures (for example, cornflakes, meat, tomatoes and crisps).

Taken from the war on waste packaging study, from the local governmanet assosiation. http://new.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/1098616

plastic waste to be tackled by government

The government will call on councils and businesses to beef up plastic recycling capacity and better realise the financial value arising from the hundreds of thousands of tonnes of waste plastics discarded each year. In a speech to be delivered at the headquarters of Recoup, a charity that promotes and supports plastic recycling initiatives, Defra minister Lord Taylor of Holbeach will argue that waste plastics represent one of the easiest and most cost-effective areas for the UK to meet its binding recycling targets. Describing the continued disposal of plastic bottles and other plastic products to landfill as shameful, Taylor will confirm that government figures show how last year around 240,000 tonnes of plastic bottles were sent to landfill by households with access to kerbside plastic recycling collection equivalent to nearly half of all bottles used. He will add that the plastic bottles sent to landfill would have been worth around 91m if they had been recycled. Last months budget set a new target for plastic recycling of 42 per cent by 2017, and Taylor will argue that the best way to meet the target will be to make quick progress on recycling plastic bottles. Over half a million tonnes of plastic are used each year to provide us with bottles for drinks, shampoo and kitchen cleaners, yet half of this ends up at the dump, he will say. The vast majority of these bottles could easily be recycled, and this shocking waste is costing the economy millions of pounds. I want to see a major push to end this sorry state, with businesses, councils and householders all doing their bit to address the problem. Defra is working with Recoup, the advisory committee on packaging and industry, to explore the possibility of a responsibility deal to help raise awareness among households and businesses on the steps they can take to help increase plastic bottle recycling. A spokeswoman for Defra told BusinessGreen the talks were at an early stage and the department was considering a number of options, including a package of voluntary targets for the recycling industry similar to those adopted by waste levels under the Courtauld Agreement. The department also indicated that any deal could emulate the successful Metal Matters campaign, which increased recycling of drinks cans by 21 per cent through leafleting households in a selection of areas. In addition, a number of councils are currently running trials looking at how recycling incentive schemes, such as those run by US firm RecycleBank, which provide households with reward points based on how much they recycle, can help drive up recycling rates. The government is supportive of the model and keen to see more trials rolled out. However, the latest speculation about a new voluntary agreement on plastic recycling is unlikely to appease some recycling firms, which have criticised the governments waste strategy and accused ministers of failing to take a sufficiently robust legislative approach to improving recycling rates and driving investment in new recycling capacity. By: James Murray for for BusinessGreen, part of the Guardian Environment Network guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 May 2012 11.38 BST Website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/may/03/shameful-plastic-waste-government

Shouldering the burden of recycling supermarket packaging

Fancy packaging on supermarket goods is costing us more in council tax. The news comes from a report by the Local Government Association (LGA) out today, looking at how much rubbish is produced by the countrys different supermarket chains. It has revealed that tax payers are shouldering the burden of recycling the wrapping that comes with the food we buy. According to the report, in a typical basket of shopping almost 40 per cent of supermarket food packaging cannot be easily recycled. And the Kent Green Party has reacted with concern that after 20 years of intensive improvement we still have problems. Councils have to pay 32 for every tonne of rubbish they throw away and, between 2008 and 2011, local councils across the country are predicted to spend 1.8 billion landfill tax. Steve Dawe, spokesperson for the Kent Green Party, said: It isnt just a cost to us as council tax payers, its a cost in terms of priorities for our local councils and its a cost to the environment with this constant search for new landfill sites. Paul Vanston, Kent Waste Partnership (KWP) programmes and projects manager at Kent County Council said that it has improved recycling by 40 per cent and reduced landfill waste from 80 per cent to 20 per cent in the past 10 years. Thats our main job on behalf of residents, he said. However, we also do our best to influence government policy and national issues. The KWPs efforts are to work with the LGA, the Packaging Federation and supermarkets because reducing food and packaging waste can only happen when everyone gets around the table and arrives at a consensus on what to do. Mr Vanston said that KWP is working with these organisations to raise the issues and lobby for changes where needed. The fact that Kent is the leading county on the national Love Food Hate Waste campaign is a sign that were ready and willing to be bold and innovative when it comes to protecting the money in residents pockets at the same time as protecting the environment.

This also leads to massive movements of heavy goods vehicles that contribute to Kents general traffic problems. He thinks the answer lies with the public, though. If people favour goods with minimum packaging then the message will get home, he added.

Consumers have the power, supermarkets will only do so much. Theyll be led by the consumer. The LGA is instead calling on the Government to make retailers responsible for funding the collection of packaging so they have a direct incentive to produce less

Cllr Margaret Eaton, chairman of the LGA, said: Britain is the dustbin of Europe. Taxpayers dont want to see their money going towards paying landfill taxes and EU fines when council tax could be reduced instead. If retailers create unnecessary rubbish, they should help taxpayers by paying for it to be recycled.

Text by : Caroline McGuire - Tuesday, February 17 2009 For kent online http://www.kentonline.co.uk/ kentonline/newsarchive. aspx?articleid=57342 photo top : photo from : http:// www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1147321/Waitrose-worstusing-excess-packaging-Callrecycling-levy-supermarkets. html photo below : photo from : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ news/article-2075942/Storestold-cut-packaging-year--facecrackdown.html

Recycling still the most effective waste disposal method, report finds
Report for UK government refutes persistent claims that recycling is a waste of time, calls for better facilities and an increase in incineration. Recycling is almost always the best way to get rid of waste, even when it is exported abroad, according to the biggest ever report on the industry for the UK government. The report, which addresses persistent claims that householders are often wasting their time recycling, calls for better recycling facilities but also an increase in incineration of waste, an option that is opposed by many environment groups. It also backed up last weeks controversial report

Text by Juliette Jowit guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 March 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/16/recycling-waste-disposal

published by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs warning that biopolymer plastics made from crops should be recycled rather than put into compost, despite being widely marketed as biodegradable. Wrap, the governments waste and packaging agency, said it had analysed 200 reports covering seven different materials: paper and cardboard, plastics, bio polymers, food, garden cuttings, wood and textiles. The experts then looked at the evidence for seven methods of disposal, including recycling, composting, incineration and landfill, measured by four different criteria: energy use, water use, other resource use, and greenhouse gas emissions. In more than four out of five cases, recycling was the clear winner, said Keith James, Wraps environmental policy manager. But there were different messages for different materials, said James. For biopolymers, I think the preferable option is recycling, which isnt what people have commonly thought, he said

For textiles, theres not very many statistics, but what there is shows reuse is clearly optimal, followed by recycling and then energy recovery [incineration]. For food and garden waste, anaerobic digestion looks preferable; then composting and incineration with energy recovery come out very similar. For plastics, we have got strong evidence this time that recycling is the better option, because recycling has improved. For wood, recycling looks preferable. For paper and cardboard, what the statistics throw out is the importance of quality: the higher the quality [paper and cardboard], the better it is to recycle, but as you go down to the lower end, energy recovery [incineration] may be preferable. The good showing for incineration preferred for a small number of items and often the next best option after recycling will be controversial with some environmental campaigners who worry about the pollution from recycling plants,

and that incineration becomes an easy option that deters investment in proper recycling. However, the option of incineration was only preferred when it was using the best technology and generating energy, preferably energy that was directly replacing fossil fuel use, which is blamed for the greenhouse gas emissions that help cause global warming, said James. Energy recovery has a role to play, and if were trying to divert more waste from landfill, we need to increase recycling and increase some energy recovery. But we need to make sure we get the right technologies, he said. As well as analysing recycling in the UK, the study also considered the impact of transporting waste to other countries often China for recycling. It found that overseas transport was still better than sending it to landfill. The important thing is, because were in an international economy ... [that if] were sending metal back to China for recycling, its coming back around the circle again, said James.

According to Defra, in 2008-9 the total waste collected from the UKs 25m households dropped slightly to 24.3m tonnes, or 473kg per person. Of this, 9.1m tonnes 178kg per person was recycled, a bit more than a third. Almost all of the remainder went to landfill. Defra has a policy of encouraging more incineration, but no formal targets, said a spokesman. We cant keep on sending waste to landfill, said the spokesman. People are already reducing the amount of waste they produce, and are reusing and recycling more, and we are working hard to increase this. Some waste will always be produced, but it can be valuable in generating renewable energy through anaerobic digestion or incineration. In 2006, Wrap published a preliminary analysis of a different set of materials. But it used a much smaller collection of evidence. And it did not examine the newer energy-from-waste options of gasification and pyrolysis, both of which involve not burning but heating materials until a chemical reaction changes them into gases and residue

Recycling rates in England: how does your town compare?

How much do you recycle? According to the latest data from Defra, English household rates are at a record high - at 40% of household rubbish. The figures show that the average recycling rate for English councils was 41.2% between April 2010 and March 2011, up from 39.7% the year before. Recycling rates have been nudging up annually in the past decade but the rate of progress been begun to slow since 2008, a trend that continued last year. But it also shows that recycling is not at the same rate around the country - its stronger in some boroughs than others. Rochford district council and South Oxfordshire district council topped the recycling league tables. The two councils came top with recycling, reuse and composting rates of 65.79% and 65.11% respectively, with Ashford borough council bottom of the rankings with a rate of just 14%. Interestingly, were also producing less rubbish than ever before - around 449kg per person per year. And despite a growing population - theres a 0.9% reduction to 23.5m tonnes of total rubbish. But that rate of decrease is slowing. But, good as those figures are, were still worse than other countries, as Hanna Garsman writes : the UK produces more household waste per head of population than many of its European neighbours, with an average of 449kg per year, compared to 406kg for the European average Weve extracted the key data below. What can you do with it? by Simon Rogers Friday 4 November 2011 12.45 guardian.co.uk taken from.: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/ nov/04/recycling-rates-englanddata
Taken from http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/g-e-says-eco-eco-hello-hello/

http://www.interbiketimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/Vandermark-ad.jpg

A small town in Germany where recycling pays...

The less waste households put out for incineration, the less they pay. Its why Neustadt an der Weinstrasses recycling rates are the toast of Germany. The citizens of Neustadt an der Weinstrasse take their recycling very seriously. So much so that there is even a collection point at the recycling depot for dead animals. People bring their dead dogs here, says Stefan Weiss, one of the towns waste managers, as he steps into a refrigerated shed and opens the lid on a wheelie bin containing a deers head recently deposited by a local hunter. All these animals get rendered down at a nearby facility for their fat. It then gets used to produce things like this. Weiss pulls a tube of lip balm from his pocket. Located in the south-western state of Rheinland-Pfalz and set in the heart of Palatinate wine-growing region, the predominantly middle-class, medieval town of Neustadt boasts the best recycling rates in Germany. Over the past 30 years, the town has nurtured and refined a system that means it now recycles about 70% of its waste 16% higher than the state target. By comparison, UK recycling rates average about 40% up from just 5% in the mid-1990s. The reason for Neustadts success is simple, says Weiss. Its all about providing financial incentives and education. We dont charge citizens anything for the recycled waste they leave out. And the less waste you put out for incineration weve had no landfill in Germany since 2005 the less you pay. Having no incentive to reduce waste is poisonous to your aims. We have a separate, visible fee that is intentionally not embedded within a local tax. For example, the majority of Neustadts 28,000 households opt for a 60-litre bin for their non-recycled waste. This is collected once a fortnight and costs the household 6.60 in collection fees. If a household opts for a 40l bin, the fee falls to 5.30. Conversely, if they opt for a 240l bin (the standard wheelie bin volume in the UK), the fee rises to 24, or 48 if they want it collected weekly. If they produce higher than expected waste due to, say, having a party, they can buy special 60l plastic sacks for 3 and leave them out by their bins for collection. When it comes to recycling, householders are asked to sort their items and bag them into three groupings: paper/cardboard; glass; and plastics/foils/cans. The latter grouping goes into a yellow bag and can include anything from Styrofoam and yoghurt pots through to aluminium foil and Tetrapaks. Compost bins are provided for those with gardens to dispose of organic waste. Everything else batteries, toys, timber, old TVs, tins of paint, dead pets must be taken to the recycling depot a mile or so from the town centre. Larger loads of waste debris from a house renovation, say can be dumped at the depot for a fee of 5 for loads up to 100kg, although households are limited to one load a week.

Our waste costs are actually lower now than when we started and we even turn a slight profit some years when the commodity prices are high. As a non-profit, this money just gets reinvested. Further proof that the system works is provided by neighbouring regions which use different systems. For example, one charges according to the number of people who live in the home, whereas another offers one option: a weekly collection of a 100l bin. These regions both produce 100kg more waste per person per year than we do here, says Weiss. But he also believes that Neustadt has probably gone as far as it can with maximising recycling. Getting to 80% would be impossible. There are behavioural issues such as those few people who still mix up their waste. Plus, there is a fixed percentage of people who live in high-density housing without access to gardens or outside storage. Gabrielle Stahl lives on a hill overlooking the town in the leafy suburb of Hambach. She didnt even know Neustadt boasted Germanys best recycling rates, but isnt surprised:

We are all very normalised to the system here. There is no controversy or debate whatsoever about our rubbish. Stahl, who lives with her husband and shares bins with her mother who lives next door, opens the cupboard beneath her sink to reveal two waste caddies containing vegetable peelings and non-recyclable domestic waste. In the cellar below, the family stores its bottles and yellow bag material. They have paid extra to have a dedicated wheelie bin for their paper and card outside. The bags kept splitting, she explains. One day every fortnight, four lorries pull up outside Stahls home to separately collect each waste stream. If they miss a bag, you just ring them up and a car comes back to collect it. Once or twice a year, I will drive down to the depot and get rid of things like old furniture or a broken appliance, but thats it. And in the summer, I buy a chemical patch from the supermarket to stick on the inside of the bin to kill the flies and maggots.

The only thing that could be improved is that I would like a separate collection for organic waste as sometimes I produce too much for my compost heap. Back at the recycling depot, Stefan Weiss moves on to the subject of enforcement. Or rather, the lack of it. In theory, we have the power to fine people if they dont sort their waste. But we never do this because it costs too much to investigate. And we just dont have an issue with flytipping because we make the system so cheap and easy to use. We still get the odd complaint about the move to fortnightly collections, or that our bins are ugly, but that really is about it. A car towing a trailer full of construction waste pulls up at the weigh-station by the entrance gate. Weiss wanders over to inspect the contents. This weighs about half of tonne. If will cost 270 to dump it as it is. Or if the car owner sorts it into separate types of waste timber, paper, plasterboard etc it will cost him just 17. That, in summary, is our system. We provide a major incentive to recycle.

Bigger loads command much higher commercial fees. For those without a car, a calendar is provided each year to households marking pick-up days for different types of waste, or private firms are available to take away waste on demand for a fee. We started this simple fee system in 2006 and we find it works, says Weiss. We have been sorting our waste since the early 1980s, but in 1989 we joined up with other towns in the region and formed our own waste company to process the waste more efficiently.

Text and photos taken from, Leo Hickman in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse The Guardian, Friday 18 March 2011 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/ mar/18/recycling-waste

Photo 1: taken from http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ commons/5/5d/Glass_and_plastic_recycling_065_ubt.JPG photo 2 : taken from German Missions in South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland http://www.southafrica.diplo.de/Vertretung/ suedafrika/en/10__GIC/05__Env/Nature__Env/ Awareness.html photo 3 : Taken from the guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/ mar/18/recycling-waste

Increased recycling could create 50,000 jobs, report finds

Ambitious targets to increase the amount of rubbish recycled in the UK could help create more than 50,000 jobs, a report suggested today. The study by Friends of the Earth said 51,400 jobs could be created if 70% of waste collected by local councils were recycled. And another 18,800 jobs would be created if commercial and industrial waste were recycled at the same rate. According to the study, recycling creates 10 times more jobs per tonne than sending rubbish to landfill or incineration, with posts generated in collection, sorting and reprocessing, as well as in the supply chain and in the wider economy. In 2008, the UK recycled around 37% of municipal waste rubbish collected by local councils from households and other sources such as street sweepings and public bins Under EU rules, that has to rise to 50% by 2020. While Wales and Scotland have announced they plan to recycle 70% of council-collected waste by 2025, Northern Ireland and England, where most rubbish is thrown away, are still aiming to recycle only 50%. If the UK were to set and meet the ambitious 70% target, it could create 29,400 jobs in the recycling industry, a further 14,700 in the supply chain and 7,300 in the wider economy, the report estimates. The Friends of the Earth waste campaigner Julian Kirby said: Recycling is a win-win for the environment and the economy saving precious resources and creating many more jobs than expensive and outdated incinerators.

The government must be ambitious in setting recycling rates better product design, as well as action to stop supermarkets and producers selling products that cant be recycled, means that we could easily achieve upwards of 75% recycling rates by 2025. If the coalition is serious about creating a green, jobsrich economy then it must unlock the wealth in our waste and help consumers to recycle as much as possible. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/14/recyclingjobs-england