Materials Recycling Week
2 September 2005
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Beatles fans encouraged to recycle
An initiative in Liverpool has provided the ideal solution for dealing with the mountains of waste created by festival-goers. More than 300,000 people danced and drank at the mainly-Beatles themed Mathew Street Festival over the bank holiday weekend, dropping or binning a huge number of cans. Chris Hennessy from Merseyside Community Recycling Forum said: "Instead of them heading for landfill, we want to get them recycled. Gaskills have donated enough commercial wheelie b -
Bradshaw and Letwin to speak at LARAC conference
Delegates at this year's Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC) annual conference will have the pleasure of hearing both sides of the political argument. Both Environment Minister Ben Bradshaw and Shadow Environment Secretary Oliver Letwin have pledged to speak at the event, which is being held at the Sheffield City Hall on 25 and 26 October. Mr Letwin is scheduled to publicise the Conservative party's view on recycling on the first day of the conference, w -
BRC names Valpak as WEEE compliance scheme
Valpak has been named as the British Retail Consortium's (BRC) selected company to run its Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Retail Compliance Scheme. The Retail Compliance Scheme was created by the BRC as a practical alternative to retailers having to set up free in-store take back of WEEE to meet the obligations of the WEEE Directive. Instead, retailers will be able to put money into a central pot that will be used to upgrade civic amenity (CA) sites. This is b -
Comment: Recycling at festivals works
Last weekend was a weekend of festivals taking advantage of the August Bank Holiday. The ones that immediately come to mind are the Reading/Leeds festival, the Notting Hill Carnival and the Mathew Street Festival in Liverpool, which is dedicated to all things Beatles and Liverpudlian music. With the lovely weather in many parts of the country making enjoying yourself thirsty and hungry work, it was also an ideal opportunity to get people recycling. A few months back, we -
Cory shows improved environmental performance
Cory Environmental is closing in on its target of having 80% of sites ISO 14001 accredited by the end of 2005. It's 2004 Environmental report shows massive recycling increases across the board. It details no enforcement notices for the fifth consecutive year, with 71% of sites now accredited. Cory's commitment to reducing the country's dependence on fossil fuels is illustrated in the increase of electricity generated from landfill gas. In 2004, this surged by a fifth to -
Feature: A look east for the paper market
At the end of a decidedly quiet month, the UK recovered paper sector has been left to reflect once again on a year which has failed to scale the anticipated heights. Price movements have been restricted almost exclusively to the export market, while the low volumes of recovered paper entering merchant processors' yards are being moved fairly easily, despite lacklustre demand. "We are only just starting to hear from the traders again and a lot of the mill buyers are still away," not -
Feature: Canning plan for steel recovery
The benefits of packaging recovery note (PRN) investment are well and truly coming to fruition in steel recovery, says a new report from steel company Corus. The company's latest annual PRN report, Targeting Recycling, outlines its reinvestment throughout 2004 in both research and practical solutions to improve recycling rates for cans. In order to meet 2008 targets, strategic development is a critical part of improving levels of steel packaging recycling and, to this end,Corus -
Feature: Swings and roundabouts
In terms of overall recovered paper consumption and intake, latest statistics for 2005 bear a striking resemblance to those for the same period last year. However, analysis of the individual classes of recovered paper reveals some clear differences. Consumption by UK mills totalled 2.305 million tonnes in the first six months of this year - a slender 0.8% ahead of the 2.288 million tonnes recorded in the first half of 2004, according to figures from the Confederation of Paper Industries. -
New type of composter to open at Dimmer landfill site
Britain's first in-vessel rotary composting site to turn food waste into compost will be officially opened at the Dimmer landfill site near Castle Cary next week. The environment spokesman for the Confederation of British Industry Michael Roberts will perform the opening, with 50 invited CBI guests getting a first chance to see the composting in action. Wyvern are leading the operation with the help of a new facility developed in New Zealand by Andar. Managing Director, -
News analysis: Packaging Regulations changes
Last week's announcement of a new consultation on the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997 hardly came as a surprise for the recycling and waste management industry. But many people in the industry were largely happy with what the Government was suggesting - mainly because many of them were involved to a degree in putting together the consultation document along with representatives from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra -
Publishing house prints first 'green' book
UK publisher Egmont Press will publish its first book printed on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) this month. The move will be in conjunction with its decision to adopt a 'green' way of book production. The first 'green' book, which will have both the text paper and cover printed on paper bearing the FSC mixed sources logo, will be Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo. The FSC logo is a mark that ensures that the virgin fibre used in the paper comes fro -
Recycle Now proves a winner for funding
Celebrating the widespread success of the Recycle Now campaign's first year, the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has announced that funding for the scheme has been secured until March 2008. To share the good news, representatives from local authorities and other stakeholders are invited to an all day event in Birmingham on September 7 where they will be given details of the next six months and an outline of the coming two years. WRAP head of communications an -
Recycling to star in soaps
Mainstream soaps such as Eastenders and Coronation Street have started to include recycling messages thanks to a major drive by national recycling campaign, Recycle Now. Eastenders' character Jane -
Textile recycler supports County Air Ambulance
A Staffordshire-based company is the first textile recycler in the country to run a scheme supporting County Air Ambulance, the entirely publicly funded paramedic response service. The new scheme, initiated by recycler Staffordshire Textiles, involves textile collection banks labelled with the joint venture as well as a door-to-door pick-up service. The clothing collected will be exported to needy recipients in Eastern Europe and the recycler has agreed to donate a specific price p -
Three Rivers shows the way with real nappies
Everyone's a winner when it comes to real nappies in the Three Rivers District Council area. Under the council's Real Nappy Incentive Scheme, a staggering quarter of a million disposables have been saved from landfill, with parents pocketing up to £80 for using real nappies. The remarkable numbers were recorded from 67 families signed up to the scheme since it was introduced in April 2003. That's enough nappies to fill an astonishing 17 refuse trucks. Si -
WRAP reaches out to construction industry
A programme of summer breakfast briefings has reached professionals in the UK construction industry responsible for £11 billion of spend. The reconstruct series organised by the Waste and Resource Action Programme (WRAP) comprised of eleven events. These were aimed at increasing the proportion of recycled materials used in construction projects to at least 10%. The success of the briefings was illustrated with 112 delegates (70%) indicating they would consider sett
