Thursday, August 31, 2006

London, Hackney - No Junk Mail trial


After many events around Hackney and after promoting "No Junk Mail" stickers to residents, I have had different answers to the efficiency of these stickers in letterboxes to stop junk mail getting into houses. I decided to recruit 30 volunteers within the Hackney area to carry out my trial:

• 4 September - 1 October: Start date & 1st phase of trial. We will provide you with 2 cotton bags to collect your junk mail. Collect all junk mail received beginning on September 4. Put it all into the green cotton bag. Let everyone in your household know, so nothing is accidentally thrown away or recycled.

• 2 -7 October: Collection of junk mail. The recycling team will be collecting the green bag with the junk mail. We will contact you to arrange collection.

• 2 October – 29 October: 2nd phase begins. Put your Sticker on your letterbox! On the evening of the 1st of October or very early morning on the 2nd, please stick your ‘no junk mail’ sticker on your letterbox, and get your second green bag out ready to use to collect any junk mail.

• 30 October – 5 November: Collection of junk mail. The recycling team will be collecting the second green bag with the junk mail you collected. We will contact you to arrange collection.

• After 5 November: £20 M&S voucher & green bags returned. After we have successfully collected both bags from the two separate phases we will give you a £20 M&S voucher, and your green cotton recycling bags will be returned!

This is the timetable I sent to those participating to check for the efficiency of the stickers in reducing junk mail. The data will be ready by November. I have been calling every single participant to remind them about the trial start date and clarifying other points to make sure the results is as accurate as possible.

Technorati Tags: waste minimisation

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

UK - IKEA against plastic bags



On the 5th of June, IKEA UK will make a pledge to reduce plastic bag usage from 32 million per year to 12 million per year. We will achieve this by encouraging our customers to refrain from using plastic bags by charging 5p per bag. We will reduce the price of the Blue bag to 25p to encourage customers to switch to a re-useable bag. IKEA will not make any profits from this. The profits will be donated to local community forests.

Click here to read their press release. It is very informative. Very proactice like Lidl


Technorati Tags: waste minimisation