London - Hackney's Shop SMART campaign

Say yes to cotton bags at the counter and help reduce plastic bag waste!

Plastic carrier bags have become an inevitable part of the high street shopping experience. A staggering 150,000,000 plastic bags are used in the UK every week, and each one takes around 100 years to rot away!

Hackney Council’s recycling team are on a mission to wipe out plastic bag waste in Hackney. The recycling team has visited shops around Hackney and distributed a supply of cotton bags, for the shop keepers to hand out at the counter with purchases. When residents shop at these stores, they will be offered a free cotton bag instead of a plastic carrier bag.

The cotton bags have some handy ‘shop smart’ hints printed on them, to remind residents to reduce the amount of waste produce whilst shopping.

Once you have your cotton bag, you can do your bit to make London cleaner and greener by:
• Using your shopping bag over and over again
• Remembering to take the cotton bag with you every time you go shopping. The cotton bags fold up well inside a handbag!
• Let the check out staff know you’ve brought your own before they pack for you!

See the list of shops taking part in this scheme below, and why not pop in to your local participating store and get your cotton bag today!




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London - Hackney Nappy Week celebrations

Real Nappy Week 2007 proved to be very popular for residents in Hackney, with swarms of parents and children attending the week’s events. Prize draws, face painting and fashion shows were just some of the activities happening.

The week kick started with a disposable nappy waste mountain in the Town Hall square. With over 2000 disposable nappies used each year per baby it was certainly a sight.

Parents and babies who attended Hackney’s first ever real nappy fashion show enjoyed a fun packed day out, with refreshments, music and entertainment for the older children. The fashion show was a great success, with lots of parents pledging to use real nappies after seeing how funky and easy real cloth nappies are. The recycling team would like to thank all of the budding young models who took to the runway on the day!

Hackney’s Real Nappy Network also attended Stoke Newington’s Farmers Market, providing lots of useful information on the Council’s £54 subsidy and real cloth nappy use.

Real nappies save money and are less than half the cost of disposables. About eight million disposable nappies are thrown away every day in the UK. Real nappies get used again and again. That's got to be a better way, so why not start using real nappies today!

Here some photos of the fashion show:





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San Francisco - The city passes plastic-bag ban

City leaders approved a ban on plastic grocery bags after weeks of lobbying on both sides from environmentalists and a supermarket trade group. If Mayor Gavin Newsom signs the ban as expected, San Francisco would be the first U.S. city to adopt such a rule.

The law, passed by a 10-1 vote, requires large markets and drug stores to give customers only a choice among bags made of paper that can be recycled, plastic that breaks down easily enough to be made into compost, or reusable cloth.

San Francisco supervisors and supporters said that by banning the petroleum-based sacks, blamed for littering streets and choking marine life, the measure would go a long way toward helping the city earn its green stripes.

Newsom supported the measure. The switch is scheduled to take effect in six months for grocery stores and in one year for pharmacies.

Craig Noble, a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said it would be disappointing if grocers rejected the biodegradable plastic bag option, since more trees would have to be cut down if paper bag use increases.

The new breed of bags "offers consumers a way out of a false choice, a way out of the paper or plastic dilemma," Noble said.

Technorati Tags: UK waste minimisation waste prevention bags San Francisco bag ban

UK - Going Beyond Recycling:

A Waste Prevention 'Network'?

Waste prevention is a higher priority than recycling in government and local waste strategies, and offers a more substantial contribution towards achieving sustainability. Yet until now it has received little attention.

A new consultation on a waste prevention 'network' has gone live at Beyond Recycling with a set of key questions to which all interested parties are invited to provide answers and suggestions.

Defra is supporting this consultation exercise as part of a scoping study which could lead to a multi-disciplinary UK Municipal and domestic waste prevention 'network'. Although there are already many more-or-less relevant initiatives it appears to be widely felt that something fresh and/or additional is required. Waste prevention is fast rising up diverse agendas and this is an opportunity to influence how this is reflected in policy and practice.

First proposed at the national Beyond Recycling conference in November 2006, and strongly supported at subsequent events, there are several reasons why a separate and distinct focus is required for waste prevention:

•The need for waste prevention to emerge from the shadows of recycling, and reach a level commensurate with its importance
•The expertise and skills required to plan, develop and monitor waste prevention are distinct from and more diverse than for recycling
•There is evidence that means to achieve behaviour change with regard to waste prevention are likewise different from those for promoting recycling behaviour

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USA - San Francisco may ban plastic bags

Paper or plastic won't mean the same for shoppers in San Francisco if some city supervisors get their way.

Associated Press reports that a proposal up for consideration next week would prohibit large grocers from using regular plastic bags. Supporters say the bags eat up fossil fuels, litter the streets and choke wildlife.

The measure would require grocery stores to offer only bags made of recyclable paper, plastic that can be turned into compost or sturdy cloth or plastic that can be reused.

The proposed ban has the support of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. But it's opposed by the California Grocers Association as potentially doing more damage to the environment. President Peter Larkin says confused consumers would wind up mixing biodegradable bags with regular plastic bags in recycling bins, thereby contaminating recycled plastic.

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