DoItYourself: How to make gift bags from envelopes

From RecycleNow, more videos here

London: Air pollution awareness

'Breathe' by Dryden Goodwin - Video documentation from Dryden Goodwin on Vimeo.

UK: Hackney offering £54 towards Real Nappies

Ireland: How to tackle litter the proper way

From South Dublin County Council

Italy: The first Big Hanna composter in Italy

The installation of our model T120_40L was completed during November 2011 in Villa San Giovanni in Tuscia, a small community of 1400 inhabitants located 80 km north of Rome. The organic waste is collected exclusively from the home collection service held in the city.

Organic waste from households is delivered by citizens to the collection service inside mater-bi "OK compost home" certified bags. The organic waste is collected 3 times a week and processed with the Big Hanna Composter.

The compost is picked up by the citizens themselves to be used in their gardens as fertiliser. The organic material is collected and treated on site rather than facing long and expensive transfer to a large composting facility, with cost savings and CO2 abatement.

This is the first Italian experience with Big Hanna and the first experience ever of an entire community that gives all its organic waste to the collection service to be treated on site. In Italy this represents an important innovation, which arouses the interest of many small city halls aimed to the same disposal system.

Story from: http://bighanna.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-first-big-hanna-composter-in-italy.html 

UK: Huge reuse potential’ in bulky waste

More than half of all bulky waste items taken to household waste and recycling centres (HWRCs) could be re-used, according to a new report published by WRAP today (August 16). The new report also claims that 40% of bulky items collected at the kerbside, such as sofas and televisions, could be re-used. Of bulky items taken to an HWRC, 32% were estimated to be re-usable in their current condition, increasing to 51% if items requiring slight repair (but in otherwise good condition) were taken into account.

For items collected at kerbside, 24% were estimated to be re-usable in their current condition, rising to 40% if items requiring slight repair were taken into account.

‘Composition and re-usability of bulky waste in the UK’– is the first UK-wide piece of research to look at the composition of bulky waste in the UK, in order to assess the potential for re-use. It follows a report WRAP published last year on the environmental and economic benefits of re-use.

National estimates derived from WasteDataFlow, the online database for UK municipal waste reporting, suggest that across the UK during 2010/11, some 1.6 million tonnes of bulky waste was collected at the kerbside or taken to HWRCs. Approximately twice as much is taken to HWRCs (1 million tonnes) than is collected at the kerbside (540,000 tonnes).

Using the above data and extrapolating the sample findings across all UK kerbside and HWRC bulky waste collections, the report suggests that of all bulky waste in the UK, (including both kerbside collected and HWRC bulky items), around 42% consists of furniture, 19% textiles and 19% WEEE. These estimates equate to 670,000 tonnes of furniture and 310,000 tonnes each of textiles and WEEE disposed of by householders in the UK annually.

Mervyn Jones, head of products and materials at WRAP, said: “There is a perception that many bulky items taken to household waste and recycling centres (HWRCs) or collected at kerbside are not re-usable. However, this research shows that there is significant re-use potential to be realised from these items.

“This research will help local authorities and HWRC operators to remove these items from the waste stream, either for re-sale or for passing on to the third sector.”

Link to report here

UK: Reducing food waste when eating out

Love Food Hate Waste campaign has lots of tips and advice to help everyone reduce the amount of food we throw away at home, and now they are looking at ways to cut food waste when we eat out too. Watch our short video to find out what people say about the food they waste when eating out:



Leading hospitality and food service companies are playing their part and have signed up to a new agreement. WRAP is working with them to reduce food and packaging waste and increase recycling rates. The voluntary agreement aims to cut food and associated packaging waste by 5% (a CO2e reduction of 234,000 tonnes), the equivalent of about 100 million meals.

As part of this work, they are developing ideas for how we can all waste less food when we eat out – lots more information will follow over the next few months.

World: Alarming rise in amount and costs of waste

A new World Bank study projects a 70% global increase in urban solid waste – with developing countries facing the greatest challenges.

Developing country cities, already coping with burgeoning populations, scarce financial resources, and limited capacity to manage environmental issues, are facing a sharp rise in the amount and costs of garbage that they will be required to deal with by 2025. A new report from the World Bank’s Urban Development department estimates the amount of municipal solid waste (MSW) will rise from the current 1.3 billion tonnes per year to 2.2 billion tonnes per year by 2025. Much of the increase will come in rapidly growing cities in developing countries.

The report, What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management, for the first time offers consolidated data on MSW generation, collection, composition, and disposal by country and by region.The report notes that municipal solid waste management is the most important service a city provides. In low-income countries, MSW is often the largest single budget item for cities, and one of the largest employers. A city that cannot effectively manage its waste is rarely able to manage more complex services such as health, education, or transportation.

The report says that a number of practical approaches could be applied in most cities, including:

• Public education to inform people about their options to reduce waste generation and increase recycling and composting;
• Pricing mechanisms (such as product charges) to stimulate consumer behavior to reduce waste generation and increase recycling;
• User charges tied to the quantity of waste disposed of, with (for example) consumers separating recyclables paying a lower fee for waste disposal; and/or
• Preferential procurement policies and pricing to stimulate demand for products made with recycled post-consumer waste.

UK, London: Waste reduction possible with shops like these

Check out the fantastic video created by North London Waste Authority in Hackney.


For more videos visit this page: http://www.nlwa.gov.uk/waste-resources/businesses

UK: Recycle Week 18 -24 June, Plastic Bottle Recycling!

World: We are screwed if we dont reduce consumption (people)

More than 100 science academies around the world have called on world leaders to take action on population and consumption at the Rio+20 summit.

They say past failures on these issues threaten the natural world and prospects for future generations. Experts in both developed and developing countries have joined forces on what used to be a divisive topic." The overall message is that we need a renewed focus on both population and consumption - it's not enough to look at one or the other," said Prof Charles Godray. "We need to look at both, because together they determine the footprint on the world."

The footprint is getting heavier and heavier, the academies warn. "The global population is currently around seven billion, and most projections suggest that it will probably lie between eight and 11 billion by 2050," their declaration says. "Global consumption levels are at an all time high, largely because of the high per-capita consumption of developed countries." If the billion poorest people are to have adequate access to food, water and energy, the academies say, developed countries will have to reduce their own consumption of natural resources. They say this can be done without reducing prosperity so long as different economic models are followed.

Failing to make these changes "will put us on track to alternative futures with severe and potentially catastrophic implications for human well-being".

The declaration builds on a recent report from the Royal Society. The topics of population and consumption are both mentioned in the draft agreement that negotiators are discussing in Rio. But both crop up in a far weaker form than many observers would like. The new report is an indication of how things have changed on the population question. In decades gone by, developing nations tended to see the issue as a ploy by rich countries to avoid talking about unsustainable consumption.

The African Institute for Development Policy in Nairobi who worked on the recent Royal Society report, said perceptions were changing. "Many African countries are feeling the effects of population growth, and are finding they'll need to deal with it in order to continue developing as well as to address their environmental issues," he told BBC News.

Dr Zulu also said that evidence accumulated over the last decade showed that overall, African women were having more children than they wanted - which gave politicians an incentive to increase family planning provision. In the formal negotiations, government delegates convened on Wednesday for intensive talks aimed at securing consensus on key themes.

Photo from smh.com.au

News from BBC News

Global: Waste challenge as big as climate change

 
Annual global waste is set to rise from 1.3 billion tonnes to 2.2bn tonnes by 2025, posing challenges on a scale with climate change, according to a new report. The World Bank predicts a big rise in global municipal solid waste from the current 1.2kg per person per day to 1.4kg in 2025.

The report, What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management, estimates the annual cost of solid waste management will rise from $205bn (£132bn) today to $375bn (£243bn).  Rachel Kyte, vice president of sustainable development at the World Bank, said waste management was becoming in more urgent issue, especially in rapidly developing cities in low income countries.

She said: “The findings of this report are sobering, but they also offer hope that once the extent of this issue is recognized, local and national leaders, as well as the international community, will mobilize to put in place programs to reduce, reuse, recycle, or recover as much waste as possible before burning it (and recovering the energy) or otherwise disposing of it. Measuring the extent of the problem is a critical first step to resolving it.”

The report sets out several policy recommendations including:

• Public education to inform people about their options to reduce waste generation and increase recycling and composting
• Pricing mechanisms (such as product charges) to stimulate consumer behaviour to reduce waste generation and increase recycling
• User charges tied to the quantity of waste disposed of, with (for example) consumers separating recyclables paying a lower fee for waste disposa
• Preferential procurement policies and pricing to stimulate demand for products made with recycled post-consumer waste
• Dan Hoornweg, lead urban specialist in the finance, economics, and urban development department of the World Bank and co-author of the report said that while the report’s findings were not surprising it reinforced a “relatively silent problem that is growing daily”

“The challenges surrounding municipal solid waste are going to be enormous, on a scale of, if not greater than, the challenges we are currently experiencing with climate change. This report should be seen as a giant wake-up call to policy makers everywhere,” he said.

Story from http://www.mrw.co.uk/

Hackney: Give or Take June 2012

Hackney Council's Give or Take Days are a great way of getting rid of items that you don't need, and taking items you do. Simply turn up on the day with items that you want to give, or come along and take what you need. You don't have to give something to take something!

The next give or take day is Saturday 16 June, 11am to 3pm at Grazebrook Primary School, Lordship Road, N16 0QP. Find out more about Give or take days

is the green consumer here or long gone?

Shoppers want packaging that keeps food fresh longer, thus producing less food waste. They also want to put less packaging into landfill, according to the latest consumer research. The Bord Bia view is based upon a recent Mintel UK consumer survey entitled 'Food & Drink Packaging Trends', which shows that eco-friendly packaging has grown in importance in parallel with convenience trends such as 'easy-open' and 'smart' packaging.

Bord Bia Food & Beverage sector manager, Stephanie Moe, notes: "Food and packaging manufacturers continue to work together to introduce more environmentally-friendly packaging formats. "A wide range of products from coffee to milk are now sold in light pouches or bags, with even minced beef now being sold similarly.

"As well as the environmental benefit, these packaging developments offer savings in transport and storage costs offered by more lightweight packaging formats," Ms Moe said. The Mintel report highlighted some of the main drivers and trends impacting on food packaging in Britain. Partly driven by rising waste disposal costs, consumers in Britain are increasingly conscious of their food waste.

As a result, people are shifting their priorities when it comes to food packaging, with a strong focus on seeking packaging options that help to keep products fresher for longer, thereby minimising food waste.

In an effort to tackle food waste, consumers are seeking products of a size more appropriate to their needs, looking for variety of pack formats so they no longer have to throw out what they do not use. Another packaging trend of note is 'easy-open'. With the over-55s forecast to represent 30% of the population by 2016, packaging is starting to target this demographic, again with more suitable, generally smaller pack formats and the availability of easy-to-open jars, bottles and tubs for food.

Also increasing in popularity is the 'clear packaging' category. There is considerable evidence that consumers prefer clear packaging, with the ability to see the product clearly offering a reassurance of the product quality and allaying fears that a product may have superfluous packaging.

Consumers are also seeking out 'smart' packaging, which refers to new packaging features that go beyond changes in pack shape, colour, barcodes etc. This comprises 'active' and 'intelligent' packaging.

Ms Moe says: "Advancements in active and intelligent packaging are numerous but their penetration remains limited due to their high costs and technical issues often involved in incorporating them into the production process. Examples of this would be the use of thermo-chrome inks, used in the drinks industry to show when a product is at the correct temperature for consumption ( for example Coors beer bottles).

News from: http://www.waste-management-world.com/index/from-the-wires/wire-news-display/1616084297.html

UK - Reuse 'way forward' as resource security fears grow

Goodwin said that by pursuing opportunities for reuse, the UK could reduce its reliance on raw materials, including rare earths, by as much as 20% by 2020. WRAP estimates that around 600m tonnes of products and material enter the UK economy each year, with only around 115m tonnes being recycled. "Rare earth metals account for just 1,600 tonnes of this flow, but they are found everywhere - from vehicles, TVs, computers and ceramics, fuels, energy generation, and pharmaceuticals," Goodwin told delegates. "We are heavily dependent on these materials for so many everyday items, but recycling rates associated with these resources are generally very low, often below 1%."

WRAP has identified some 'quick win' resource efficiency strategies, covering a range of materials including copper, lithium and cobalt as well as rare earths, which could not only help reduce the UK's carbon footprint by 2020, but could also help address wider supply security issues.

Goodwin said: "Our research shows that in general, it's the strategies that extend the life of goods or reduce the consumption of electronic and electrical goods that have the greatest impact.

"The biggest 'quick win' impacts can be attribute to four approaches - lean production, waste reduction, lifetime optimisation and 'goods to services', where the number of leased products is increased and the number of outright purchases are decreased."

Goodwin also highlighted the opportunities presented by tackling the amount of WEEE in the UK. "We estimate that between now and 2020, in the UK, we'll dispose of 12m tonnes of WEEE.

She alluded to new WRAP research that shows that almost a quarter of all WEEE taken to household recycling centres has a reuse value, which could deliver £200m gross revenue each year. "This alone could make 100 tonnes of rare earth elements - almost 10% of UK demand - available again," she said.

"More than a fifth of the WEEE could be immediately sold on, or repaired and refurbished for resale, bringing financial benefits to those involved. The end result would be that we'd be a step closer to the elusive closed loop, green economy model."

Read WRAP's sheet on "Realising the Reuse Value of Household WEEE"

From Edie

UK, London - Boris reduces waste reduction targets

In his business and municipal waste strategies published in November, Boris Johnson ditched plans set out in a 2010 draft document to ask government for a national deposit system for bottles and cans. The municipal waste strategy reduced the target for waste reduction through reuse and repair from 40,000 tonnes in 2015 and 120,000 tonnes in 2031, to 20,000 and 30,000 tonnes respectively as indicated in the draft plan [pdf].

The mayor also cut his ambitions for business waste reduction following a cut in funding allocated by the London Waste and Recycling Board Infrastructure Fund. The draft strategy [pdf] aimed to divert 1.2m tonnes from landfill making 300,000 tonnes of carbon savings a year. In the final document [pdf] the target was reduced to 500,000 tonnes of landfill diversion a year and savings of 3m tonnes of carbon over the lifetime of the projects.

Labour’s environment spokesperson Murad Qureshi AM said: “This is not value for money for Londoners considering we’ve had to wait so long for these strategies to be released. I am most concerned that the Mayor is doing little to affect Londoners’ quality of life now.”

In November, Qureshi attacked the mayor’s waste strategy for failing to help the capital’s small businesses access recycling services and facilities.

The Mayor of London’s office has not responded to MRW’s requests for a comment.

News from MRW / Image from Environment Finance

World - 10 Steps To Waste Less Food This Holiday Season

A little bit for those that celebrated Thanksigiving yesterday, but still useful for the rest that are celebrating it late or for those planning christmas meals.

About one-third of all food produced for human consumption, approximately 1.3 billion tons, is lost or wasted every year, according to the UN's Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO). Consumers in developed countries are responsible for 222 million tons of this waste, or about the same quantity of food produced in all of sub-Saharan Africa. The wasted food that is not composted ends up in landfills where it produces methane emissions, a greenhouse gas with a warming effect 21 times greater than carbon dioxide.With the holiday season upon us, it is helpful to know how to avoid wasting food. Thankfully, the Worldwatch Institute offers 10 steps that will make a holiday meal less wasteful:

1. Be realistic: Cook only the amount of food that is really needed for your holiday meal. See the Love Food Hate Waste organization's "Perfect portions" planner to calculate meal sizes.



2. Plan ahead: Create a shopping list before buying the ingredients for your meal. Check out the Grocery Gadgets shopping app for iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.



3. Go small: Use smaller serving utensils and plates to encourage people to eat smaller portions, and reduce the amount of food left on plates.



4. Encourage self-serve: Let guests serve themselves so they will take the amount they can realistically eat.



5. Store leftovers safely: The USDA recommends that hot foods only be left out for no more than two hours.



6. Compost food scraps: Compost vegetable peels, egg shells and other food scraps from meal preparation.



7. Create new meals: Use the leftovers from your holiday meal to make new meals. See the Love Food Hate Waste's recipes from food scraps.



8. Donate excess: Donate canned and dried foods you didn't need for your holiday meal to food banks and shelters. See the Feeding America's Food Bank Locator.



9. Support food-recovery programs: In some cities, there are food recovery systems that will come and collect your leftovers. For instance, in New York City, City Harvest, the world's first food-rescue organization, collects about 28 million pounds of food each year.



10. Give gifts with thought: If you decide to give food, avoid highly perishable items. If you give chocolate, coffee or tea as a gift, choose fair trade certified products. Check out Global Exchange, which lists fair trade certified chocolate, coffee and tea companies.

If you know other tips for reducing food waste this holiday season, feel free to divulge them as a comment to this post. Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/ten-steps-to-waste-less-food-this-holiday-season.html#ixzz1eS97uSap

World - Humanity can and must do more with less

By 2050, humanity could devour an estimated 140 billion tons of minerals, ores, fossil fuels and biomass per year - three times its current appetite - unless the economic growth rate is "decoupled" from the rate of natural resource consumption, warns a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme.

Developed countries citizens consume an average of 16 tons of those four key resources per capita (ranging up to 40 or more tons per person in some developed countries). By comparison, the average person in India today consumes four tons per year.

With the growth of both population and prosperity, especially in developing countries, the prospect of much higher resource consumption levels is "far beyond what is likely sustainable" if realized at all given finite world resources, warns the report by UNEP's International Resource Panel.

Already the world is running out of cheap and high quality sources of some essential materials su! ch as oil, copper and gold, the supplies of which, in turn, require ever-rising volumes of fossil fuels and freshwater to produce.

Improving the rate of resource productivity ("doing more with less") faster than the economic growth rate is the notion behind "decoupling," the panel says. That goal, however, demands an urgent rethink of the links between resource use and economic prosperity, buttressed by a massive investment in technological, financial and social innovation, to at least freeze per capita consumption in wealthy countries and help developing nations follow a more sustainable path.

The trend towards urbanization may help as well, experts note, since cities allow for economies of scale and more efficient service provision. Densely populated places consume fewer resources per capita than sparsely populated ones thanks to economies in such areas as water delivery, housing, waste management and recycling, energy use and transportation, they say.

"Decoupling makes sense on all the economic, social and environmental dials," says UN Under Secretary-General Achim Steiner, UNEP's Executive Director.

USA - Hotel soaps cant be reused, but they are used again after being recycled

Unlimited access to tiny individually-wrapped soaps is one of the many perks of a hotel stay. But what happens to soaps that aren't used (or pilfered) during your visit? The answer may surprise you.

More than 2 million partially used bars of soap are discarded at North American hotels each day, according to the Global Soap Project. Even if hotel soaps haven't been used, quality control standards usually prohibit cleaning staff from reusing the same soaps for multiple guests - especially if the paper wrapping is wet or opened. So, unused and partially used soaps are often destined for the landfill.

But Hilton Worldwide is planning to change all that at its 3,750 hotels by partnering with the Global Soap Project to recycle old soaps for a cause, the company announced on Tuesday. The Atlanta-based non-profit will collect partially used soaps from Hilton and its subsidiaries, sanitize them and reprocess them into new bars - which are then distributed in developing countries.

Recycling soap eliminates a common hotel waste product and provides free sanitation options for people who are at risk of hygiene-related diseases, said Derreck Kayongo, founder of the Global Soap Project.

"When living as a refugee in Kenya, I realized soap was hard to come by, even completely nonexistent sometimes, " Kayongo remembered. "Even when available, those living on less than a dollar a day had to choose between buying food or soap. People were suffering from illness simply because they couldn't wash their hands. "

Hand washing with soap is among the most effective and inexpensive ways to prevent diarrheal diseases and pneumonia, which together are responsible for more than 3.5 million child deaths each year, the nonprofit said.

The hotel giant expects their donations to yield 1 million new four-ounce bars of soap in the partnership's first year. In addition to donating soap, Hilton is investing $1.3 million over the next three years to help expand the nonprofit's processing capabilities. The company said it hopes to help the Global Soap Project recycle the high volumes of soap generated by the sector, at zero cost to hotel properties.

The nonprofit is "thrilled" with the partnership and hopes it will empower other hotel companies to recycle their soap to support those in need, Kayongo said. Since its inception in 2009, the Global Soap Project has distributed more than 25 tons of soap in 20 countries across four continents.

London, Hackney: Take your Free Compost

Hackney’s autumn free compost give away event will take place this Saturday! We will be there offering tips and advice on how to use autumn leaves for leaf-mulching or any other composting queries you may have. We will be waiting for you at the Hackney Marshes Park Rangers Depot from 11am to 3pm this Saturday, 1st October 2011.