What do you do with dog poo? (Jun25)
I was walking with a friend not long ago when she casually lobbed two dog poo bags into the hedge. My first thought was: Can I just ignore that and keep chatting? But of course I couldn’t. “Are you going to come back and collect those?” I asked, rather tentatively.“No,” she said. “They’re biodegradable. So […]
Consumers hoodwinked by Gillette ‘recycling’ scheme! (May25)
Here we go again — another shiny new recycling initiative promising to solve a minuscule part of our vast waste problem. This time, it’s Gillette’s razor blade recycling programme, offered in partnership with TerraCycle. It might sound noble: send back your used blades (any brand!) through the post and feel good about “doing your bit.” […]
Sky News interviews me on e-waste (Jan24)
Are you concerned about e-waste? If not you should be! Over half a billion small electrical items ended up in landfill last year in the UK. And to give another perspective, a person born in 1980 will generate around 500kg of e-waste in their lifetime – or 8 times their body weight. If you calculated how […]
Rubbish In Indonesia (Mar23)
It felt like Armageddon. We went on a ‘nature bike ride’, but the trip highlights were piles and piles of rubbish. Plastic bottles, old flip flops, a child’s shoe, fishing nets, polystyrene, foil packets and general household detritus. We were in Indonesia staying at the Banyan Tree on the northern coast of Bintan, which is […]
INSPIRATIONAL HOTELS IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA (Feb23)
We weren’t far from Singapore, but it was another world. Two tropical Indonesian islands to the East of Bintan, which is just South of the Asian city-state. I have to admit that I’m a very critical tourist – I generally challenge hotels on everything including what’s happening to their sewage, how they source their […]
The Rubbish Project is hiring! (Jan22)
Brilliant opportunity for an entrepreneurial commercial director to work with circular economy pioneers. Click here to find out more. The Rubbish Project is a fast-growing company with too much work and not enough time. Would you like to be part of a team creating a ‘waste-free world’? Do you want to make a positive environmental […]
Let’s stop needing printers (Dec21)
The biggest problem with printers is that they’re not made to last. Good Business has published a great blog outlining the problem with these monstrously inefficient machines. I’m embarrassed at how many printers I’ve been through. They rarely last more than 2 years, they’re incredibly bulky, they’re really badly designed, if there’s a paper jam […]
My Manifesto for COP26 and beyond(Oct21)
I’m delighted that Cop26 is getting a lot of attention. I think it’s great that young people – with Greta leading the charge – are voicing their anger at what’s happening to the climate. It’s incredibly positive that more and more businesses around the world are trying to make meaningful changes. Not so good is […]
Right to Repair is good – my E-waste poem in the style of Dr Seuss (Mar21)
I wrote a slightly different version of this poem in 2012 when I was campaigning to change what happens to e-waste. Sadly, it’s still just as relevant today. However there is some good news. The EU are bringing in ‘Right to Repair’ legislation, which means that it should be much easier to get spare parts […]
Simply switching from plastics to other materials could actually increase carbon emissions. (Mar20)
This is the conclusion of a new report from the Green Alliance: Fixing the System – Why the circular economy for all materials is the only way to solve the plastic problem. One of the rather intriguing insights in this report is that plastics were invented to prevent the extinction of elephants! How so? At […]
