Julia Hailes MBE

Sustainability Pioneer

Clear Out electricals week in Grantham and Stamford (Mar12)

The aim of Clear Out Electricals Week, which took place in Grantham and Stamford from 12th – 18th March, 2012 was to try out E for Good’s ideas for collecting e-waste and raising awareness about it’s impacts.   We chose to work in two Lincolnshire towns because of their proximity to Environcom, the e-waste company we […]

Recycling is not enough – we need more reuse of e-waste (Feb12)

E For Good is campaigning to Clear Out and Clean up electrical and electronic waste – website will be launched by March 2012..  Refurbished washing machines waiting to be reused – at Environcom site Melinda Watson and Julia Hailes – co-founders of E For Good  First I should explain that e-waste is waste electrical and […]

EU WEEE Regulation is Bonkers (Jan12)

For anyone that doesn’t know, ‘WEEE’ stands for ‘Waste  Electrical & Electronic Equipment’ – it covers pretty well all products with a battery or a plug.  Although it doesn’t actually cover batteries – there’s separate legislation for them, which isn’t very good either. I can’t claim to fully understand how the system works but here’s […]

Mad copper fiasco in IT (Nov11)

Copper now sells for somewhere between £4000 a tonne and £5000 a tonne depending on where you look.  That’s why it’s being stolen from telephone exchanges, from electricity stations and from railways – train disruption from copper theft is becoming nearly as common as suicides. In IT equipment copper is common – particularly in wires. […]

Inspiring E-Waste Company Leads on Re-use (Sept11)

Sean Feeney from EnvironCom standing on fridge foam bits    Washing machines being tested I’m rather surprised to discover that there are quite a few people who don’t know what E-Waste is.  I mentioned our E-Waste Campaign, when I was speaking to a large audience last week – and someone asked me to clarify. That […]

We need more computer re-use (Aug11)

We travelled up to Arnos Grove – an area of London I’d never been to before.  My companion was Melinda Watson, who has set up the E-Waste Campaign with me.  We’d arranged to look round the office and depot of Computer Aid. The factory floor was piled high with computer parts – hard drives, circuit […]

The E-Waste Campaign (Mar11)

I’m working with Melinda Watson from the Raw Foundation to set up an E-Waste campaign. The WEEE man, whose head is in the photo on the left illustrates the amount of waste one person will throw away in a lifetime.  WEEE stands for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment. But the WEEE man was made about a decade ago, so if another one […]

Eco-Sheets – Using Recycled Plastics (Jan11)

In January 2011 I took my son Connor (far right in picture) to see the Eco Sheet factory.  Melinda Watson from the Raw Foundation came too (pictured far left) – and Amanda Barry-Hirst from Greenhouse PR.  Omer Kutluoglu, one of the founders showed us around.   They’re making brilliant use of recycled mixed plastics – turning them into […]

My goldfish died along with Labour – Here’s my coalition manifesto (May10)

  Zac Goldsmith, formerly editor of the Ecologist, gets elected in Richmond   Chris Huhne – New Minster for Energy and Environment   Caroline Lucas – the first Green MP in the UK   My goldfish died in the night. I’ve posthumously named him ‘Gordon’. It seems rather propitious that their floundering exit coincided. And […]

Somerset produces less waste (Nov09)

Somerset has the lowest amount of waste going to landfill per head in the UK – an average of between 160kg and 165kg per head. This is significantly less than the UK target for 2020, which is 225kg per head. And Somerset also heads the league table on recycling. One of the reasons for this […]