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 […]
Legendary Environmental Activist! (Jan12)
As part of their ‘Remarkable Men and Women’ series, I was invited to speak to Laurel Springs online school. In the introduction I could see which parts of the world the children came from – mostly America but several in the Far East too. I was the only participant from the UK. My brief was […]
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 […]
Eco-technologies at Home – Electric Green (Jun11)
This is a draft of article written for the FT – an edited edition was published in June 2011 – Eco Technologies at home – Electric Green. DRAFT ARTICLE Finding eco-technologies that have really good eco-credentials is harder than you might think. For example, I’m a bit cynical about bamboo mice for your computer and […]
Green Mobile Company Lives and Dies – C Mobile (Jun11)
C Mobile promised a greener approach to using your mobile phone. Their idea was to give a proportion of their profits to community renewable energy projects, to minimise waste, offer re-conditioned hand-sets and recycle phones wherever possible. Unfortunately they both launched and folded in 2010 and 2011 – they weren’t able to keep up with the big […]
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 […]