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 […]
Recycling plastic mountains (Nov09)
Omer Kutluoglu – Plastics recycling entrepreneur In the UK we throw away mountains of plastic waste and use lots of plywood. Apart from a small amount of plastic bottles and an even smaller number of plastic bags, pretty well all the rest of our plastic debris is discarded, never to be used again. Omer Kutluoglu, […]
Water refill stations are coming (Oct09)
I generally carry a water bottle around with me when I’m travelling. It saves on buying bottled water on the move. Anyone who has read previous blogs of mine will know that I’m not a great fan of bottled water – lots of energy used in transport, packaging, waste etc… However, according to the Guardian, […]
Generation Green visit recycling plant (Jun09)
I was impressed by the passion, enthusiasm and knowledge of many of the children who are participating in the Generation Green youth think tank, sponsored by British Gas. Age 7-14 we met at Dagenham docks to have a look around the Closed Loop recycling plant. They were told all about recycling plastic bottles and were […]
Food waste for fuel in London and beyond… (May09)
I had an early start to get to London for the start of a workshop on AD – anaerobic digestion. It might be a bit weird but it’s a subject I’m rather passionate about. AD is essentially like composting in an enclosed system. It can be used to treat food waste, farm waste, sewage sludge […]
Regifting – eek (May09)
Photo: A rather well-wrapped present… I don’t just recycled my rubbish, I recycle presents too. I’ve recently discovered that this is called ‘regifting’. Apparently this is an American phrase and I learnt it from my sister-in-law, who comes from the state of Washington but is now living in Devon. If I get a present that […]
Radio 2 – Jeremy Vine show (May09)
Fierce debate about food waste and the merits of ‘slop bins’ or garbage pages as I prefer to call them. I’m being challenged by a chap who didn’t impress me much with with his views on food waste, recycling and climate change. Link?
Rant about disposable napkins (Apr09)
“Do you ever find it annoying when you’re given wads of napkins and bags you don’t need?”. I was amazed to find this statement on Pret a Manger’s website. The answer is ‘yes – very annoying’. The reason for my surprise was because I think that Pret is once of the worst culprits of napkin […]
M&S Plan A (Mar09)
M&S launched their Plan A scheme in 2006. CEO, Stuart Rose heads the team and they have a very impressive list of actions and initiatives covering issues across the board from transport, packaging and re-usable hangers to food waste, refrigeration and laundry labels in their clothes. I’ve been to the progress reports for Plan since […]
Shopping Trauma (Feb09)
I don’t really like shopping – particularly when it entails actually going out of the house. I do most of my shopping on the internet. Earlier this week, I went into Yeovil for a few things. It made me even more committed to purchasing with my ‘mouse’. First on my list was an energy-efficient, decorative […]
Christmas tree alternative! (Dec08)
I got an email asking me whether I thought an artificial Christmas tree or a natural one would be the greenest option. I said that I thought an artificial one – made from plastic – would be better environmentally, if you re-used it year after year. But I’ve never gone that route. (I’ve now […]
M&S Packaging fact sheets for consumers (Dec08)
Public concern about over-packaging so often misses the point that we should be looking at how to reduce the environmental impact of producing, distributing, storing, selling and consuming food, rather than the amount of packaging waste we have to throw away. Consider the fact that overall the carbon emissions from wasted packaging is one tenth […]