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 […]

BBC world service – Greening Christmas (Dec11)

My top tips for less waste at Christmas included planning menus carefully to reduce food waste; re-gifting unwanted presents and collecting everyone else’s wrapping paper to use again.  The interview was aired on BBC World Service for Christmas 2011. 

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. […]

Nappy recycling makes sense! (Oct11)Babycare

Bronwen Jameson and Paul Richardson from Knowaste   The smell wasn’t very noticeable until I went into the building.  Then it hit me like a wall.  I remember from visiting a sewage farm that the trick is not to breathe through your nose.   And after a few minutes it wasn’t quite so bad.   My Knowaste […]

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 […]

Baby care products (Jun11)

I first got involved in the debate about disposable nappies vs re-usables in the early 1990s. The comparisons were being made in eco-labelling research and I was sitting on the UK Eco-Labelling Board.  The over-whelming concern about disposables was the amount of waste they produce.  Local authorities have teamed up with campaigning organisations to encourage […]

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 […]