Fortnightly bin collections increase recycling rate

Last week it was reported that councils that had implemented fortnightly rubbish collections have increased their recycling rate by 7%, not a bad figure really. Even though this change is improving recycling rates there still seems to be a lot of people complaining about the reduced collections, stating that it is unhygienic and that bins are staying full for weeks at a time.

Everyone knows that with the government increasing landfill taxes local councils are trying to find ways of saving money. To them it seems the obvious way of doing this is to only collect peoples rubbish once a fortnight. No one seems to have realised that all that's going to happen is people will just have fuller bins. Reducing the number of times the rubbish is collected isn't going to reduce the rubbish.

Maybe the councils should start concentrating more on educating people about recycling, that way they could keep the weekly bin collections while people learn how to reuse and recycle, thus reducing their waste and the need for weekly collections. Just suddenly changing the way people have done things for years isn't a way of solving a problem, in fact it'll probably make more problems like illegal fly tipping of house hold waste because councils refuse to collect it.

Councils and the government want more people to recycle however they don't seem to be doing anything to actively educate people on how to do it. I've been recycling for some time now and it's still somewhat confusing as to exactly what type of plastic my local council collects. If things like this were laid out better I'm sure I could recycle even more of my waste, but it's not, and until it is people out there are going to carry on just throwing things away rather than recycling it because the average person on the street doesn't want to spend ages working out what kind of plastic something is made from before they decide how they should dispose of it. After all when you're throwing something away you're not really interested in it anymore, are you.

I'm all for getting as many people out there are possible to recycle, but there is a right way and a wrong way to go about things and what the councils are proposing is the wrong way. It wouldn't be so bad if we actually saw some of the money that the councils would be saving but council tax still seems to rise year on year. If people saw that they were getting something back for thinking about what they throw away then maybe they would be more inclined to recycle in the first place. At the end of the day it's not the general public fault that every product you buy now a days is massively over packaged, more often than not with no indication on the packaging as to whether it is recyclable or not. Maybe some of the blame should be being moved to the companies that provide us with the huge amount of waste to get rid of in the first place.

I don't see why fortnightly bin collections couldn't work however the councils are going to have to put more work in to educate people about recycling and reducing their waste.

Source [Guardian Online]

Save time, money and the environment; Buy your groceries online

I just posted today about Tesco introducing zero emissions delivery vans at their new Shrewsbury store. This will be reducing CO2 emissions due to the deliveries themselves but it'll also be reducing the number of car journeys people make to get their weekly shopping.

Why not save yourself some time and money while helping the environment by having a go at getting your shopping online?

We've been doing our shopping online now since the end of last year and we've found it much more convenient. No longer do we have to wait in endless queues every week just to pay for our food, no longer do we have to make a special journey and spend forever trying to find a parking space.

It also has the added advantage that we now buy in bulk and do one online order a month. This usually means we can take advantage of more of the offers which in turn means we save more money. Online shopping is also great if you're on a budget because you have a nice running total that adds up each time you put something in the virtual trolley, so you always know how much you're spending.

Buying in bulk and ordering less often means you're also helping to save the environment by reducing the number of journeys made by the delivery vans.

The only real disadvantage of ordering online is that you don't get to see the fruit, veg and meat before you choose it, however we get all of our fruit and veg from an organic supplier delivered separately and we don't really eat that much meat so it doesn't really matter.

Pretty much all the major supermarkets offer online ordering now so why not see if you could help save yourself some time and money as well as help save the environment by ordering your food online.

Tesco: Zero emission home delivery vans

Well it looks like Tesco are at it again with another environmental move. A few days ago Tesco announced that all customers that use their .com service that are within the range of their new environmental store in Shrewsbury will have their groceries delivered by a new fleet of zero emissions delivery vans.

The new vans are made by a company called Modec who specialise in electric commercial vehicles. The vans have the same capacity as the current .com vans along with a 100 mile range which should mean all deliveries in the area can be completed without any trouble.

Tesco predict that the vans will save approximately 21 tonnes of CO2 a year per van, plus they will also save the CO2 of around 6000 car journeys a year that the .com business takes off the road due to people not having to visit the store.

Hopefully these new vans will really take off and soon we'll all be able to get our groceries delivered by zero emissions vans.

Source [Tesco Corporate]

Environmental petitions: some results

Back in February you may remember me posting about some environmental petitions posted on the UK governments new online petitions web site. Well one of the petitions has come to an end and the government has responded.

If you signed the petition yourself then you will have already had an email with the governments response, however if you didn't then here's a link to it.

To summaries the response, they basically say that due to certain legislation they currently are not allowed to ban inefficient light bulbs, however new legislation going though the European union will mean that they will be able to begin to phase out the use of energy inefficient products by 2009.

Also they are aiming to become the first European country to stopping using inefficient lights bulbs by 2011. Part of this move involves talks to lower the VAT rate on power saving light bulbs to make them more affordable.

As with everything now a days there is always something blocking progress, however they are stating quite respectable dates for achieving some of their goals, so as long as it all goes to plan it's looking pretty good for the up take of energy efficient light bulbs across the UK.

Summers on the way, lets save some more energy

As summer arrives it's time we all got out of our winter habits and started to save some more energy. Thanks to the longer hotter days it's possible to save energy in all kinds of places.

For a start you won't be needing to leave the lights on around the house as much and by now any lights you do have on should be power saving anyway. A second big difference you could make would be by adjusting your heating controls. Now it's warmer for longer and the temperature outside is generally higher you should think about changing the timer on your central heating system to come on a bit later in the day and go off a bit earlier. If your house has reasonable insulation then it really shouldn't take much heating. Also think about turning the thermostat down a couple of degrees too, just for good measure.

Tony Blair not allowed to go Green

After all the government speak lately about going green and hitting carbon targets it turns out that Tony Blair himself is having problems going green.

It turns out he was planning on installing solar panels on his house in London, but they have been turned down after complaints from neighbours were made when he applied for planning permission.

How does the government expect people to move over to renewable energy sources when the prime minister can't even get planning permission to put solar cells on his own house? Just in case you thought it might have been a Conservative supporter that made the complaint it turns out the David Cameron also recently had planning problems when trying to add a wind turbine to his house.

It looks like for every person out there wanting to be green there a few who would rather they didn't.

Source [Guardian online]

Live Earth update

It looks like things are starting to move along for the Live Earth concerts in July. Many of the venues have been confirmed along with the bands that will be playing at them. It's now also possible to start signing up for tickets for the UK and US leg of the tour. Information on tickets can be found on the official Live Earth web site as well as the MSN Live Earth ticket info site.