EcoWarriorMe

We must find alternatives to fossil fuels for our energy. We must also tackle the huge amount of waste we send to landfill. Waste that is packed with energy. An obvious solution would be to extract energy from the waste but it is never that simple.  Energy can be extracted using different technologies such as anaerobic digestion used in some material recovery facilities or direct combustion (incineration) of the waste. EcoWarriorMe has previously commented  on anaerobic digestion which produces methane gas that can be burned to produce heat, generate electricity or, in the case of CHP, both. The main criticism of this technology is that it generates demand for waste, particularly organic waste such as food. Incineration is probably the most controversial of the technologies due to the toxins which can be emitted from the plant.  In the 1980s, controversy surrounded the waste incineration plant at Bonnybridge near Falkirk which was blamed for illness in livestock w...

Continuing with the theme of Recycling Week, here is a brief introduction to Mechanical Biological Treatment of domestic waste. What is Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT)? It is a method for sorting through domestic waste and separating it into materials that can be recycled such as glass, metals and plastics or organic materials that will decompose, such as food waste. What are the benefits of it?

I recently read an article which discussed how we could tackle the problem of the 800,000 tonnes of plastic bags thrown away each year in Europe, an average of 191 for every citizen of the European Union.  It highlighted the much smaller carbon footprint of disposable single use plastic carrier bags compared with alternatives.  Part of the article described re-using plastic bags as bin liners rather than using purpose made bin liners and it had a nifty graphic .  To a point, this makes sense but considering that many people use plastic bags for almost all of their domestic purchases, then to use every carrier bag once as a bin liner would require all that was bought to be disposed of in the bin.  I know that there is a lot of waste packaging in groceries but it does generally compact down to a smaller volume than the original (unless you live entirely on tinned produce) therefore assuming that all plastic bags are re-used in this way is stretching thin...

The following has been taken in its entirety from the government e-petition site: Banish the Plastic Bags Responsible department: Department for  Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 17 billion plastic bags a year are given to British consumers. The average Briton accepts 5 times a weeks. 200 million tonnes of plastic is produced worldwide and 10 % ends up in the ocean. When plastic bags get into the ocean they can entangle, suffocate and even kill marine animals. Plastic doesn't biodegrade, it just breaks up into smaller pieces . The number of plastic bags issued by UK supermarkets in the past year has risen by 333 million. Plastic bags are becoming a big problem and there are better solutions! Instead we should have reusable cotton bags/ recyclable paper bags/biodegradable starch based bags. Banish the bags and go with reusable/ biodegradable ones instead! If we want to cut the amount of waste sent to landfill this is the big step forward.. . If you are a UK cit...

Despite the austerity measures we currently face, the government has miraculously found £250 million to encourage local authorities to reinstate weekly refuse collections in England. There is, apparently, a huge public outcry about the change to fortnightly collections. Certain parts of the press have been stirring up scare stories about rubbish piling up on our streets for weeks, giving off bad smells and attracting vermin. Not only is a concern, it is also an election issue according to the Daily Mail. Many years ago, our council changed from twice weekly collections to weekly collections and similar stories were spun but were never realised. At that time the bins were changed from small metal bins that the bin men carried to the truck and emptied to larger bins with single use removable liners, starting a trend of producing plastic bags with a single use-putting it in the bin. I don't know the details of individual fortnightly bin collections around England, but the new f...

I began writing this a couple of weeks ago, about Glasgow City Council's inability to implement a half decent recycling scheme but didn't quite get around to finishing and posting it.  Since then, there have been signs of improvement, which I'll come on to after outlining the situation in the recent past. HISTORICAL SITUATION Glasgow likes to think of itself as the ‘Dear Green Place’ but it is unfortunately far from Green. Although the city is being promoted as a hub for renewable energy with both Scottish Power and Scottish & Southern Energy locating their renewable energy divisions in the city, the city recycles less than 16% of domestic waste. An assessment of the UKs twenty largest cities,shown below, ranked Glasgow as the 19th most sustainable city overall and 20th in terms of recycling, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that is last place.  With the UK being one of the poorest nations in Europe at recycling, the comparison is grim.