Waste less this Easter

Volunteers from Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin have issued a challenge to residents to try to waste less this Easter.  Around 90 million chocolate eggs are sold in the UK each year and although manufacturers have made really good progress to reduce the amount of packaging that accompanies eggs and increased its recyclability in the past few years, official government estimates suggest that Easter eggs alone create about 3,000 tonnes of 'eggstra' waste each year across the UK.

As such, here's some handy hints to help you reduce waste this Easter and save money in the process.

1. Make your own eggs

Instead of buying an Easter egg, why not make a chocolate egg instead? This can be done with just some melted chocolate and a mould, and will save you an average of £2.50 per egg! 

2. Choose eggs with minimal packaging

Most supermarkets sell eggs wrapped only in foil. There are also eggs with recyclable packaging, which include materials that can be more easily recycled by councils, this helps keep your Council tax bill lower! 

3. Think before buying ingredients for treats

Plan your Easter meals based on what you already have in your cupboard.  Buying twice as much as you need leads to unnecessary waste. Visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com for more hints and tips to save you money. 

4. Reuse leftovers

Turning your leftovers into separate meals will save on waste and save you money on your food bill. The average family in Shropshire could save about £60 a month by reducing food waste!.

5. Don’t send an Easter card

Every year around a million cards are sent over Easter in the UK. Many of them end up in landfill after a few days. E-cards and social media offer environmentally friendly alternatives which save you money on postage costs too!

6. Be aware of disruption to your bin collection

With all the bank holidays, there will be changes to bin collection schedules. Check your local council’s website to be sure and it could save you a trip to the tip! 

Agricultural waste

Waste from farms is not municipal waste and so it is not dealt with by the local Council. Farmers need to make their own private commercial arrangements to deal with the waste they produce from their business activities.  This type of waste is regulated by the Environment Agency and you can contact them on 08708 506506 for guidance. This page provides some advice on dealing with waste from farms. Reducing waste from farms is not only good for the environment but makes economic sense too as it may improve your businesses efficiency. For more information please read the attached guidance document on farm waste or follow the link to DEFRA's webpage on farm waste minimisation.

Agricultural waste regulations

Since 2006 the new agricultural waste regulations affect whether or not you can burn, bury, store, use your waste on the farm or send it elsewhere. You also have to remember your Duty of Care when storing or passing your waste to someone else. The idea is to protect the environment and encourage more waste to be reused and recycled.

Are manure and slurries waste?

A recent court decision decreed that manures and slurries are not waste when used as a fertiliser on agricultural premises. However, other legal controls such as the Nitrate Vulnerable Zone Action Programme and Groundwater Regulations still need to be complied with.

What can you do with your waste?

There are five basic options: -

1) You can store waste for up to 12 months as long as it is stored securely, so it cannot escape from your control – such as become windblown or leak into nearby streams.

2) Take the waste to a recovery or disposal site yourself.

3) Give the waste to someone else. Most local waste carriers advertise in the local telephone directories.

4) Obtain a Waste Management Licence (WML) or a Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) Permit. The Environment Agency warns that this is not for farmers who want to continue to operate a farm dump/tip as this will cost tens of thousands of pounds and is not a cost-effective option. It is only for people who are seriously thinking about diversifying into professional waste management activities.

5) Register licence exemptions – most farms need to register one or more exemptions.

What are the exemptions?

There are 21 available exemptions from the regulations. The main ones are listed below:

• Using waste paper as animal bedding.

• Using tyres on a silage clamp.

• Chipping logs and branches from cutting down trees and hedges, and shredding plant material.

• Clearing mud and debris (dredgings) from water-courses such as streams and ditches and depositing it along their banks.

• Using a compactor bin to crush waste, such as baling waste plastic silage wrap, shredding paper packaging, crushing empty containers, and cleaning pesticide containers.

• Burning naturally occurring plant matter, including logs and branches from fallen or chopped down trees, untreated timber from fence mending, hedge trimmings, leaves and bark.

• Disposal of plant tissue wastes such as diseased or spoiled crops on land at the farm where they are produced, for example, rotten potatoes.

You can get free advice on environmental regulations and how they may effect your farm from by following the link to the NetRegs.gov.uk website.

Shropshire residents encouraged to recycle aluminium foil this Christmas

Mince pies, turkey, wine and trays of party food are all the ingredients of a great Christmas celebration.  Shropshire households are being urged to make it a ‘green’ Christmas by remembering to recycle all our festive aluminium packaging including foil trays, aerosols, screw caps and tin foil.

With the average Shropshire household expected to generate an extra 30% of rubbish over the festive period its really important to use your kerbside recycling scheme to recycle more. 

At Christmas you’ll see aluminium foil containers being used in a wide range of food packaging including mince pies, oven-ready food such as turkey, sausages, party food and pre-prepared vegetables. Aerosols are a major feature in our bathrooms and bedrooms, used in deodorants, body sprays and haircare products. Once empty, all can be recycled under the scheme.

Shropshire-based Rick Hindley who is Executive director of the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro) Rick Hindley says: “Aluminium food and drink cans are already a familiar sight in most household recycling schemes, but it’s great to see that Shropshire also collects aerosols, foil trays, tin foil, metal lids from jars and aluminium screw caps from bottles too especially as we use more of them around Christmas. More than 580 million aerosols are used in the UK each year, plus 16,000 tonnes of foil trays – so recycling them has huge potential to save energy and cut the amount of waste going to landfill.”

Plastic films

Alot of people ask about plastic film recycling.  This is something which is offered in Shropshire but not through the formal Council services, you have to take it back to the larger supermarkets around the county where they have carrier bag recycling containers in-store, this includes the larger super stores of: -

• Tesco
• Co-op
• Sainsburys
• Asda
• Morrisons

Most of us visit a large supermarket on a very regular basis and so it should be effortless to take your plastic bags and film back with you when you visit the stores instead of binning them.  I find the easiest thing is to keep a carrier bag in a cupboard and then i cram all my plastic bags into one. Its amazing how much you can squeeze in if you keep squashing more and more plastic film in there!  

And the key thing is now its not just plastic bags you can recycle but any of the similar stretchy plastic film.  So for example in the last week or so heres some things i have kept out of landfill and recycled with my carrier bags. 

A stretchy plastic wrapper from a multi pack of baked beans.  (Similar plastic wrappers found on multipacks of drinks cans etc can also be recycled with your carrier bags).  The simple thing is if it looks like a plastic bag and feels like a plastic bag then it probably is made of polythene and therefore OK to be included with the supermarket carrier bags for recycling.

 

Another one I recycle all the time is the plastic liner from cereal boxes - these are made of exactly the same plastic as carrier bags so can go back to the supermarket bag recycling point.

 

 

I also add all the plastic bags that my fruit and veg come in from apples to grapes and potato bags like this they can all be recycled at the larger supermarkets. 

 

 

Another useful tip is to look in your freezer - because generally speaking if a product is destined for freezing it will be wrapped in polythene, so all the bags your frozen peas and oven chips come in - all those sorts can be recycled with your carrier bags.  Also if you use freezer bags, the ziplock type or

 

 

Other obvious examples include plastic bags used for bread, which are obviously the same material as plastic shopping bags and so can be included.  One way to check if you want is to try the "stretch test".  Polythene is very stretchy and it will tend to stretch and give if you pull on it, unlike more brittle plastic films.  

 

To help make it a bit easier - some food & packaging producers and supermarkets are helpfully labelling the plastic as recyclable now.

For example this loo roll bag was well labled as (low-density) polythene which is the technical term for the type of thin stretchy plastic film they make carrier bags from.  
 

 

 

Other good examples I found include Kingsmill bread - so well done them for using the official British Retail Council on-pack label to remind everyone to "recycle with carrier bags at larger stores".
 

 

And brownie points too should go to West Mid Co-op who now have a policy of labelling all their fresh produce bags like this example I found on celery. 

 

Other common examples of recyclable plastic film includes magazine wrap, shrink wrap, polythene courier bags, plastic garment covers from the dry cleaners, plastic grocery bags, can six pack rings (you know the stretchy plasitc 'yolks' used to hold drinks cans together, and obviously all types of plastic shopping bag including bags for life.

Hopefully you will see more and more producers label the packaging, like this.  The clear instruction "Recycle with carrier bags at larger stores" and "not at the kerbside" hopefully makes it clear that you cant put this in the council plastic collections but you can recycle it simply by dropping it off at the supermarket next time you go shopping - its really easy and it will make a big difference, reducing the amount of rubbish in your bin and protecting the environment.

So the key message is if its plastic and its stretchy, dont bin it take it back to the supermarket for recycling!

For more information check out the recycle now webpage http://www.recyclenow.com/what-to-do-with/plastic-film 

Recycle your aerosols

Each year on average, the UK uses around 600 million aerosols – that works out at 27 households a year. The main body of an aerosol is usually made from tin-plated steel or aluminium, both of which are 100 per cent recyclable.

You can recycle any aerosol cans in Shropshire really easily.  Either pop them in your box at home with your cans and plastic or drop them off at your nearest recycling site with the cans, tins and aluminium foil.

Please remember:

• Make sure it is empty


• Do not attempt to pierce or squash the can


• Place in with your kerbside recycling box (or take it to a recycling centre)

Scrappies crafts & recycling

Scrappies (Crafts and Recycling) By Alan Stewart (Master Composter)
 

I’ve found that a great and inexpensive way to entertain my 4 year old daughter Isla is to take her to Scrappies (crafts & recycling) in Church Stretton. We like to make it a whole day out by catching the train to Church Stretton (itself an exciting activity for a 4 year old!) and also letting off some steam with a play in the park before heading home.   The play park in Church Stretton is a particularly good one.

Scrappies is a charity; their team of volunteers collects surplus products from factories, shops and businesses.  These are then sorted, bagged and stocked in the scrapstore located in Church Stretton town centre.  It is a fantastic place to pick up extremely cheap materials for any child’s craft activity: fabric off-cuts, buttons, scraps of paper and card, plastic bottles, pots, lids, books, ribbons, foam and foil.  They also sell new craft resources including paints, glue, crayons, pens, clay, tissue paper, feathers etc…

Isla loves rummaging around for things and imagining what she can make with them.  She has particularly enjoyed, for instance, having her own ‘diary’ to scribble in (actually a 2012 diary - but she is none the wiser!!), which we picked up for a few pence.  To make your craft activities even easier, and in case you are needing inspiration, they also have a selection of make-your-own kits such as peg dolls and puppets which have been put together by Scrappies volunteers from the materials available in the store.

I am told that a new ‘Crafty Kids’ craft club is starting on Saturday mornings 10—12am from January as a drop in session, which we will definitely be heading to!  Scrappies craft workers can also be booked for activity tents, events and birthday parties to run creative activities for children and families.

Scrappies are not open every day of the week so do check their website first: www.scrappies.org or contact via: info@scrappies.org or by phone (during opening hours) on 01694 722 511.

Recycle your Christmas cards for charity

National charity the Woodland Trust - who help maintain trees and forests in Shropshire and beyond are again promoting their Christmas card recycling scheme. 



The scheme is made possible thanks to the support of High Street retailers Marks & Spencer who put out special card collection bins in M&S stores from January 2 to January 31 2014.  Money generated through the card recycling scheme will fund the planting of new trees throughout the UK including in parts of Shropshire. 

If everyone in the UK recycles just one Christmas card at M&S this January, the Woodland Trust will be able to plant more than 60,000 trees across the UK. The UK is 10,000 trees richer thanks to the 10 million Christmas cards recycled last year. Lets see if we can help get another 10,000 planted again this coming year. 

Mike Barry, Head of Sustainable Business at M&S said, "This is a fantastic campaign which provides a really easy way for everyone to get involved in planting new woodland and preserving our important natural habitats by doing something as simple as dropping your old Christmas cards off at a M&S store."

Local MP Philip Dunne has been backing the scheme and taking his cards back to his local store in Shropshire.  

For more information on this scheme visit http://plana.marksandspencer.com/about/partnerships/woodland-trust

Dont be a Turkey - recycle your cooking oil this Christmas

This Christmas we are all going to produce alot more cooking oil and fat than usual.  Whether its the drippings off your beef joint, turkey fat or the olive oil from all those roast potatoes its really important to use every last drop.  The simplest way to keep your drains free of blockages and stop filling up your rubbish bin is to take your used cooking oil to your local household recycling centre this Christmas.

Shropshire Council and its recycling contractor Veolia have partnered with Living Fuels to transform the oil into much needed renewable energy.  The five household recycling centres in Shropshire have been fitted with tanks to collect cooking oil, which is then taken to a recycling facility where it is transformed into an environmentally friendly liquid biofuel which is fed into generators to create both heat and power.

You can recycle over 30 different types of material at your local household recycling centre and now cooking oil is just one more thing that you can recycle.  Its really easy to recycle your used cooking oil this Christmas, once it's cool just pour it into a sealed container and bring it to your local Household Recycling Centre.  This is the greenest way to deal with your waste cooking oil, its reducing your carbon footprint and helping keep the lights on too!

To find your nearest recycling site visit http://new.shropshire.gov.uk/recycling-and-rubbish

Plastic film recycling in Shropshire

Alot of people ask us about what to do with plastic film because it cant be collected with the Councils plastic recycling service. However its a really simple answer - you can take this type of plastic back to the larger supermarkets and recycle it at their in-store carrier bag recycling points - this includes all of the larger Asda, Sainsbury, Co-op, Morrisons and Tesco supermarkets in Shropshire.

What types of plastic film are accepted?

They accept any polyethene a.k.a. low-density polyethylene (LDPE) film which is sometimes marked with a number 4.   This includes things like: -

•plastic wrappers from bakery goods

•plastic breakfast cereal liners

•plastic toilet roll wrappers

•plastic bags from fruit and veg

•plastic carrier bags

•plastic bread bags

•plastic freezer bags

•plastic magazine wrap

•plastic shrink wrap

If you are unsure look out for the label on the packet which should say "recycle with your carrier bags at larger stores - not at the kerbside".

The supermarkets collect it at the front of the store and then they use "reverse haulage" so when new stock is delivered the empty truck takes away all their plastic wrapping. The plastic is recycled at a variety of mainly UK based reprocessors who use it to make recycled plastic carrier bags and rubbish bags.

It is said that the average household in Shropshire gets through about 25kg each year which sounds small but means theres about 5,000 tonnes of the stuff just in Shropshire, Telford and Wrekin each year, most of which is going straight into landfill.  So do your bit for the planet and slim your bin, help keep this out of landfill by taking it back to the supermarket. Its not like you have to go out of your way to do it after all!  By recycling your plastic bags and film you also save taxpayers money, create jobs and investment, help to reduce oil use, save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Textile recycling in Shropshire

Textiles recycling

Charity shops welcome donations of clothes and other textiles. In most parts of Shropshire they also post bags through your door and offer free kerbside collections too.  You can also recycle textiles at the Councils Household Recycling Centres and at most of the supermarket recycling points.

What textiles can be recycled?

• clean clothing
• towels
• sheets and blankets
• duvet covers
• hats, scarfs, gloves
• leathers, belts and handbags
• pillow cases
• shoes in pairs
• curtains

To keep them clean and dry, please put your textiles in a bag before putting them in the recycling bank.

What textiles don't they want?

• Dirty material
• Duvets / pillows
• Carpets / rugs

What happens to the textiles?

The textiles go to BCR Global Textiles near Birmingham where they are sorted according to quality. Nice wearable items get re-used in second hand clothes shops mostly in Africa.  The lower quality items which cannot be sold secondhand get shredded down for cleaning cloths, and used to make 'shoddy' which is used for stuffing sofas and cushions.

For more information visit

• BCR Textiles

Furniture re-use in Shropshire

Furniture re-use in Shropshire

We often get asked when we are out promoting waste minimisation in Shropshire with Shropshire Master Composters about how to deal with big bulky items like furniture and white goods - especially if you dont have a car to get to the tip. Luckily in Shropshire there are several local furniture re-use schemes.  All schemes collect good quality furniture, electrical items, white goods, bedding, beds, curtains, crockery and cutlery - and pass them on to those in need. 

Save yourself a trip to the tip, contact your local scheme to arrange a collection:

• Shrewsbury Furniture Scheme - 01743 246668
• Oswestry & North Shropshire Furniture Scheme - 01691 679817
• South Shropshire Furniture Scheme - 01584 877788
• Bridgnorth District Furniture Scheme - 01746 764494
• Reviive Shop in Shrewsbury - 01743 588458

What is a furniture reuse scheme?

All schemes are non-profit groups set up to recycle unwanted items within Shropshire. Most have some capacity to restore and repair items but they prefer working, good quality items. The schemes are run by a combination of paid staff, trainees and volunteers.

What items cant they collect?

• Gas appliances of any sort.
• Soft furnishings without Fire Regulation labels.
• Glass items without British Standards kite-mark.

What happens to the items?

Wherever possible the items are repaired and reused by selling them on at low prices. This helps to benefit local Shropshire residents on low incomes.

For more information visit: - 

 

• Shrewsbury Furniture Scheme
• Oswestry furniture recycling scheme
• South Shropshire furniture scheme
• Bridgnorth Furniture Scheme
• Reviive
• Telford Furniture Scheme
• Furniture re-use network

TV recycling in Shropshire

All types of TV's can be recycled in Shropshire simply by taking them to the Council's Recycling Centres.

And its not just TVs they accept any type of display screens for recycling, including:

• Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors
• Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screens
• Plasma screens
• Personal Computer (PC) monitors
• Calculators
• Sat navs
• Laptops

All monitors are taken to Recycling Lives (www.recyclinglives.com) in Lancashire for recycling.  Recycling Lives is a charitable organisation who use recycling to create income to support people in need - literally recycling lives.


From humble beginnings as a small local charity repairing furniture and trading a bit of scrap metal, they have now grown into a large social enterprise and expanded their operations to include a fully licenced TV recycling factory which allows them to safely handle hazardous waste including PC monitors and TV sreens which contain cathode ray tubes.

Once staff in the main area of the recycling centre have removed the plastic and metal components from the units, the remaining screen and mercury-filled fluorescent tubes enter the sealed mercury-safe room.

Did you know almost 99% of the material in the TV can now be recycled, including the glass from the screen and the hard plastics used, almost nothing goes to waste and this is one of the highest / most efficient for any recycling process.

Fluorescent lighting recycling in Shropshire

Did you know that low energy light bulbs can be considered hazardous waste and should be handled with caution?  Although they are not immediately dangerous, all fluorescent lighting contains tiny amounts of mercury and so when they reached the end of their life or get broken they should not be put in your general rubbish for disposal.

If you do need to get rid of a low energy light bulb or the long fluorescent tubes then you should take them to the Councils Household Recycling Centre instead.

The good news is that mercury within the bulbs can be safely recovered and the glass gets recycled. They can't go in the normal glass recycling though because they're Phosphor coated glass, so please don’t place them in bottle banks or your kerbside glass recycling box.   Its also reassuring to know that the tiny amounts of mercury used in these lamps is much less that the amount of mercury which gets pumped out by coal fired power stations every year!

So low energy lightbulbs are an environmentally friendly solution they use less power, they save you money, they reduce mercury in the environment overall and they can be recycled, a win, win, win, win!

There is a special area set aside for these lamps, look our for the signage or ask the site attendants if you are unsure or need help, they are always very helpful there.  

What to do with your old Argos catelogues

Residents in Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin are being encouraged to help reduce waste to landfill by recycling their old Argos catalogues, when the new one is launched in July 2013.
It is estimated that there are over 30 million Argos catalogues in circulation across the country, each weighing 2kg each – a combined weight equivalent to more than 10,000 double decker buses!!!!
In Shropshire and Telford, people can recycle old and unwanted Argos catalogues in their kerbside collection box with their paper. They also compost down well eventually but you may need to tear them up a bit first.

Paper based catelogues are a carbon rich source of 'brown' fibrous material for your compost heap which help to mop up moist food waste and other 'green' materials.
All Argos catalogues collected in Shropshire will be sent to the UPM paper mill at Shotton, Deeside where they are turned into newsprint paper and used to make newspapers.

Recycling Gas Bottles

As the summer barbecue season approaches many people in Shropshire will be making use of gas bottles to power their modern barbecues or perhaps getting out the caravan for the summer.  In fact in many Shropshire homes off the gas network these things are common place, so one way or another it is possible that you may end up with a LPG gas cylinder to dispose of at some point. 

Used gas bottles are considered hazardous waste and must be treated with caution because although unlikely they are potentially explosive. The best option is to take them back to where you got them from.  Most companies which sell them take them back free of charge as part of the service and so hopefully you wont have to deal with them yourself, but there are also facilities for the safe recycling of gas bottles at each of the five Council run Household Recycling Centres (HRCs) in Shropshire.

What type of gas bottles do they accept?

Any pressurized metal containers including: -

• LPG (propane or butane) gas bottles
• Gas fire cylinders
• Diving tanks
• Helium cansisters
• Fire extinguishers
• Beer kegs

How should I recycle them?

Ideally you should take the bottles back to the company that makes them, which can normally be identified from the label. It is important that you handle used gas bottles with care. If you take them to a HRC please ask the site staff for assistance. There is a lockable cage at each of the sites where used bottles can be safely stored.

What happens to the gas bottles?

The aim is to reunite orphaned bottles with the company which makes them. They are collected by the LPG (Liquified Petroleum Gas) Association and wherever possible they are refilled with more gas and reused again.  As a back up where this is not possible the containers are safely depressurized and then they can be recycled for the scrap metal content. 

Why recycle gas bottles?

Primarily it is a health and safety issue, these things can be dangerous and so it is important to follow the correct disposal instructions and ensure that they get taken for professional reuse / recycling.  Not only is it reducing waste to landfill but by allowing bottles to be reused it is reducing the need for more gas bottles to be manufactured. This is reducing the need for metal to be made which helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

For more information on recycling gas bottles visit: - 

• Health and Safety Executive
• UK LPG Association

Britain’s households stash 17 part used paint cans

The Metal Packaging Manufacturers Association is urging the public to take their metal paint cans for recycling after research found that Britain’s households are hoarding 17 part used paint cans each on average.

Britain’s households have 17 part used paint cans each on average and half of these are estimated to be made of metal equating to 39,500 tonnes of scrap metal which could be potentially all be recycled.

The problem is many householders don’t know what to do with the paint left in them.  The Association recommends a number of ways including being donated to local repaint schemes or soaked up in absorbent material like sand and then disposed of.

Nick Mullen, MPMA’s chief executive said: “Why not take your empty metal paint can hoard, to your recycling centre and free up some overlooked storage space?”

In Shropshire you can take unwanted paint to any of the main Household Recycling Centres for disposal and (empty) metal paint tins can be recycled in the scrap metal area.

Shropshire powers ahead with cooking oil recycling

Staff from Shropshire Council and Veolia are celebrating the success of a green energy iniative which has seen them presented with an official certificate of commendation in recognition of the fact that 6,740 Litres of used cooking oil has collected from Household Recycling Centres in Shropshire in the last year alone.

The cooking oil collected by renewable energy provider Living Fuels was refined into a green biofuel which has been used in their dedicated combined heat and power generators to create 25,275 kWh of green electricity.


The big green tanks are clearly marked and are now in place at:

• Shrewsbury HRC (Battlefield Enterprise Park)

• Oswestry HRC (Mile Oak Industrial Estate)

• Bridgnorth HRC (Barnsley Lane)

• Whitchurch HRC (Waymills Civic Park)

• Craven Arms HRC (off Long Lane)

Donald Macphail, Regional Director for Veolia in the Midlands said “Just one litre of used cooking oil generates enough clean electricity to make 240 cups of tea, whilst one tonne provides enough to power the average home for an entire year. This offsets the need for fossil fuels to create electricity which reduces greenhouse gas emissions.”

Larry Wolfe, Head of Waste Management at Shropshire Council added, "It's great that the public have responded well to this new recycling initiative. By bringing their used cooking oil to our Household Recycling Centres they are helping to reduce the amount of rubbish which ends up in landfill."

For more about the used cooking oil recycling process, visit www.livingfuels.co.uk  

Top tips for recycling your used cooking oil:

1. Allow the oil to cool completely before dealing with it

2. Strain it into a container such as an plastic bottle or jar with a lid

3. Don’t mix it with anything (solvents, water etc) or it wont be recyclable

4. Once full, take your oil to a HRC (don’t make a specific trip but wait until you are visiting anyway or are in the area)

5. Ask the site attendants for directions or assistance if you need it

6. The oil should be poured into the clearly marked tanks

Small businesses 'throw away' £463m in 2013

Data released by waste management company Veolia, shows that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) will ‘throw away’ as much as £463 million in landfill tax during 2013.

By sending waste to landfill, rather than recycling it, SMEs are likely to fall foul of landfill tax which, as of 1 April 2013, stands at £72 per tonne, up from £64 in 2012.

Veolia warns that unless SMEs recycle more, that figure will only increase as landfill tax rises to £80 per tonne in 2014/15.

Chief Executive Officer of Veolia, Estelle Brachlianoff, said: We have now reached a stage where it is much more expensive to send waste to landfill than it is to recycle.  The solution is to develop a recycling mindset in the workplace based on segregating materials at source.

Plasterboard recycling in Shropshire

Did you know that plasterboard can be recycled at all of the main Council Household Recycling Centres (HRCs) (aka "the tip") in Shropshire.




They accept:  -

- Gypsum blocks

- Virgin gypsum board cut-offs

- Left-over plaster of paris

- Complete plasterboards or broken parts

- Gypsum ceilings, floors or walls


It does not matter if there are nails, screws or wallpaper on the boards - this is removed during the reprocessing and the gypsum from within the plasterboard can be recovered.

All the plasterboard from Shropshire get taken to Kent for recycling. The boards are made up of 96% gypsum, all of which can be recycled. Gypsum is a very valuable mineral which can be used to make more plasterboard, used in construction materials or applied to agricultural land as a fertiliser. 

It is estimated that around 300,000 tonnes of plasterboard gets sent to landfill in the UK each year. Not only does recycling help reduce waste to landfill, but by recycling plasterboard you are reducing the need for more gypsum to be mined, thus helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Carrier bags - material matters

All types of carrier bag, whether made from plastic, paper or jute, will have some impact on the environment during the manufacturing process, transportation and ultimate disposal. The best way to reduce their carbon footprint is to not use carrier bags at all if you can and to simply re-use them as many times as possible and then recycle them at the end of their useful life.

Plastic carrier bags

While plastic carrier bags are efficient and use 70% less plastic than they did 20 years ago, they are still made from polyethylene (PE) which is derived from non-renewable oil and require energy to manufacture.

Plastic bags are recyclable and are increasingly being recycled by the supermarkets, but the majority still end up in landfill where they may take hundreds of years to break down.  Increasing the recycled content of new plastic bags is a way of using fewer natural resources and reduces their impact on the environment.

Degradable PE carrier bags

There are a number of retailers who provide ‘degradable’ PE carrier bags, (also known as ‘oxy-degradable’ or ‘UV degradable’). Degradable bags are made from oil-derived PE but also contain a special additive that causes the plastic to degrade by oxidation and exposure to light and heat.

The bags initially fragment then undergo biodegradation which reduces the material to water, CO2, biomass and trace elements. The bags may take between 18 months to four years to disappear depending on conditions and are unlikely to fully degrade in landfill sites, but will not release methane either.

Biodegradable carrier bags

These bags are not so commonly used by retailers as they are less strong for the same gauge of material. They are made from renewable crop-derived sources (e.g. corn starch).  They are usually designed to biodegrade in aerobic industrial composting conditions and may conform to EN 13432. They may be compostable in home composting conditions but there is no UK standard for home compostability at present.

Paper bags

While paper carrier bags are from a renewable source and are biodegradable, compostable and recyclable, they require significantly more energy to manufacture and transport than plastic bags and normally have limited re-use ability.  If disposed of in landfill, they are likely to degrade and release methane.

 

Natural materials

Jute and cotton are made from plants which need a lot of water and fertiliser to grow and energy to harvest and process into bags.  They encourage re-use, and can be reprocessed at the end of their useful life as, for example, blankets used by removal companies.   If disposed of in landfill, they are likely to degrade and release methane.