Time Out: news and activities

America Recycles Day, Guardian Big Energy Debate & Manchester United

I decided to start the week with something that looks more relaxing compared to the lists of concepts highlighted in the previous posts. Hence, browsing the Internet, I found three nice bits related to the recycling process and, more generically, to the energy debate.

1. America Recycles Day
In 2012, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), US produced 251 million tons of Municipal Solid Waste. I think that this data is the right point to start talking about the "America Recycles Day", an initiative promoted by the non-profit Keep America Beautiful with the aim to encourage the communities increasing their recycling actions.
The official day is on November 15th of each year but it actually lasts longer than a single day. In the last few months 1053 events were planned throughout the US territory: “Plastic Bag Recycling & Household Hazardous Waste” (Hickory, North Carolina), “Recycle Cloths for the Planet” (Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey), “Stock the Pantry” (Steubenville, Ohio), “Recycled Art Contest” (Hogansville, Georgia) and many more.
Obviously, there is an online side of this initiative that runs on all social media and involves things like #RecyclingSelfie (see figures below).
Links: www.kab.org, www.americarecyclesday.org. Twitter: @kabtweet, @recyclesday

  

America Recycles Day: screenshots from my twitter account

2. Guardian Big Energy Debate
We are still on time to sign up for the “Guardian Big Energy Debate”, event scheduled for Wednesday 21st January 2015. Organized by the Guardian, the meeting represents the end of a 12-months project that has involved policy makers, industry and academics. The aim of the debate is an update on the energy situation in UK and understanding how to better address future approaches in terms of supply, costs and emissions.
Together with the Guardian’s energy editor Terry Macalister, there will be talks held by MPs as Tim Yeo and Caroline Flint.
Links: Guardian Big Energy Debate Twitter: @guardianeco (#bigenergydebate)

3. Manchester United
MNU is aware of the energy issues and realizes that its worldwide popularity could be a fundamental action to help tackling the environmental debate. The project seems to be still embryonic, but the idea would consist in spreading the environmental voice taking advantages of the huge amount of people linked with the media of the club: MUTV (Manchester United Television), Twitter (3.8 Mln followers), Facebook (62 Mln likes) and 70k people at “Old Trafford” each match-day. Another strategy would trace the basic element of the sport: competition. Promotion of green challenges, (already devised by “Fans Without Footprints”) like recycling contests, with a lists of awards.
Take 2 minutes to watch this funny video: "If we cared about the environment like we care about sports" shows perfectly the foundation of MNU project.
Source: Oliver Balch - The Guardian

Have a good week and see you soon on RE-cycling!

2020 is getting closer and closer

Alarm bell from new Defra's report

Hi again!

Before starting out, I want to introduce this post with an apology: I realized that I haven't encouraged the discussion so far! Nothing dramatic, but obviously any comment, opinion and remark is more than welcome in RE-cycling!

Anyway, I was going to post the ending post of the "Digging the topic" series but, slightly late, I came across an important update about the recycling situation within the UK. I merely thought it was more appropriate to give fresh information rather then keep writing about definition and numbers.

On October 22nd, Adam Vaughan, the editor of environmentguardian.co.uk, published a piece of writing focused on the grade of recycled waste in England. Overlooking the debate between MPs the CEO stepped in, the article is mainly based on the recently released Defra's report "Waste Management in England".
It basically spins around the quantity of waste that has been recycled in recent years: even though the recycling rate had arose prominently between 2001 and 2007 (from 11% to 34%), it had then weakened (only 34% to 39% during the gap 2007 - 2010) and has ended up to an alarming stable value of 43% in the last years (table 1).

Table 1. Recycling rate (%) according to Defra's data (click to enlarge).

Why is this alarming? Well, here is the problem! Taking into account the "Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council", we must be able to achieve a recycling ratio of 50% no later than 2020. Article 11,2a (page 312/13):

"by 2020, the preparing for re-use and the recycling of waste materials such as at least paper, metal, plastic and glass from households and possibly from other origins as far as these waste streams are similar of waste from households, shall be increased to a minimum of overall 50 % by weight;"

Moral: we will never reach that ratio if we keep following the recent trend.

At this stage the consequent issues is: why has the recycling ratio stopped growing? Vaughan moves then across the possible causes that lead at this point, considering both the many different in-force recycling procedures in England (there are 400 of them out there!) and also the related government action, probably not strong enough anymore. Indeed, related to this aspect the MPs asserted that the Government has to lead a stronger promotion of recycling in order to redo the recycling rate rise again and match the EU target.

Thereafter, disclosing few information that I will broadly explore in future posts, Adam Vaughan touches upon two of the reasons why recycling is an important process. Following the guidelines outlined by the EU and the MPs, recycling is needed in order to:

1. reduce landfilling. Article 4,1 (L 312/10) of the Directive 2008/98 mentioned before says "the following waste hierarchy shall apply as a priority order in waste prevention and management legislation and policy: (a) prevention; (b) preparing for re-use; (c) recycling; (d) other recovery, e.g. energy recovery; and (e) disposal". Reducing disposal means reducing (also) landfilling, which thus represents the last option in terms of waste management (as we will see, landfilling causes emissions of methane and higher ground pollution hazards besides taking up huge areas of land).

2. waste as a energy resource. Quite meaningful is what the MP Anne McIntosh released discussing the Defra's report: "How are we going to get rid of our waste? How are we going to find alternative sources of energy? What would you prefer – unsightly fracking wells with thousands of lorries trundling around with waste water or would you prefer to take energy from waste, where you’re both disposing of the waste and you’re both fuelling and heating". It looks like that a lot of stuff has to be done. The challenge consists in bringing England where Wales already is: Cymru recycling rate is at 54%...they can wait 2020 chilling out. See you soon on RE-cycling!