INFORM Waste
COUNCILS BEST PRACTICE
Food waste from 250,000 west
London homes is to be turned
Wales sets 70% recycling target
into electricity instead of going
to landfill. At least 70% of all waste produced
Kitchen waste from Ealing, in Wales will be recycled by 2025
Hounslow and Richmond will under ambitious new guidelines
be collected from the doorstep announced last month.
and taken away to be turned The targets are part of the Welsh
into electricity through anaero- Assembly Government’s new
bic digestion. waste strategy, which sets out how
The West London Waste Wales proposes to tackle the issue
Authority struck the deal with over the next four decades.
BiogenGreenfinch, which will Jane Davidson, environment,
send the sustainability and housing minister
power to at the assembly, believes this move
the national is the “most ambitious” recycling
grid from its plan among all the administrations
Northamptonshire plant. of the UK.
The deal will mean food Preliminary recycling informa-
that would have been sent to tion for the first three quarters of Welsh recycling plan is the ‘most ambitious’ in the UK
landfill, and produce methane, 2008 to 2009 reveal Wales has
will be recycled. recycled 36% of its municipal treat our country and planet. We retailers. The first 1,000 people
This process will generate waste – a 4% increase over the can no longer simply bury waste who register with the site will
enough electricity to continu- 2007/08 figure of 32%. in the land to rot. We need to act receive a reusable bag. Hundreds
ously power almost three thou- But the newly announced tar- now for the sake of our country. of people have registered their
sand homes. Philip Greenaway gets would mean almost doubling Will we be able to look our support for the campaign in the
from BiogenGreenfinch said: this to 70% recycling target for grandchildren in the eye and say first week, with more coming
“We already know the scheme municipal and household waste. we did all we could to protect in each day.
will be very popular with local The assembly government is where they live?” “People are more aware of
people and that it makes finan- also setting a tough 90% target Meanwhile, a new Welsh this issue than ever before, but
cial and environmental sense.” for recycling, recovery and reuse Assembly Government campaign each year Wales still uses an
of non hazardous waste from is under way to get people in estimated 480 million plastic
INNOVATION
construction. Wales to cut the number of single- bags,” added Davidson. “It takes
The University of New Both of these will contribute to use carrier bags. between 500 and 1,000 years for
Hampshire will be 85% pow- the long-term goal of making The Get Carried Away cam- these bags to degrade. We simply
ered by landfill emissions after Wales a zero-waste nation by 2050 paign aims to encourage people to cannot go on like this.
announcing the completion of and bringing the country’s ecologi- reuse their single-use carrier bags “We are calling on people to
its $49M (£31M) EcoLine. cal footprint closer to the average and help them remember to take reuse bags whenever they go out
The project is a landfill gas- availability of resources – 1.8 glob- their bags with them when they shopping. By taking this simple
to-energy one that uses puri- al hectares per person. go shopping. step, we can make a huge differ-
fied methane from a nearby Davidson said: “What we do Alongside radio adverts, there is ence to the environmental damage
landfill to power the campus. with our waste reflects how we a website aimed at consumers and we are inflicting on our planet.”
The five million square-foot
campus will receive up to 85%
BEST PRACTICE
of its electricity and heat from
purified natural gas, making it
Tesco achieves zero waste in 800 stores
first university in America to use
landfill gas as its primary fuel A huge logistical operation at progress on its Community Plan that have helped include:
source. Mark Huddleston, uni- Britain’s biggest retailer has cut promises. Chief executive Sir Terry
■
Reusing waste meat to generate
versity president, said: “This waste headed for landfill to zero in Leahy said: “I fundamentally fuel through a third-party plant,
massive project, more than four 800 stores across four cities and believe that business has a crucial which goes back into the national
years in the making, will reduce regions – Liverpool, Birmingham, role to play in tackling climate grid as electricity
our dependence on fossil fuels Manchester and within the M25. change, setting an example, guid-
■
Turning recycled carrier bags into
and stabilise our fuel source The programme means that ing consumers towards more sus- refuse bags
and costs. Tesco is on course to achieve its tainable forms of consumption,
■
Delivering and display products
After the gas is purified and goal of sending no waste to landfill making them affordable and pro- in reusable plastic trays to save
compressed at a new process- across the entire country. And it viding the information on which 20,000 tonnes of cardboard in the
ing plant, it travels through a expects to reach 95% diversion for to make informed green choices.” UK alone
12.7-mile-pipeline from the the UK as a whole by next year. Tesco has more than 3,500 proj-
landfill to the university’s The initiative is reviewed in the ects under way to reduce, recycle The company has also introduced
cogeneration plant, where it firm’s latest corporate responsibili- and reuse all with the aim of recy- initiatives to help customers cut
will replace commercial natural ty report, which covers Tesco’s cling 100% of its waste. Initiatives waste.
gas as the primary fuel source.
IN FACT PLASTIC BAGS ACCOUNT FOR 2.7% OF ALL LITTER BY WEIGHT
8 June 2009 ❘ Sustainable Business
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