Greenmonk: the blog

Earlier this week I wrote a blog about “carbon-added taxation” and magnetic trains, based on conversations on Twitter, a text-based social network that I use. Well today I extended that approach, and I am pretty excited about the results.

With a minimum of fuss, I was able to start capturing the recycling experiences of a constituents around the UK and Europe. We fostered a pretty rich conversation about recycling in Europe, and then others began to chime in. The tools to enable to conversation and capture of same were Twitter, pbwiki (a simple tool to allow anyone to edit a web page) and editgrid (an online spreadsheet that allows for concurrent editing).

The wiki is here (if you want to add your own story please use the password “green” and state your location. if you have a blog or twitter account please cite that too.)

Alternatively just twitter your story but use the tag #recycle (I will pick it up and add it to the wiki if you dont)

The spreadsheet is here, but we quickly discovered the unstructured conversational insights were more interesting than attempting to delineate every recycling regulation in Europe!

So here it is - the conversation:

@monkchips: I live and work in Hackney, recently named London’s greenest borough (largely a function of being one of London’s poorest but there you go). At this point Hackney is actually doing an admirable job of recycling. They come once a week and take food waste, garden waste, glass, paper and cardboard, even clothes. They take the stuff and put it in compartmentalised trucks. There are also many local “bottle banks”.

@dominiccampbell: I live in Islington which has a very effeective recycling scheme from a user perspective, but due to the way the waste is not kept separate (rather it is co-mingled) an awful lot of this waste will never be recycled despite our best efforts which is a little depressing. In my working life, I was responsible for the development of the ‘compulsory recycling scheme’ in the London Borough of Barnet, the first such scheme in the UK which has now been rolled out elsewhere (Hackney included). I also worked on a ‘waste review’ in the borough where it was recognised that waste minimisation is far more instrumental than recycling in boosting green goals (although far harder to achieve and often out of the control of the local councils).

@folknology: I live in Farnham, Surrey, Uk. We have alternating garbage and recylcling fortnightly. The recycling has two black palstic box types, one for paper (not cardboard) the other is for plastic bottles, cartons and tin/aluminium. There is also a small crate for glass such as bottles (to much vino!). We also managed to gain an additional black box for plastics and aluminium as a family with heavier consumption via special request. The service is excellent allthough in 2007 the day would change after each holiday causing minor confusions. This year the collection days remain the same (mondays) for our street. For other goods such as cardborad we use the local facilities at a nearby supermarket. After some research I can confirm that the recycling does actually get recycled - our local recycling FAQ

@mario: I live in Wandsworth, and while I don’t know what actually happens to the recycling once it’s collected, it’s very easy and effective from a household’s POV - all paper, cardboard, glass, aluminium and plastics go into orange bags (i.e. no need to separate them), which is collected weekly on the same day as the normal rubbish collection.

@yellowpark:  I live in Kent.  Our recycling scheme consists of putting all recyclables into one bag. This bag is then collected and put into a traditional style rubbish truck.  I fail to see how this can recycle any of the items.  Not ony are the items mixed up, but they are then crushedby the truck rendering them worthless.  video here.  We need one recycling scheme for the whole of the UK  There are 32 London Boroughs and 32 recycling schemes.  Unifying the UKs recycling would create economies of scale and provide a consistant system that everone would understand.  Business needs to be focussed upon.  Take the trains.  I have regularly seen trains being cleaned with all rubbish being placed into one bag.  Surely this cannot be recycled as all the different types of rubbish are mixed up.  I shudder to think how much paper this looses from the recycling system.  When a business buys waste collection services from a council, they get a mini skip type bin that is emptied a couple of times a week.  Again, must be landfill as everything is mixed up.  We need recycling to be sorted at source.  Exactly the way Hackey do the system, where each different type of material is placed in seperate boxes  This maximises the amount hat can be recycled and preserves the abaility to recycle.

@mario: yellowpark, Wandsworth council claim the mixed recycling is “sent to a Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) in Crayford, Kent where the materials are sorted out using a variety of mechanical and hand-sorting techniques” (from this page), so unless they’re lying, just the fact that the recycling isn’t separated at source (i.e. at home) doesn’t mean it can’t be recycled. I don’t disagree with you on the benefits of unifying the system though, and to be a little controversial, I would actually support making people pay for the amount of rubbish they throw away. It works in many European countries, e.g. in Switzerland there are boroughs where you have to buy special refuse bags at a premium price, and rubbish is only collected if it’s inside one of these bags. I believe many other countries have similar ways of charging for the amount of rubbish that is thrown away.

@yellowpark: mario, I understand that a mixed bag of recyclables can be hand sorted. My point being that sorting at source is the most efficient means of ensuring that the different materials are sorted correctly and efficiently.  Hand sorting means wages and adds another processing layer that could be hugely reduced by sorting at source.  The same goes for how we have litter bins without compartments for the different  materals both in the home, on the street and in businesses.

@mario: yellowpark, agreed - but there is presumably a trade-off. If simplifying the recycling process by not requiring people to separate their recycling means that people actually recycle more, then the overhead of sorting it elsewhere may be worth it in the overall scheme. I don’t speak from any position of expertise here, and I don’t know what (if any) figures exist to back this up.. just thinking out loud.

@yellowpark: mario, that is a very valid point that I hadn’t considered. It would be interesting to compare recycling volumes between Hackney, where items are sorted thoroughly at source and another borough like Wandsworth where everything goes into one bag.  Also, to compare the value of the total recylables and the overhead for administering the schemes. Some of this info surely must be available as public informatin.

@derekabdinor never put glass shards in with the normal rubbish. Cuts hands, and mixed in with all the gunk inevitably leads to infection. If you can’t toss into a bottle bank (can’t really think why not) put into shoebox and masking tape over. Mark as having glass shards in

@eddydc: Flanders (Belgium) claims to be the champions of sorting out waste. All depends on each town who decides which type of recycling will be done. In our town it goes like this:

• paper, cardboard, … collected once a month or can be dumped at the container park. Both are free.
• certain plastics (bottles, etc), metal (tins, cans, etc) and beverage coated board packaging are collected every forthnight a via special plastic bag (bag to be payed) or can be dumped at the container park for free
• vegetable, fruit and garden waste is collected every every forthnight a via a special trash bin which is billed per kilogram waste or if you have you a garden, can be composted (free of course)
• all the rest of the waste is collected every every forthnight a via a special trash bin which is billed per kilogram waste

As alternative for the latteris the containerpark where you can dump:

• • parts of trees and prunings (paid/kg)
  • cellular concrete (paid/kg)
  • electric devices (free)
  • asbestos cement (free)
  • plaster (paid/kg)
  • glass (free)
  • grass, foliage, hedge waste (paid/kg)
  • large waste like mattrasses, etc (paid/kg)
  • reusable goods (free)
  • ceramics (paid/kg)
  • small chemical waste like paint (free)
  • cork (free)
  • old metal (free)
  • paper, cardboard (free)
  • frying fat (for french fries) (free)
  • expanded poly-styrene (free)
  • plastic foil (free)
  • certain plastics (bottles, etc), metal (tins, cans, etc) and beverage coated board packaging (free)
  • wood (paid/kg)
  • bricks (paid/kg)
  • batteries(free)
  • striplights (free)
  • textile (free)

That’s somewhat it. Things can vary depending on the town. In the Antwerp area, you can thorw your nappies together with the vegetable, fruit and garden waste for the fermentation installation. Other regios don’t collect tins, etc seperately.

@cherkoff  I live in Hackney and am constantly impressed by the number of lorries driving around picking up various refuse/recycling/cleaning jobs.  I understand that it’s part of Mayor Jules Pipe decision to clean up the borough and take green seriously.  The only grumble I have is that a very simple adjustment to the green refuse boxes - ie a lid - would stop rubbish blowing all over the place.  That and banning flyers of which I get about five a day.

@lludovic: responses received from Richmond Council, after reading in papers recycled trash ends up in landfill. Interesting but does not answer my questions.

Dear @lludovic

Thank you for your email

Firstly may I apologise for any confusion.

Due to the large increase in recycling being put out for collection we are experiencing some operational delays. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience and missed collections while the new service beds in. We have indeed been very busy in our first few months of the new service.

Due to the popularity of the new recycling service, some of our rounds are having difficulty dealing with the quantity of recycling in their area. In order to deal with this, we are collecting some of our recycling in refuse vehicles which can compact it. The ‘co-mingled’ recycling is then taken to a special recycling facility in Greenwich and separated for recycling. Please do not be concerned, it is still being recycled and will not end up in a landfill site. This should not go on for much longer. We are waiting for new recycling trucks which have been delayed due to a manufacturing problem. You may wish to know that together we are now recycling just over 40% of our waste, which means we are currently beating a government target set for 2010. Thank you for recycling and helping us sustain this.

Thank you for letting us know about your concerns. We are very sorry to hear that you have been disappointed and we are working to resolve any initial teething problems caused by the new service as soon as possible. We have had an unexpectedly high additional take up of our recycling service - up to 20% extra in many areas and are also dealing with the additional new materials. Inevitably this has meant that there has been a service lapse in some areas. I do apologise for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

Regards

Miss Natasha xxx

Customer & Contractor Relations Assistant

Recycling Department

Richmond Borough Council

@mario: For anyone interested in recycling rates for London boroughs, I just found this interesting page

@marilynpratt: We in US are waking up now to contribute (late ? ) So here in Teaneck, NJ, USA where I reside, there is recycling, its fairly granular and many folks participate, but in my opinion there aren’t enough punitive actions for those who don’t or incentives for those that do. I’ll use @eddydc ’s structure as a basis for comparison.

  There is also no real incentive to use the sticker system which by extension should encourage more monitoring or waste quantity reduction.  The only advantage of using the stickers is that weekly you are allowed to dump (free) one large item (such as a sofa, mattress, appliance)

All the other items detailed by @eddydc above are recyclable at our dump free.

I have often wondered why there isn’t more visability about what happens to the stuff post dump.  What is the carbon footprint of the waste processing?  What should be personal guidelines?  Does it waste more water to wash out containers (which is required without explaination of why).  It would be helpful to know how glass and plastics are recycled.

photo courtesy of bucklava and a creative commons Attribution 2.0 license.  Thanks bucklava!

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I finished the year applauding Microsoft for assigning responsibility for green issues to a “Green Czar.” But it appears Cisco has also been busy in this regard. According to TechWorld: “Cisco has hired one of the founders of the ‘Green Grid’, Paul Marcoux, to be its new environmental guru.” Marcoux will be “VP of engineering in the Cisco Development Organisation (CDO), and is responsible for driving green initiatives both inside Cisco, and externally with customers and the market.”

Looks like Marcoux, who I will hopefully meet soon, has some work to do though. Is it just me or do Cisco CEO’s John Chambers’ goals for reducing employee travel look a little low? According to TechWorld the company’s Carbon to Collaboration initiative commits to reduce Cisco’s greenhouse gas emissions from air travel by 10 percent during fiscal years 2007 and 2008. Frankly some judicial use of dopplr could achieve that. It would be great to see some targets that showed real leadership: Say a 30% reduction or so.

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