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.

newspapers,paper, cardboard, … collected once a month or can be dumped at the container park. Both are free. (but I could as easily have put paper in the trash and not be penalized)

certain plastics (bottles, etc), metal (tins, cans, etc) and beverage coated board packaging are collected every month roadside or can be dumped at the container park for free

vegetable, fruit and garden waste is collected curbside (only when in paper bags and only in summer and spring)  and can be composted in garden year-round (free of course)

all the rest of the waste is collected bi-weekly at either a fixed sum for unlimited waste or using a sticker system which is weighted.

plastic bags, which are still too freely used in all shopping are collected at the supermarket (no clue what happens to them), personally we bring our own reusable bags but there is no incentive to do that other than feeling good.

  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!

The Twitter social networking service often kicks off great discussions, and yesterday was a great example, with an exhange about carbon footprints and corporate travel between Craig Cmehil and Alan Wood. I asked Alan to tidy it up as a guest post for greenmonk, to illustrate the great grassroots conversations about economic greening occuring on social networks.

Craig works from home as a community evangelist at SAP, some way from its headquarters in Walldorf, near Heidelberg. Alan meanwhile is a resident of Farnham in Surrey. In case you’re wondering the @ sign refers to a Twitter username. I am pretty sure Alan and Craig have never met in “real life”.

@ccmehil: my trips [flights] to Walldorf caused 4 tonnes of CO2. need to use train more but it’s so expensive

@ccmehil: I’m almost double the avg carbon footprint for Germany thanks to flights that is…

@folknology: @ccmehil A European Maglev network would really help curb a lot of emissions.

The conversation continued…

One of the points made was the observation about the gradual movement of carbon responsibility from global to continental, national and even reaching down to organisations and individuals in the near future. So let’s imagine what that could mean.

Currently we are taxed directly on earnings but we are also burdened by selective lifestyle taxes on things like alcohol, tobacco and fuel. It doesn’t take a huge mental jump to imagine carbon taxes. Take this idea even further by superseding fixed taxation on purchases in the form of value added tax (VAT) with a variable ‘Carbon Added Tax’ (CAT). Such a tax would provide financial incentives to reduce carbon footprints not just at individual levels but also within manufacturing, as those goods with lower carbon footprints would be financially advantaged. Thus our consupmtion would likely shift to lower carbon footprint goods.

But Craig and his peers will be operating within organisations that impose high carbon footprints on some of their employees. Should Craig bear that in Pay As You Earn (PAYE) taxes? I think not.

More likely the organisation will eventually have to put travel expenses through a special ‘Carbon tax analyser’ in order to calculate it’s tax liability to the government. Thus the organisation will likely have to bear such taxation costs above the individual norms. This may help them in turn decide on more carbon efficient travel choices.

Craig was directly referring to a difficulty with his (and many other business travelers): working carbon footprint. The nature of his work mean a lot of travel, much of that across continental Europe (among other continents). Even though Craig tries to reduce his carbon footprint using energy saving matters at his home and with his personal transport, his carbon foot print becomes oversized by his professional travel burden.

When Craig’s experience is interpolated to all business travelers it adds up to a mighty tonnage of carbon. The main culprit is of course is the size 15XL boot of the aviation industry forced under most business traveler’s legs. However a considerable more efficient mode of transport is available to us in the 21st century: it’s fast, efficient and high tech, ironically it was developed in the last century.

The solution? Maglevity

What is this magical transport solution? A European Maglev network. The technology was pioneered originally in the UK and brought to engineering maturity in Germany. The first roll out in Europe comes in Bavaria in 2009. So why are we not being whisked around Europe on these high tech magic carpets? Why does it take the Chinese and the Japanese nations to commercially pioneer Maglev usage?

Why can Europe not commercialise the technology with a European Maglev network? The time is right. The network would help Craig and his peers significantly reduce their carbon footprint opting for Maglev over carbon unfriendly aviation. Here some of the things we came up with that likely represent resistance to the idea :

Some obstacles (mostly political):
1. Airbus and other aviation interest within Europe.
2. The automobile industry within Europe.
3. The Carbon cost of actually building the network.
4. The financial cost.

Some of our possible responses :
1. The aviation industry will need to compete not just on cost but on carbon footprint per journey to remain competitive (And yes I expect Maglev fare subsidies initially).
2. The automobile industry must also compete with Maglev for long journeys but not for short trips. Also automobiles will drastically reduce their carbon footprints over the next decade.
3. There will be a large carbon cost to build the Maglev network, think lots of concrete and steel. Perhaps more carbon friendly replacements could help keep the cost down. Long term of course the carbon cost would be recouped by the efficiency of the network.
4.    There will be an enormous financial cost spread across Europe, perhaps some of this could be recouped or offset via emission trading.

Conclusions:

If Europe is serious about carbon footprint reduction then a continent-wide Maglev network needs to be high on the agenda: political obstructions and financial costs need to be overcome, otherwise carbon friendly actions by folks like Craig in their personal life will remain insignificant compared to their business life. Also I would imagine more general travel and expense carbon costing to enter organisational taxation, along with carbon based sales taxation. Most politicians are of course nervous about pretty much all of this, so its really up to us to discuss it and take the conversation to them, what do you think are Craig and I talking sacrilege, or are we all prepared to make the difficult decisions?

photos courtesy of Helga’s Lobster Stew, and jyzz, under CreativeCommons Attribution 2.0 license, posted from Flickr.

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.

An intriguing story from the Guardian, On the roof of the Andes, Bill Gates helps to build ‘the world’s biggest digital camera’, immediately piqued my interest. It seems Gates and another Microsoft alumni, Charles Simonyi, are together funding the next stage of a project to build an extraordinary new telescope.

The sky seems too immense to absorb, even for giant telescopes. They focus on one tiny portion at a time, pinpricks in the cosmos, because traditionally astronomers like to dwell on detail.

Not any more. Cerro Pachon is to host the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, a near $400m (£203m) project that will survey the entire sky several times a week – something never done before.

Every 15 seconds it will take an image seven times the diameter of the moon, adding up, every three days, to a full panorama of the heavens. Boasting 3,200 megapixels, it will be the world’s biggest digital camera.

This approach is very cool – astronomers will be able to focus on what is changing rather than what is relatively constant- one of the reasons the project gained initial funding was that it would allow mapping of celestial objects which might be on a collision course with Earth. But what really rocked me was the idea that the data will be open access. The Guardian reports Gates thusly:

“LSST is truly an internet telescope which will put terabytes of data each night into the hands of anyone that wants to explore it. It is a shared resource for all humanity – the ultimate network peripheral device to explore the universe.”

You gotta love the way Gates talks. But what’s really surprising is to hear him putting forward the open data argument. This is science, I guess, rather than commerce, in his eyes. The main reason this story talked directly to Greenmonk is simple: one of the reasons I started this blog was to agitate for open data in leading to better environmental outcomes: the trigger being that I had heard about some Gates Foundation primary research which was “killed” because it didn’t meet the Foundation’s strategic goals (the funding for Cerro Pachon is from Gates’ private fortune). The Foundation story was a rumour reported to me but it probably suited my prejudices about the Bill Gates modus operandi. He is not exactly known as an open source bigot… The observatory story however punctures some of these prejudices. I can only help that the Gates Foundation will also look to open and share its research data.

While we’re on the subject I would like to commend the Gates Foundationt for its $15m funding to help Bristol University create a clean water diagnostic tool which is easy to use as a pregnancy test.

Technorati Tags: CSR – Astronomy – Gates Foundation – Microsoft – water –

It was only a couple of months ago that I dinged Microsoft for not taking Green issues seriously enough in a blog titled Where is Microsoft’s Green Story? Well its been in the hopper for a while, but I wanted to make sure I credited Microsoft with getting its act together before the end of the year. There is some rather splendid news to report.

Rob Bernard has been appointed to the role of Chief Environmental Strategist for Microsoft. This is a new role for the company, and Rob will be responsible for defining and implementing a global strategy for the company’s environmental efforts. Rob will be reporting to Scott Charney.

Microsoft created this new role to assess the company’s environmental impact and opportunities at all levels, including: working with product groups to create technology innovations in software and hardware that can help enable customers to minimize their impact on the environment, assuring responsible business practices that work to reduce the company’s direct and indirect environmental impact, and working with partners in industry, government and non-government to engage on global environmental issues.

Rob has held various positions during his 10 year career at Microsoft; most recently he was general manager for Microsoft’s Developer and Platform Evangelism team where he managed relationships with over 100 of the world’s largest Independent Software Vendors.

Anyone that doubts commitment should look at who has been appointed. GM of developer evangelism is a huge deal at Microsoft. This is far from a “ticklist” appointment. I will be talking to Rob soon, and will let you know what his plans are.

 

Happy Christmas Microsoft! Thanks for taking this seriously. We appreciate the contributions you’re going to make.

Sometimes you have to pimp something, just because its great to know you’ve been involved. The slogan above, which I helped with, has now been formally adopted by AMEE, an organisation I have written about before here.  So what is the news? Momentum, and an appearance at next year’s ETech.

If all the energy data in the world were accessible, what would you build?

The Climate Change agenda has created an imperative to measure the energy profile of everything. As $trillions flow into re-inventing how we consume, we have a unique opportunity to start with open data and open systems. AMEE (http://www.amee.cc) is an open aggregation platform for energy and CO2 data, algorithms and transactions. We aim to dramatically accelerate change, because we need to.

AMEE is a neutral aggregator of reliable carbon data, for use by commercial and noncommercial groups. Active users include: the UK Government, Google, Morgan Stanley and The Royal Society for the Arts.

Developer API keys are available, and we’ll be showing some of the applications.

Nice One Gavin. I hope I am there to see you present.

In other conference news I am pleased to report that GeeKyoto has a great idea for a London green geek unconference thingie.

Since this post is on geeKyoto any theme would be related to the topic of climate change, sustainability and other technical and green issues.

So I would like to ‘announce’ geekGreen2008. Announce in the sense that here is an idea, here are my thoughts on what such a conference could be.

Here is the pitch:

geekGreen2008 – radical ideas and stories in the time of climate change.

Venue: Well to be decided and has lots of dependancies but it is going to be UK based, at least for the first (only?) one. My initial take was for London. Interesting2007 was held at the Conway Hall in Holborn. The main theatre can hold 300 people and it has a nice stage. It also has an interesting history. Where else? Well RIBA has been suggested as has the ICA, and maybe somewhere like the BFI on the South Bank has some interesting spaces. In fact the South Bank would be interesting because Cape Farewell are currently in residence there and Cape Farewell is a project that I would love to see a part of this.

Outside of London though still has possibilities. Of course the ideal location would be the Eden Project in Cornwall, though somewhere like the Centre for Alternative Technology would also be a possibility.

So there you have it. No date or location decided yet but I want to play for sure. What about you? Go sign up at Mark’s blog. Make a contribution.

Picturecredit jessiebarber

Why is it the only people that don’t seem to get the urgency of the situation are our elected (so you don’t count Mr Brown) leaders? Avaaz is a lobbying group, and this is a good one to raise.

Climate negotiations in Bali are in crisis. Things were looking good till now: near-consensus on a delicate deal, including 2020 targets for rich countries, in return for which China and the developing world would do their part over time. IPCC scientists have said such targets are needed to prevent catastrophe. But Japan, the US and Canada are banding together to wreck the deal, and the rest of the world is starting to waver…

We can’t let three stubborn governments throw away the planet’s future. We have until the end of Friday to do everything we can. Please sign our emergency global petition below — we’ll deliver it through stunts at the summit, a full-page ad in the Financial Times in Asia, and directly to country delegates to stiffen their nerve against any bad compromise. Add your name to the campaign below now!

Please just go sign the petition. Remember: small things can make a difference, when you add them up. We need to Step it Up folks.

Tom Raftery is a social media rock star and all-round good egg. This blog provides a really nice in-depth look at the cooling strategies used by the Cork Internet Exchange, a project he has been closely involved in. Normally GreenMonk echews hardcore green data center stuff, but this one caught my eye because it was driven by CIX, rather than by a big vendor agenda. There is plenty of good information and data in there if you’re thinking about cooling strategies. Air-conditioning is one of the major costs in a data center yet its sometimes ignored in favour of trying to make servers cooler. Get the air-con right though and you can cut costs and carbon too.

Its also a great grassroots story because it takes account of the fact its often fecking cold in Ireland. Why spend money on cooling if its cold outside? The basic strategy:

1. Utilise free cooling.
2. Maximise chilled water temperature.
3. Eliminate water mixing.
4. Eliminate air mixing.
5. Utilise low resistance slow speed air paths.
6. Minimise humidification.

More from Dennis here.

Note to Tom – please sort out your diagrams though, mate, the links are 404ing.