Northern Irish council fined £20,500 over waste breaches
Northern Ireland Environmental Agency (NIEA) officers investigated a council-operated site in Strabane, and found a substantial quantity of municipal waste deposited. The waste was stored into a shed and segregated into piles of dry recyclables and domestic waste.
However, there was no waste management licence in force for the site, and the site was in poor condition. Despite previously repeated warnings from the NIEA, the agency said that Strabane continued to operate the site, leading the district council to plead guilty to the eleven offences charged. The council was prosecuted on Friday June 26 2009 and charged £37 in costs.
Sainsbury's reduces cereal packaging
The change is one of a series of efforts that the supermarket chain has made to reduce unnecessary waste identified by customers. Sainsbury's will initially only apply the change to its own branded cereals, starting with its basic range of 'Rice Pops', with the view to eventually converting all its cereals. Sainsbury's said its customers cite packaging as their biggest worry of all green issues, and the move is the latest step in it's plan to reduce its packaging weight by 33% by 2015.
Stuart Lendrum, head of print & packaging at Sainsbury's, said: “When it comes to cereal, our customers asked us why they need to be in a box as well as a bag when you can just print all the information on the bag.”
INCPEN announces new chair
The Industry Council for Packaging and the Environment (INCPEN), which researches sustainable packaging on behalf of packaging producers, has elected Ian Blythe to the position of chair to take over from Anders Linde who held the post for the past five years.
Mr Blythe, whose appointment was announced at the not-for-profit organisation's Annual General Meeting (AGM) last month, was previously vice-chair at INCPEN. He is replaced as vice-chair by Dr Tino Fonteijn, home and personal care research and development director at food manufacturer Unilever. Mr Blythe, who is head of corporate and social responsibility at high-street chemist chain Boots UK, said that he intended to enter into a dialogue with the public and politicians to help ensure that there was “common sense in the packaging debate”.
Commenting on his appointment, Mr Blythe said: “We will continue to innovate to improve the performance of the supply chain as a whole. It is sometimes frustrating that politicians and the public see good packaging purely as an unwanted item in their rubbish bins when in reality packaging is an integral part of the production, distribution and retail supply chain – without it, we would have the worst possible environmental outcome with goods either not reaching the consumer, or arriving unfit to use.”
GMTV presenter visits Viridor in Scotland
A feature on the ITV morning show followed non-recyclable waste produced by Kirsty McCabe's sister on its journey from its source in Uddingston, Glasgow, to Viridor's Rigmuir landfill site in East Killbride, which handles of waste from across Lanarkshire. While examining the Viridor landfill, Ms McCabe was also shown round the firm's £7.1 million material recycling facility (MRF) which sorts recyclable materials collected from across Scotland (see letsrecycle.com story) .
Ms McCabe said: “They really go out their way to minimise the environmental impact it has. They've got a new big MRF, at which you can recycle a lot of different things.”
Light bulb recycling educational programme launched
Launched by Croydon-based lamp recycling specialists Recolight, the 'Big Light Project' intends to teach children that, although low-energy light bulbs last up to 10 times longer than the traditional type, they should not be thrown away because they contain a small amount of mercury which could contaminate the ground if put into a landfill. And, Recolight is also running a competition at its website for children to create a leaflet on how our planet will look in 20 years time if we don't recycle.
Peter Lees, commercial manager of Recolight said: “Although it is about the topic of light, it is designed to stimulate, challenge and educate young people about some important issues affecting society – recycling, energy efficiency and response to climate change.”
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