News in brief

Parliament launches remanufacturing inquiry

The inquiry, which issued a call for evidence yesterday (August 11), is to be chaired by former environment secretary Caroline Spelman MP and Barry Sheerman MP, and is being jointly conducted by the All-Party Parliamentary Groups for Manufacturing (APMG) and Sustainable Resource (APSRG).

It follows the publication of an APSRG report in March this year, which laid out growth opportunities and challenges facing the UK remanufacturing sector (see letsrecycle.com story).

Evidence submissions will be accepted until September 26 2014, and the inquiry will issue its final report before Christmas including recommendations for how government can increase uptake of remanufacturing.

Ms Spelman said: We believe the government must do more – firstly to better understand the huge environmental and economic potential that remanufacturing offers, and secondly to create precisely the policy and regulatory framework needed in order for UK businesses to fully embrace it.

Tesco unveils charities to benefit from carrier bag charge

Tesco is to ask its customers to choose the charities and environmental organisations that will benefit from the estimated 1.8 million raised via carrier bag charges in Wales and Scotland.

Organisations which have been shortlisted for Scotland include Love Food Hate Waste, Keep Scotland Beautiful, and Groundwork UK which has also been selected in Wales alongside Keep Wales Tidy.

Tesco chose the five-strong shortlist out of 120 applicants for the Scottish and Welsh partnerships, all of which were asked how they would use the funds.

One organisation will be chosen to partner with Tesco and be the beneficiary of the bag levy for each region. The Scottish levy is expected to be worth around 1 million and the Welsh levy around 800,000. Past beneficiaries include the RSPB, which has received over 2.3 million since the levy was introduced in Wales in 2011.

Greg Sage, community director for Tesco said: This is a fantastic opportunity for organisations to partner with us and make a real difference to the communities they serve. Our customers are the ones who will pay the charge, so we really wanted them to choose the partners that will benefit from the money.

Hadfields site manager celebrates academic success

A Hadfields wood recycling site manager has achieved a newly-launched vocational qualification in operative competency.

Steve Greenwood, who works at the firms Tilbury site in Essex, achieved the Level 4 Vocationally Related Qualification (VRQ) Certificate in Operative Competency from SERAC UK which has been running since November 2013.

Mr Greenwood took three months to complete the course, and became one of just two people to receive his certification at an award presentation by WAMITAB.

He said: Im over the moon. It was hard work and took a lot of dedication, especially doing the coursework. It was definitely worth it though. Im now fully qualified to manage a waste facility.

I feel relieved. Im very proud of what Ive achieved and I hope to apply the knowledge Ive learnt into my everyday work.

Green Points scheme generates cash for charities

Charities and community projects have received a 65,000 windfall from Green Reward as part of the firms recycling incentive scheme in the UK.

Under the Local Green Points scheme, members can earn points by recycling at home, saving energy in the workplace or volunteering and choose to donate them to one of 47 charities, schools or projects.

One beneficiary of the scheme has been Trees for Cities, an organisation that works with local community groups on tree planting projects in urban areas. The charity received almost 14,500 in donations.

Graham Simmonds, managing director for Green Rewards, said: We know that many of our members like to donate their points to their favourite cause and we are always keen to talk to charities about joining our programme.

As our JUMP workplace scheme expands to more employers and employees in the months ahead, I am hopeful that we will be able to raise even more money for charity in the future.

UKCM partners with the Pig Idea

UK Container Maintenance (UKCM) has given its support to environmental campaign the Pig Idea with the delivery of custom-made recycled food waste containers to Stepney City Farm in London.

The Pig Idea, a campaign which advocates converting some types of food waste into pigswill, has divided the recycling sector as some believe it is antagonistic to anaerobic digestion (see letsrecycle.com story).

But UKCM was inspired by the campaign and offered to produce the bespoke pig feed containers, which were originally destined for scrap but have now been repaired and refurbished to meet the bright pink theme.

The containers will be housed at Stepney City Farm, which is rearing a herd of pigs on local food waste.

Emma Elston, co-founder of UKCM, said: After hearing about The Pig Idea I was keen to get involved and had the idea of producing pig feed containers for the food to retain in. Upon putting my idea to the team behind the campaign, they were delighted for the support.

Campaign founder Tristram Stuart added: We at The Pig Idea are delighted by the new ‘recycled’ recycling containers which proved the perfect vessels for the safe storage of quality feeds saved from the waste stream. Anyone else keen to support this initiative should get in touch.