News in brief

The Environment Agency has launched new guidance to help farmers comply with new waste regulations that ban the burning and burying of their waste.

Farmers are being advised to locate their nearest recycling, treatment or disposal facilities now for the regulations, which come into effect next year.

Cormac Quigley, agricultural waste policy adviser at the Environment Agency, said: “We want to help farmers get to grips with how to deal with waste correctly and we want them to act now so they are ready for when the new regulations start in early 2006. Our new guidance and advice line will help farmers get ahead of the game.”

The new guidance is available at the Environment Agency website. Further guidance will also be made available after the new regulations have been released, the Agency said.

A strange new herd of recycling banks has appeared in the New Cross area of the London borough of Lewisham today.

Shoppers in Lewisham are being asked to “feed the cows” by recycling

The banks, which have been made to look like cows, were developed by waste and recycling container manufacturer Taylor and design company Tonic Wonder Remedies, with funding from the Onyx Environmental Trust.

It is hoped the unusual recycling banks will encourage shoppers to get recycling – the 1280 litre “Continental” containers bear signs asking the shoppers to “feed the cows” by depositing their waste.

If the banks are successful, the programme could be rolled out to further pastures within borough. Peter Selkirk, chief executive at Taylor, said: “We’re excited at the prospect of these bins supporting institutions such as schools as they strive to educate the need for recycling and the ‘putting of recycling’ into practice.”

WRG’s Trevor Smart and Corus’ Stephen Howard with steel cans collected from Luton’s kerbside collection scheme

Waste Recycling Group is set to see more than 600 tonnes of steel pulled from its new Luton materials recycling facility thanks to Corus recycling.

The new plant was built to deal with waste produced from 72,000 households in Luton.

The facility will be using equipment provided by Corus Steel Packaging to separate the steel and aluminium cans.

As a result of the new equipment, WRG expects more than 600 tonnes of household steel containers to be dealt with by the plant every year.

Machinery provided by Corus includes an overband magnet – which picks out the steel – a conveyor and a baler.

Steel cans are then sent back to a Corus steel plant to be melted down and refined into new steel.

Compliance scheme Valpak has called for the recycling industry help producers work out the cost of complying with the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment.

Valpak is currently devising a web-based system for electronic recyclers to enter in costs of recycling WEEE. Valpak intends to use the system to project how much producers need to contribute for effective recycling to take place.

The company is now calling on treatment facilities to enter quotations for their services into the model.

Mike Sadler, head of WEEE pre-compliance at Valpak, said: “By submitting quotations for the provision of WEEE collection and treatment services, treatment facilities will be ensuring that their needs are recognised in the development of Valpak's final compliance scheme plans.”