Defra's chief scientific advisor, Professor Howard Dalton, announced a new research strategy to help the government's sustainable waste management policy.
The Waste Implementation Programme (WIP) will provide 5 million for the research programme, with first calls for proposals likely to be made in November 2004.
Research will be based on eight key themes – sustainable resource consumption and management, systems for resource recovery, residual wastes management, market development and intervention, social dimensions, environment and health risks, economics and decision tools.
Professor Howard Dalton said: “With good management, we can achieve greater national resource productivity and a cleaner, better-protected environment. To achieve these goals we need a solid evidence base and this waste research strategy, with its strategic focus and plans for disseminating research results, should help us to get closer to this goal.”
The full strategy document can be found at the Defra website.
Cylch awarded funding to upgrade recycling PCVs
Cylch – the Community Recycling Network in Wales – has been awarded 30,000 by the Welsh Assembly to upgrade electric recycling vehicles.
Pedestrian controlled vehicles are being used in Wales for collecting household waste for recycling in small, remote communities where a normal recycling service would be uneconomical.
Cylch has been given the funding to upgrade existing vehicles so they are better able to negotiate steep hills and will be able to carry a bigger load. The upgraded vehicles are to be used in Lampeter, Ceredigion, but in future could be used in other Welsh communities.
Speaking in Lampeter last week, Welsh environment minister Carwyn Jones said: “I shall be watching this development with great interest and I hope that, over the next few years, these carts will become a regular sight in our communities as we strive to put Wales at the forefront of recycling.”
“Local authorities across Wales are showing great improvements in rates of recycling already, with Wales recycling 12% in 2002-03 and expected to reach our 15% target in 2003-04. New initiatives such as use of these environmentally-friendly electric carts are very welcome, particularly for use in the more isolated of our communities.”
Four Square staff recycle their own weight in paper
A marketing company in the Lake District is showing businesses in the area the way forward in reducing its own environmental impact, by recycling the equivalent weight of paper to all 72 members of its staff.
Four Square Marketing Communications has recycled almost four tonnes of paper in the last three years, recycling on average about 28kg of material each week with strategically positioned recycling bins. The paper then goes to Great Salkeld Paper Recycling for reprocessing. The company has been running a “scrupulous” recycling regime for three years and is looking for additional practices that can be introduced as part of its commitment to the environment.
Managing director Tony Brunskill said: “As a parish and district councillor, I am a keen supporter of Agenda 21 and it has always been a policy of ours to be ecologically friendly – it would be irresponsible to simply bin all of the waste paper that passes through such an active office like this.
“Between us I am confident we can come up with additional ways of contributing to the environment and amplify our recycling activity even further in the near future,” he added.
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