News in brief

Following a brief exodus from the waste management and recycling social scene the WEEE Man has resurfaced in Bristol.

The seven metre tall statue has been built from electronic equipment and depicts the amount of electronic waste each UK resident will throw away in a lifetime.

He has been brought to Bristol by the city council to take part in several events including the Bristol Festival on June 3 and 4, business events on June 5 and 6 and a city wide competition launched on June 15.

The WEEE Man departs Bristol on June 19 for his next engagement.

Households in Hull and East Riding have been offered the opportunity to recycle their old mobile phones.

Residents in the two areas will be offered money for their old phones by visiting the envirofone.com website.

Those visiting the website can check the value of their phone, which envirofone.com will purchase for cash or Argos vouchers.

The scheme is being supported by Kingston Communications and the City of Hull and Humber Environment Forum.

Environmental company Remarkable has announced that its commercial UK manufacturing site is to be run on energy from recycled cooking oil.

The company has made its name from adapting waste material into innovative recycled products, such as pencils from plastic cups.

Edward Douglas Miller, managing director at the company, said: “I have always wanted to make Remarkable products with a minimum environmental impact.

“By taking recycled cooking oil as our fuel, we are getting closer to the goal of making really great recycled products with a zero impact,” he added.

A new education resource centre in South Wales is set to teach school children in the area all about recycling.

Newport Wastesavers has provided a room at its Newport recycling facility, where children can use hands-on activities and computer programmes to find out how the materials they put out for recycling are actually re-used.

Part of the site is a feature on steel recycling, which was funded by recycler Corus. Children can use magnets to separate steel cans from other materials.

The room also has a window overlooking the waste facility for children to see the “real deal” in action.

Carol Fereday at Newport Wastesavers said: “By seeing the process, we hope that it will encourage children to become keen recyclers at home and at school.”

A recycling education programme for young children, run by Abitibi-consolidated, has begun a project aimed at working with children with moderate learning difficulties.

Children that attend Ysgol y Gogarth special needs in Conwy, North Wales are taking part in a three-year scheme – Beauty and the Waste – to learn about sustainable living.

Through the project children will see how the recycling process works and the school is also rewarded for the paper recycling that they do.

Ron Humphrey, managing director at Abitibi-consolidated Recycling Europe, said: “This is an imaginative scheme, with which we are proud to be involved.”