Daily Telegraph: "Tipping point: what happens when our landfills are full?

Link to Daily Telegraph report

Picture: "The landfill site at Remo, north-east Belgium,

which a firm wants to mine in order to reuse the waste"

"In 2007, the Local Government Association reported that in Britain a combined area the size of Warwick was taken up with landfill. In July last year, it warned that the country will run out of space for its rubbish by 2018 unless new sites are found.

"The real nail in the coffin is the European Union’s landfill directive (first issued in 1999 but ramped up over the years with increasingly ambitious targets), which will impose fines of up to £1 million a day if we send more than 50 per cent of our waste to landfill by 2013, or 35 per cent by 2020 (currently we send 48 per cent to landfill).

"Unsurprisingly, environmental groups aren’t fans of incineration. According to Friends of the Earth, incinerators are considerably worse on carbon efficiency than even coal-fired power stations. It seems perverse that developed economies – so keen in other ways to kill CO2-belching industries – are looking to incineration as an alternative to landfill."

Tuesday 15 November: WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) conference

Link to WRAP web site

WRAP Annual Conference 2011:

Relearning to reuse: Getting the most out of scarce resources

Keynote speakers:

Rt Hon Caroline Spelman MP, Secretary of State for the Environment

and

Jonathon Porritt, Founder Director of Forum for the Future.

15 November 2010

15 Hatfields, London, SE1 8DJ

Apply for your FREE place at the WRAP Annual Conference today.

Please note that places are limited. Registration will not automatically guarantee a place.

The Guardian: "Coffee chains urged to improve takeaway cup recycling"

Link to The Guardian

"Coffee shops are failing to make it easy for customers to recycle the estimated 2.5bn takeaway cups thrown away each year in the UK, a consumer group warned on Tuesday.

"The investigation by Which? found that consumers were confused by retailers' use of 'mixed materials', which make recycling a headache, and urged providers to take more environmental responsibility."

'WHICH':

Recycling products - interactive tool.