www.everythingsgonegreen.co.uk

Only last week I was looking for somewhere to recycle credit cards, old bank cards and expired store cards & membership cards. I searched the Internet but found nothing. Maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough.

Today it dawned on me, whilst looking for a plectrum/pick to play my guitar… why don’t I make guitar plectrums by recycling my old cards?

Using a plectrum (I eventually found one) as a template, I marked up an old store card and cut out each plectrum one-by-one with a pair of suitably sharp, heavy duty scissors. I managed to squeeze 6 plectrums from one card.

My new plectrums are not exactly perfectly-shaped like the ones I buy from the local music shop so they do need a little wet-&-dry to smooth off the edges. But they are novel and totally usable - very similar to a medium pick.

I’m now not only happy that I didn’t have to cut up my cards and throw them into the landfill but I have a handful of unique new picks!

Photos to follow…

WRAP, the Waste and Recycling Action Programme, has withdrawn its scheme to help Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (Small businesses to you and me) do their recycling.

In a shock move, just four months after the scheme was launched, WRAP pulled the plug on their “Funding Support Scheme for Recycling Services to Business”.

The scheme was introduced in October last year to give UK small businesses a boost in going green by supporting the groups that offer recycling services to small business.

Defra, the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs slashed its budget to WRAP’s scheme by 30%.

Sad.

Nokia’s President and CEO unveiled a new concept Nokia mobile phone that is, at last, pretty environmentally friendly.

The new Nokia concept mobile, branded “Remade” is supposedly constructed from nothing new, thus reducing the carbon footprint of the device, using less raw materials, reducing landfill waste and making the whole production process more energy efficient.

The Nokia remade is a recycled, post-consumer piece of modern technology. Made from recycled aluminium (old drinks can), plastic from recycled plastic bottles, old car tyres and, rather than the old acid-etched circuit board, the green mobile phone has printed electronics.

But before you rush out and ask for a Nokia Remade to replace your funky iPhone or N95, remember that this is just a concept phone. For now.

Let’s hope Nokia do the right thing and start using recycled material in ALL their products.

Japan’s Oji Paper has admitted to lying “for decades” about the amount of recycled paper in their products.

The leading paper maker in Japan has come clean about the fact that, in one case, the amount of recycled fibre in their copy paper was not 50% as claimed but only between 5 and 10%.

Some of Oji Paper’s envelopes were thought to contain as much as 70% recycled paper whereas the real content was just 30%.

Oji Paper’s admissions come hot on the heals of Nippon Paper Group who also greenwashed their products, especially millions of new year greeting cards where again the proportion of post-consumer paper was much lower than the company boasted.

Nippon Paper’s shares dropped 10% on the news and Oji Paper’s shares fell 5% with Fuji Xerox and other firms stating they would not stock Nippon Paper’s products.

Kazuhisa Shinoda, Oji Paper’s president, refused to resign but did take full responsibility and apologised for misleading clients & consumers. He attributed the drop in recycled materials to increased orders yet falling amounts of recycled material entering the production process.

This item is bought to you on a recycled story

As the county of Kent is the Garden of England, so the UK is the Dustbin of Europe. The Landfill Dustbin of Europe to be precise.

Figures out last month from the Local Government Authority show that Britain really is the dustbin of Europe, dumping more rubbish into landfill than any other European country.

The stats are for the last year of data, 2005, but it shows the following countries and the tonnage (in millions) of waste that goes into landfills each year.

• UK 22.6m
• Italy 17.6m
• Spain 14.2m
• France 12m
• Poland 8.6m

You could argue that these countries have smaller populations than the UK hence their figures are lower. Well, that may be the case, but if Spain, with a population of 45 million people is 25% smaller than the UK then why are Spain’s figures nearly half of the UK’s?

Come on Britain, recycle more. That includes the manufacturers who take no responsibility for their products once they’ve shipped… where’s the after sales care, the taking back of old goods to be recycled?

If you’re a keen gardener or just doing all those good things that make up the green lifestyle, then you’ve probably got a compost bin in your back garden.

At this time of year the decomposition process slows down due to the cold and wet conditions, so here are a few autumn & winter composting tips to keep your composting process healthy during the colder months.

• Use a gardening fork to turn the material over every week to ensure oxygen gets into the compost pile.
• Place a layer of insulation on the top of the compost pile and inside the compost bin itself; sheets of cardboard, and old piece of carpet or reuse old bubble wrap are good insulators.
• Wrap the compost bin with insulation on the outside; again you can recycle and reuse that old bubble wrap packing, the carpets you were going to throw out or big sheets of cardboard that were destined for the recycle bin. Bear in mind it’s going to be wet so the cardboard would need a layer of carpet or bubble wrap over it. Tie the whole outer insulation with strong twine. Alternatively you could use hay bales to insulate your composter.
• You might occasionally want to pee on your compost heap. A healthy dose of human urine is high in nitrogen and good for your decomposition process.
• If the composting process slows down too much you may need to keep your kitchen scraps out of the outdoor composter and consider using an kitchen composting bin.

One of the big problems with litter is that the global big brands pump millions of pounds into promoting and advertising their products, they shift massive numbers of units, lots of profit is made, they all enjoy the spoils of their business and ultimately don’t care about the fact that their global brands are also creating massive amounts of rubbish!

The detritus from big brand produce litters every corner of this green & pleasant land and, quite frankly, we’re all tired of seeing it. And now to name and shame just one of these big brand polluters, one of these global litterers… one of Britain’s most popular alcoholic drinks…

FOSTERS LAGER

This scattering of Fosters Lager cans were littering a leafy area beside a path on a cycle home one night and every single one of those cans is a Fosters lager can. Now we’re not big fans of the mass-produced brands anyway, but for their mass-market by-products to litter our home town is not only rude & unsightly but it costs local taxpayers money too… somebody has to clean it up and that’s the council’s job.

Therefore your hard-earned pay, in the form of council tax, pays for street-cleaners and litter pickers to remove the trash.

So the point is this:

Shouldn’t mass-market global brands be contributing a good percentage of their profits toward cleaning up the by-products of their products? Should there be a litter tax whereby for every item of a certain brand/item that is swept up from public places there is a charge to the producer/manufacturer?

There are pros & cons to each solution but this approach would encourage corporate responsibility, stimulate social responsibility and make the world a cleaner place.

What do you think?

A few months ago Adnams brewery in Suffolk issued a new bottle design for their beers.

The new bottle has a revised label and states:

“Less glass in a bottle is more environmentally friendly. Adnams 500ml beer bottle is the lightest in the UK”

That’s very welcome news as the old bottles were based on an old 1920s Adnams design, which the new brown glass container also follows, but the old glass bottles were extremely heavy and used a lot of glass.

The new bottles are both good looking and, as mentioned, use a lot less glass, so that is a bonus for weight savings and recycling (think slightly lighter crates of ale to ship, less raw materials)
However, the question still remains: why do breweries not go back to the old idea of returnable bottles? Surely returning glass bottles (for a penny or 5) is better than collecting, smashing and re-making them?

I received an email from a client today with the following phrase at the foot of their note…

“Think Green - Please do not print this email unless you really need to“

That’s not only perfectly good advice but also very appropriate - I know someone who I have tried time and time again to deter from printing virtually EVERYTHING on their PC onto paper. And yes, they do print their emails. These emails are then stored away and forgotten.

Why oh why do they bother? It is so frustratingly pointless.

What a complete waste of paper, toner, electricity, money, time and space.

Tip of the day to prevent flies in your compost bin: wrap all your old kitchen scraps in a sheet or two of old newspaper before dropping them in your compost bin. This should keep flies from laying their eggs on the organic waste.

This follows the prinicple of mixing “green” and “brown” waste, so a really good layer of shredded paper will do the trick but not so well as wrapping old fruit and veg in newspaper.

Also keep the lid on and make sure there are no gaps into the bin.