Snippets
From bin to beyond - what happens to our waste
PLASTIC
On average, every household uses 373 plastic bottles each year, of which only 29 (less than 10 per cent) are recycled. The quantity of plastic bottles recycled has more than doubled since 2002. Recycling one can save enough energy to light a 60W bulb for up to six hours.
Plastic is one of the hardest materials to recycle, as it needs to be sorted. Bottles are the easiest. After being processed into flakes or pellets, they can be remade into fleece jackets, traffic cones, drainage pipes, street furniture, garden furniture, carpets, stuffing for sleeping bags, and toys and playground equipment.
PAPER
Paper is one of the most successful areas of recycling. Some 57 per cent of paper used in Britain is recovered and recycled. Because the UK makes 6 million tons of paper a year - but imports a further 6 million - UK papermills are already using all the recycled paper they can. To avoid its being dumped or burned, excess 'waste' paper must be exported for recycling. UK papermakers use a higher proportion of recycled paper (74 per cent) than any other European country (average 45 per cent).
CANS
Aluminium drinks cans are most likely go to Novelis Recycling in Warrington, which operates Europe's only dedicated aluminium can recycling plant. Five billion aluminium cans are used in the UK each year - but nearly two-thirds are dumped, even though aluminium is one of the easiest materials to recycle, one of the most environmentally beneficial and valuable.
It's the only recyclable material that covers its cost of collection and reprocessing, and can be endlessly recycled with no loss of quality, saving 95 per cent of the energy required to make cans from raw materials. The low recycling rate is mainly because a third of all canned drinks are consumed away from home, and then put in litter bins. 'Tin cans' are really steel. Every year some 13 billion are used in the UK, and even though each one is 100 per cent recyclable more than half are landfilled. Recycling at UK steel plants saves up to 75 per cent of energy needed to make new cans from virgin materials.
KITCHEN & GARDEN WASTE
This is composted and either sold on to horticultural suppliers, or used in parks. It is the most-collected type of recycling. Local authorities have made great efforts to collect kitchen and garden waste partly because it is quite heavy - and since their recycling rates are measured by weight, this is a good way to boost tonnage, and meet targets. (Plastic, in contrast, is hugely bulky and very light.)
GLASS
Glass recycling hit record levels in 2005 - 1,272,000 tons. But this is only 50.8 per cent of the total amount of glass we use. So another 1.2m tons were dumped across the country.
Glass recycling now reduces carbon dioxide emissions by around 200,000 tons each year in the UK, and UK glassmakers used a record 742,000 tons of recycled glass in 2005 (British-made bottles and jars now contain on average 35.5 per cent recycled glass).
Another 250,000 tons of glass from recycling collections were exported to Europe; and 280,000 tons were used in construction or roadmaking.
Low-value, crushed green glass (which cannot be mixed with clear or brown to make new clear glass bottles), or mixed glass is used in building or road materials, for filtration systems in swimming pools, and is even being trialled in place of sand for bunkers on golf courses.(source;The Independent,6th Feb 2006)
Bad Barn Conversions - 'a rural cancer'
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Bad barn conversions are a 'cancer' on the countryside, English Heritage said yesterday as it launched its annual report on the state of the historic environment.
The government body said that traditional farm buildings, fundamental to the character of the English countryside, were fast disappearing or being damaged beyond repair. They are, it said, the most endangered of all historic buildings.
But the organisation also said it would rather see them remain disused and derelict than have them inappropriately renovated, which would amount to a 'visual rape of the countryside that cannot be undone'.
Yesterday Simon Thurley, its chief executive, issued guidelines to the public on what was considered to be good and bad practice in the renovation of old farm buildings as he launched the latest edition of Heritage Counts, the annual audit of the England's historic environment. He conceded that there was a conflict between calling for the old buildings to be saved and for introducing ever tougher guidelines to their conversion.
'To a degree there is a conflict,' he said. 'But we would rather see barns remain derelict than done up the wrong way. Poor barn conversions are causing a visual rape of the countryside. They are a real cancer on the landscape.'
The report said there are more than 500,000 historic buildings in the countryside of which more than 30,000 are listed, the largest single category of listed building in the country.
They included barns, wagon sheds, byres, dovecots, outhouses, stables and oast houses all of which faced disuse and dereliction because they were no longer needed by farmers.
About a third of these had been converted already, many poorly, and a further third are at serious risk, the report claimed. Just under one in 10 is in a severe state of disrepair. It said that unsympathetic conversions included garishly painted beams, the replacement of traditional wooden window frames with uPVC and garage extensions.
Mr Thurley said there had been some 'horror' barn conversions which he said contributed to the 'suburbanisation of the countryside'.
He said: 'The heritage sector isn't opposed to change. We don't want to see the countryside turned into a museum. The challenge is to manage change to these buildings sensitively and intelligently.'
He added that a sympathetic conversion had been shown not only to preserve heritage but to be economically beneficial as it encouraged local crafts, such as thatchers and stonemasons, and brought in tourists.
The report showed that 2,420 (7.4 per cent) listed farm buildings are in a severe state of disrepair and it would take approximately £30 million to repair these alone. Many more are in danger of deterioration and loss.
A field survey in Hertfordshire claimed that 36 per cent of historic timber farm buildings, from 22 parishes, have been lost or are at risk of loss as a result of conversion or disrepair.
Projecting these rates across the county suggests that by 2020, according to English Heritage, the entire stock of its timber farm buildings will have been converted, demolished or suffered collapse.
David Fursdon, the president of the Country Land and Business Association, said his members welcomed the guidelines but wanted encouragement not further regulation.
'We are looking to English Heritage, Defra and the Environmental Stewardship Scheme to help farmers maintain these traditional buildings, and to local authority planners to encourage their sensitive re-use, which is the best guarantee of long-term survival for the majority.'(source:ralleyne@telegraph.co.uk)