rio - kn

The recent report from the Renewable Energy Association (REA) that Defra was not considering mandatory food waste collections in England will disappoint many and make others happy.

The losers will be the Anaerobic Digestion (AD) and compost plants, starved of quality food waste to treat, with many close to bankruptcy. The winners will be the landfill and incinerator operators that will have another 4-5 million tonnes of food waste annually to burn or dump. And with waste producers paying some £120 a tonne to send the waste to their plants, it adds up to a significant amount of money.

In between the winners and losers are the councils. As LARAC  (The Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee) quite rightly say...

People have a perception of AI (Artificial Intelligence) which is negative – they are afraid of what robots and the invasion of privacy through technologies will do to our lives. They fear jobs will be lost. They also have only a vague idea of what 'circular economy' means. Indeed Dan Botterill (Ditto Sustainability CEO) recently asked a room of (100+) people to define 'circular economy' in ten seconds. Just four people thought they could. So combining AI (fear) with circular economy (ignorance) equals a lack of understanding of how one can develop the other. 

That is a gigantic, missed opportunity...

We had a really interesting time together at Ditto Sustainability's event on 27 June at the City of London offices of investor, IP Group. The subject of discussion was 'Will the Circular Economy save the Planet?' and about 50 of us crowded the rooftop room. I acted as compere for this afternoon meeting, and this was really fun because the speakers were well informed, sharp, and up to the task of replying to some rather provocative questions from me and the audience.

Here's the video of the day...

Fresh from an epic Netflix binge of the latest Altered Carbon series, I'm feeling very futuristic. Partly excited, partly overwhelmed with what is clearly going to happen to us all over the next century. That is, on the assumption we do survive as a human race and climate change doesn't obliterate us before we can colonise space...  

A list of acronyms and initialisms for waste. These abbreviations and acronyms are all common to the waste industry, however be aware that when used in other contexts they may mean something completely different...! This glossary is one of many free learning resources provided by Ditto Sustainability; you can view the growing boxset of free content here.

On with the acronyms...OK BANANA...

World Environment Day (WED) is an event that has been running since 1974 and is regarded as the ‘UN's most important day for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment’. Each year the event has a host country and a theme. This year’s theme was unsurprisingly, ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ and giving up single-use plastics; hosted in India.

Giving up single-use plastics is amicable, but it's a polluted drop in the ocean in the grand scheme of things...

The consultancy Eunomia published a report recently which lifts the lid on declared recycling figures.

Their analysis finally gives some data credibility to what many of us already intuitively knew... ...it cannot be possible that we recycle half our waste in the UK...

The world's largest environmental movement. And a good week for plastics? Earth Day (organised by the Earth Day Network) is a global event; it all started in 1970 when millions of people took to the streets to protest about the negative impacts of industrial development and how it was impacting the earth! Earth Day is now a recognised day of political action and civic participation. This year took place on Sunday 22 April, and focused on ending Plastic Pollution.

But what about beyond Earth Day...?