Tag Archives: Recycling
By Freccia Benn – (3 min read) In recent years, budget cuts have placed great pressure on local authorities as they work to maintain the same level of service with reduced funding from central government. In recycling departments, officers are looking for ways to retain the best environmental outcomes while making the required cuts and, in some cases, funded industry programmes have helped to soften the blow. The MetalMatters programme, for example, helps to drive income to councils through the value of waste metals. The initiative is funded by the metal packaging and recycling industry and leading brand owners and operated by Alupro. It gives local authorities access to communications materials which educate householders about metal packaging recycling and encourages them to recycle more at home. The campaign is subsidised by programme funders and gives councils the resources to launch local programmes. It consists of two leaflet drops, typically six weeks apart, which inform and remind householders about what and how to recycle, and explain what happens to metal packaging after it is collected. The materials are tailored to fit with existing local authority or waste partnership-branded campaigns and focus on simple-to-understand messages and clear visuals which can be applied to a variety of media channels and tailored to suit local budgets. Thanks to the value of the additional metal packaging collected, the campaign pays for itself in just a few months, and helps to reinvigorate recycling, where rates are starting to plateau. In 2019, MetalMatters reached 157,000 households across the UK. The campaign in partnership with Orkney Islands Council helped offset the cost of providing waste disposal services costing £4,500 over 18 months. As Britain’s smallest local authority, and one with its own unique geographical issues, Orkney faces unusual logistical issues for the collection of recycling. The programme resulted in an increased capture rate of 13.5 tonnes of aluminium and steel packaging over a year, an uplift of more than 19 per cent from kerbside collections, and 44.5 per cent at the island’s five household waste and recycling centres. It has been well-documented that single material recycling campaigns punch above their weight, providing a boost to all recycling streams. At a time when resources are stretched, the industry needs to pull together to ensure that recycling levels are sustained, and councils supported to achieve optimum results, within budget. For further information, please contact: Freccia Benn Co-Founder 0203 876 0324
By Accounting for Energy– (3 min read)
This month, Alupro announced that in 2018, the recycling of aluminium cans hit 75 per cent – a three per cent rise on 2017 figures. In an environment where household recycling has reached a plateau, aluminium is a success story, and one which represents value across the supply chain. As well as helping to avoid unnecessary mining of Bauxite, last year, aluminium cans averaged £1,016 per tonne.
Ideally, successful recycling would always feed a genuine market and, as resources become more scarce, we are looking for new ways to make the most of our waste. One route which is being explored is the extraction of valuable resources from landfill and e-waste.
A UN report released earlier this year estimates the value of e-waste at more than £47.8 billion, largely held in precious metals such as gold and platinum, which are used to make electronics. The report – A New Circular Vision for Electronics – claims that around 80 per cent of the WEEE produced worldwide ends up in landfill, or dismantled with little or no regulation, in developing countries.
Processing hazardous waste without the appropriate safety controls is a danger to the health of workers, but the loss of valuable resources adds another dimension. If we are to meet our circular aims and build a resource efficient economy, we need to target those materials that can easily be applied to manufacture new products.
Landfill mining is another option. While this has taken place since the 1950s, it has recently come under greater scrutiny, with the launch of a new project in Belgium which uses plasma technology to heat waste to high temperatures and transform it into renewable gas.
In the UK, tapping the energy held in landfill waste to produce renewable electricity is commonplace. Of more than 500 landfill sites dotted around the UK – roughly five per county – 90 per cent produce renewable energy through landfill gas capture technology, and these sites have the potential to power every household in Northern Ireland for a year.
Landfill gas equipment pays dividends, both to the company that installs and manages the technology, and to the landfill owner, which receives royalty payments for hosting the equipment on its site. As long as the payments are regularly audited to ensure that rates reflect the current set-up, landfill gas represents a beneficial way for sustainable objectives and economics to complement each other.
By Accounting for Energy – (4 min read)
Here at AfE we are passionate about ensuring landowners’ green energy is working hard for them. The very heart of what we do is to help our clients to be both sustainable and profitable, and we get excited when we see other businesses working toward the same goal. Our Editorial Director, Sharon Davis, sat down with our Operations Director, Freccia Benn, to find why she thinks sustainable businesses are the future.
What are your thoughts on sustainability in business?
Sustainability provides businesses with an opportunity to lead environmental outcomes. Historically, a business was seen as ‘green’ if their raison d’être was environmentally linked, but the reality is any company can have this focus. I think the definition of a green business today is one that puts sustainability at the heart of their strategic decisions. This could be changing the way they process waste, measuring their environmental impact or reassessing their supply chain to see if they can work with greener suppliers and other partners.
What does this mean for AfE?
It’s our mission to empower landowners to be financially and environmentally shrewd. At a time when the UK government has scaled back its subsidy support, making renewable energy production appear less commercially viable, we are creating a cultural shift, so that renewable investments are fair, attractive and rewarding, rather than being perceived as complicated and non-transparent.
How do you do that?
Through our royalty audits which proves that renewable energy makes good business sense and has identified significant saving for our landowner clients since we began in 2014. Such savings are maximising the benefits of renewable operations for UK landowners.
Why is this important?
This is an unregulated area. We are increasing transparency and equipping UK landowners with comprehensive knowledge about their renewable projects, and our royalty audits help our clients to gain more ownership over the renewable energy produced on their land.
For too long the perception around renewables and eco-friendly activities has been that it’s a good thing to do, but not necessarily financially beneficial and this simply isn’t the case. Both go hand in hand, and I’m sure many financial professionals would agree.
Do you think sustainability is the future of finance?
I do. Many organisations realise that current financial models and our general attitude toward the environment has to change, and organisations such as Accounting for Sustainability are doing a great job in this area, one of the ways they do this is by galvanising financial leaders to think about how they incorporate sustainable methods into the heart of their financial processing.
It’s also great to see many big businesses taking their carbon footprint seriously, plus I’m inspired by smaller companies such as Abundance Investment which is a platform that provides finance for projects with long-term sustainable outcomes, and bio-bean which recycles waste coffee grounds into advanced biofuels and biochemicals. There is a lot going on and I do believe the tide has turned. Businesses have a unique opportunity to be the driving force for environmental change while simultaneously being profitable.
For further information, please contact:
Freccia Benn
Co-Founder
0203 876 0324
