Rob Edwards

Building a church from old beer cans

from Sunday Herald, 04 March 2012

It sounds like a cross between Heath Robinson and Blue Peter, with the blessing of the Almighty and a huge heap of ingenuity. And it’s definitely not rubbish.

Thousands of old beer cans, car tyres, shipping containers, industrial pallets and straw bales are being used to build a new church and community centre in Glasgow, all with the help of local people.

The cans are being used to construct walls and furniture, the tyres to form foundations, the containers and pallets to create buildings and the straw bales to provide insulation. It’s one of the most ambitious recycling projects in the country.

With the backing of grants from the Scottish government, the lottery and Glasgow City Council, work is now starting on the first phase of the project - building an “energy hub” and community centre in Milton, a disadvantaged district in north Glasgow.

After that, the plan is to build a church, a café, a theatre, a gallery and offices, set within a landscaped public park. Further grants of £2.2 million are being applied for with the aim of having it all finished by April 2014.

Crackdown on toxic waste trade that contaminates Africa

from Sunday Herald, 13 November, 2011

More than 40 shipments of toxic waste that could contaminate developing countries have been prevented from leaving Scotland in the latest attempt to crack down on the multi-million-pound criminal trade in waste.

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), the government’s green watchdog, has this year stopped or sent back export containers full of broken TVs, defunct computers, old fridges, contaminated paper, worn-out tyres and even clapped-out cars.

According to officials, the hazardous junk is heading for Africa or Asia, where much is likely to end up being burnt or dumped, triggering the escape of poisonous toxins that will pollute air and water. Sometimes electronic items will be dismantled using child labour, in a business that has links to serious, organised crime, they say.

The illegal trade is driven by the big profits to be made by selling unsafe or polluting equipment abroad, or by extracting valuable components and materials. A Sepa study suggests that traders would be able to make a profit of around £7,000 for every container of old TVs they export.

“Illegal shipments are a way for criminals to make serious money by dumping our waste on other countries,” John Kenny, Sepa’s waste and enforcement manager told the Sunday Herald.

“There are significant risks to the environment and human health as a result. That’s why Sepa is cracking down on those who flout the law by stopping waste, before it leaves Scotland, through intelligence sharing and targeted inspections.”

The invading incinerators that wreck Scotland’s zero waste plan

from Sunday Herald, 18 September 2011

It’s the invasion of the incinerators. Scotland is facing a massive 17-fold expansion in waste incineration that could blight communities, threaten health and wreck the Scottish government’s recycling targets.

An investigation by the Sunday Herald has uncovered plans for 15 new, high temperature waste plants around the country which will treat nearly three million tonnes of waste a year. This compares to the three existing incinerators that burn just 166,000 tones a year.

Almost everywhere they have been proposed, the new plants have run into fierce opposition from local residents, fearful of toxic emissions, health risks and environmental pollution. They have held angry meetings, marched in protests and gone to court.

Environmentalists point out that the proposed plants are so huge that they will swamp Scottish ministers’ much-vaunted plans for “zero waste”. The incinerators will create such a large demand for waste that they will risk reversing the major gains that have been made in recycling in recent years, they argue.

“The scale of energy from waste proposals is shocking and risks undermining the Scottish government’s zero waste vision,” said Dr Dan Barlow, head of policy with WWF Scotland.

“Burning anything like this volume of household rubbish would render the target to recycle 70 per cent of waste a pipedream. It is at odds with government policy that energy from waste would only be used for materials that can't be recycled or reused.”

Councils fail to meet targets to recycle waste

from The Herald, 04 July 2011

Scotland's largest cities are failing to meet the Government’s target for recycling waste and the country is now lagging behind England and Wales, according to official new figures.

Half of Scotland’s councils – including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee and Highland – are falling short of the green goal and their poor performance has been condemned by environmental groups.

Local authorities recycled or composted an average of 37.8% of municipal waste in 2010. This missed the SNP Government’s national target of 40% for the year, and means that Scotland is now trailing behind the rest of the UK and could fail to reach its much-vaunted goal of “zero waste”.

“It is shocking that so many local authorities are falling such a long way short of meeting the 40% target,” said Dr Dan Barlow, head of policy with WWF Scotland.

“If we are to achieve our zero waste aspirations the government must ensure that those falling behind up their game. Stepping up recycling and reuse rates and cutting the amount of waste we produce are essential if we are to reduce our global footprint.”

The Scottish government set a series of targets to boost recycling in 2008, aiming to achieve 40% in 2010, 50% in 2013 and 70% in 2025. In 2009, when the environment secretary, Richard Lochhead, launched his plan for a “zero waste Scotland”, he stressed that “we need to reach 40 per cent by the end of 2010”.

A plastic bottle is left in a Quebec shopping centre - then what happens?

Taxpayers to pay millions for ‘fresh air’ waste

from Sunday Herald, 19 December 2010
 
Council taxpayers who have successfully boosted their recycling face multi-million pound bills for failing to dump enough waste on landfill sites, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

Long term contracts could force local authorities to make “fresh air payments” to private companies for landfill space that they don’t use. The payments, which could cost individual councils millions every year, have been condemned as “ridiculous” and “unbelievable” by councillors and environmental groups.

Scotland is aiming for “zero waste” by attempting to increase recycling and to reduce the amount of waste created in the first place. Over the last five years the proportion of waste being recycled by Scottish local authorities has risen from 17% to over 37%.

This means that much less waste is being disposed of as landfill, where it rots and causes noxious pollution. But some councils signed contracts with waste companies in the 1990s that oblige them to deliver minimum amounts of waste to landfill sites every year.

Exposed: how Scotland’s toxic waste is poisoning Africa and Asia

from Sunday Herald, 26 September 2010

Tens of thousands of tonnes of toxic waste from Scotland are being illegally dumped in Africa and Asia every year with the help of organised criminal gangs, according to an investigation by the Scottish government’s environmental watchdog.

Mountains of broken televisions, defunct microwaves, worn tyres, contaminated paper and other waste exported from Scottish homes and businesses end up threatening the environment and endangering the health of people in Nigeria, Zanzibar, Ghana, Indonesia, Pakistan, China and elsewhere.

But now the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) is cracking down on the criminal trade, and has stopped eight major shipments this year. Four other illegal waste cargoes from Scotland have been intercepted by regulatory agencies in England, the Netherlands and Belgium since 2008 (see table below).

Using a combination of intelligence, surprise checks at ports, and unannounced inspections of waste companies, Sepa has begun to uncover a network of companies and individuals who try and make money from exporting waste.

Sometimes the exports are “dressed” as legitimate recycling operations, with waste electrical goods hidden behind a few rows of properly packaged and working TVs in shipping containers.

Ministers under fire for failing to green government

from Caledonian Mercury, 26 May 2010

Scottish ministers have been condemned by their own expert advisers for failing to meet most of their targets for cutting pollution and greening government.

Their performance has been described as “poor” and “worrying” by the Sustainable Development Commission, which was set up to advise ministers on environmental policy. Ministers will only be forced to improve if they are subject to external scrutiny, the commission warned.

The Scottish government’s failure to live up to its much-vaunted green credentials has also been lambasted as depressing and hypocritical by environmental groups and opposition politicians. In its defence, the government says that it is now trying harder.

When ministers’ latest environmental performance report was published a few days ago, the spin was all positive. “The Scottish government is taking action to improve its environmental performance as it pledges to lead by example,” boasted the news release.

Though you wouldn’t know it from the blurb, the real picture revealed by the report for 2008-09 was very different. Of the eleven environmental targets ministers set themselves, eight are on track to be missed.

Anger after government axes anti-waste projects

from Sunday Herald, 16 May 2010

Ministers are under fire for failing for tackle Scotland’s vast mountain of waste after they axed pioneering projects aimed at reducing rubbish.

Environmental groups, volunteers and politicians are upset because the Scottish government has cut funding for community-based anti-waste schemes. They say this undermines the government’s aim of “zero waste”.

Although there has been a significant rise in the amount of waste being recycled in recent years, this has not led to a reduction in the 20 million tonnes of waste being produced every year. This is a problem, campaigners say, because preventing waste in the first place is more important.

In an attempt to combat the problem, the Scottish government agreed to fund a series of projects under a £7.5 million programme. One was Communities Reducing Excess Waste (CREW), which was run by Friends of the Earth Scotland, and was meant to run for three years from 2008.

The £200,000 project, which employed two staff and involved 55 volunteers, aimed to encourage communities to reduce their waste by avoiding excess packaging, reusing materials and buying less. But earlier this year its funding was suddenly cut, and its staff made redundant.

Radical recommendations to cut waste ‘sidelined’

from Caledonian Mercury, 13 April 2010

A series of radical recommendations aimed at eliminating Scotland’s waste, including ‘pay as you throw’ schemes, landfill bans and a network of biomass plants, are being sidelined by the Scottish government, insiders say.

Five authoritative reports by the Zero Waste Think Tank, a group of experts set up to advise ministers, are being virtually ignored in drawing up the nation’s waste plans. Critics fear that ministers may be losing the political will for tough action on waste.

The reports, which were meant to inform waste policy, were quietly posted on the government’s website last month at the same time as other announcements about recycling. No reference was made to their publication.

The Zero Waste Think Tank, involving 15 waste specialists from public agencies, voluntary organisations and businesses, started work in March 2008. It ended by producing the five reports, covering delivery, regulation, business and climate pollution.

The reports’ recommendations included the adoption of controversial “pay as you throw” schemes designed to encourage consumers to minimise their rubbish. They also suggested that the dumping of certain wastes on landfill sites should be banned.

Crackdown on mass dumping of toxic tyres

from Sunday Herald, 11 April 2010

There’s millions of them, and they can be noxious, polluting and a haven for rats. But they have been dumped all over Scotland by waste cowboys.

The illegal fly-tipping of old vehicle tyres is one of the nation’s biggest waste problems. But it is now facing a crackdown by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), which is determined to catch “dumb dumpers”.

As many as a million tyres a year have been dumped on waste ground in the central belt since 2004. More than five thousand incidents have been reported, many in the west of Scotland.

As well as being a blight on the landscape, dumped tyres are dangerous. They encourage insect and rodent infestations, and are a major fire risk.

PIles of tyres are often set alight and have to be put out by the fire services, sometimes with great difficulty. And when they burn, tyres produce a toxic cocktail of pollutants that can contaminate water, land and air. 

If the polluted air is inhaled, it can cause major public health problems for nearby communities. The pollutants are particularly harmful for those with breathing difficulties.

Egyptian radioactive scrap finds a home in England

Exclusive, 11 October 2009

A controversial shipment of radioactive scrap metal from Egypt, stored at a freight depot in central Scotland for nine years, has been sent to the UK’s radioactive waste dump at Drigg in Cumbria.

Internal papers from the UK government’s waste management steering committee, released under freedom of information legislation, reveal that prolonged efforts to persuade the Egyptian government to take back the scrap failed.

Junk mail tree-trashers outed by environmentalists

for Sunday Herald, 31 May 2009

It’s one of the banes of the modern age, and it’s destroying the world’s forests. But now we know who the main culprits are.

The big companies most to blame for cramming our letter boxes with junk mail have been unmasked. Well-known catalogue retailers, supermarket chains and publishing companies have all been labelled as woeful paper wasters.

One of the worst offenders is the clothing company, Boden, which recently hit the headlines after the US president’s wife, Michelle Obama, was reported to have ordered one of its catalogues. Several other catalogue companies have been fingered, including Freemans, Argos and Littlewoods.

Also under fire for failing to save paper are the Swedish home furnishing giant, IKEA; the supermarkets Morrisons, Somerfield and Sainsburys; Bauer, which publishes Bella, Heat and FHM; and Future, which publishes computer gaming magazines like XBox 360.

Some of the companies have leapt to their own defence, arguing that their paper is sourced from sustainable forests and recyclable. But consumers have expressed frustration at the mountains of junk mail and waste paper they create.

The average British household is bombarded by 650 items of junk mail every year. The UK consumes four times more paper per person than the world average, and paper production damages forests, pollutes water and helps disrupt the climate.

Shops failing to recycle batteries

from Sunday Herald, 10 May 2009

Scotland’s big-name retailers are failing to help customers recycle their toxic batteries - and they are ill-prepared for a new law that will soon force them to do so.

A survey by the Sunday Herald has uncovered confusion, ignorance and misinformation in the advice given by leading high street shops to customers inquiring about battery recycling.

All but one of 14 major retail chains with over 500 stores across Scotland said that they didn’t currently offer any facilities for battery recycling. And the only one that did - PC World - stressed that it wasn’t promoting its scheme in case it was overwhelmed.

Retailers have been accused of “burying their heads in the sand” by environmentalists, and criticised by battery manufacturers. In response, most of them said they were making efforts to begin battery recycling.

About 41 million batteries are used in Scotland every year, with the vast majority being dumped in landfill sites. Many contain toxic heavy metals like cadmium, mercury and nickel which can contaminate soil and water, threatening wildlife and human health.

The recycling that is thrown away

from Sunday Herald, 08 March 2009

Nearly 30,000 tonnes of waste collected for recycling in Scotland ended up being dumped as landfill, according to new figures released by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).

In some local authorities up to a fifth of the rubbish meant for recycling was rejected because it was contaminated, or because it was the wrong kind of waste.

The revelations have upset environmentalists, who fear that government recycling targets may not be met. Some councils accept that they need to do better, but others say the figures are misleading.

Sepa supplied the Sunday Herald with a spreadsheet (20kb xls) showing the amounts of waste collected for recycling but then rejected at the collection or processing stage during 2007-08. Across Scotland as a whole 4.4% - 29,126 tonnes - was rejected.

Councils in breach of waste dumping targets

from Sunday Herald, 12 October 2008

Seven Scottish councils have failed to meet government targets to cut the amount of waste they dump in landfill sites, according to new figures from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa).

The worst offender was Aberdeenshire Council, which disposed of 10,600 tonnes more waste to landfill than it should have done. The other six councils which exceeded their targets for 2007-08 were Aberdeen, North Lanarkshire, Inverclyde, Highland, East Lothian and Perth and Kinross.

The councils, and the Scottish government, have all come under fire for not doing enough to encourage recycling and waste minimisation. But they have defended themselves by pointing to a series of initiatives underway to improve their performance.

1,000 new waste plants planned for Scotland

from Sunday Herald, 29 June 2008

As many as a thousand new plants could be built to turn Scotland’s mountains of waste into heat and power for homes and businesses, according to a report for Scotland’s green watchdog.

But the report - to be published this week by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) - will provoke anxiety in communities across the country worried about pollution from waste treatment plants in their areas.

Sepa, however, insists that the proposed new facilities will be clean and strictly regulated. They include up to 741 gas-producing composting plants and 228 small-scale incinerators, all of which could supply hot water and electricity.

Glasgow bids to go greener

from Sunday Herald, 29 June 2008

The Dear Green Place wants to get greener. Glasgow City Council has launched a bid to become one of Europe’s most environmentally-friendly cities.

The council’s leaders are trying to shake off the city’s image as one of the most polluted, most wasteful and most road-obsessed in Scotland by agreeing a series of initiatives aimed at making it more sustainable.

The council has set up a high-level consortium led by Strathclyde University to examine every aspect of life in the city. The objective is “to position Glasgow as one of Europe’s most sustainable cities within five to ten years”.

Big new incinerators could bust government limit

from Sunday Herald, 01 June 2008

Plans to build eight major waste incinerators across Scotland are threatening to bust the Scottish government’s limit on waste-burning, according to a new survey.

Waste companies are proposing to boost Scotland’s incineration capacity 12-fold to over a million tonnes a year. Huge new plants are being planned in Lanarkshire, Aberdeenshire, Highland and East Lothian.

Dangerous waste for Africa seized

from Sunday Herald, 18 May 2008

Two shipments of potentially dangerous waste en route to Africa have been seized by Scotland’s environment watchdog, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

The shipments are now under investigation by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) as part of a major new crackdown on illegal waste exports. This is the first time that such action has been taken in Scotland.