British wasters cause kerfuffle about ‘pay as your throw’ proposals

This week the British papers have been devoting a lot of column inches to plans to increase recycling and reduce landfill waste.

Most have been begrudgingly accepting of proposals that local councils fit wheelie bins with sensors to measure waste, with rewards and penalties for people depending on their recycling habits. But there have been a lot of grumbles - the Independent is sceptical about the cost of the scheme, the Daily Mail is concerned about a ‘Big Brother state’ mentality, and the Daily Express moans about bin bullies…

We’re so used to chucking things away without a moment’s thought about the impact we’re having (where after all is ‘away’?) these might seem like draconian measures. But so far we’ve done very little to curb our wasteful habits, with each of us throwing away our own body weight in waste every 7 weeks, and something’s got to change.

Britain’s near the bottom of the European recycling league – only Greece and Portugal recycle less than us – so maybe we should focus on the benefits of cutting our waste (not least the cash rewards of up to £50 a year for the greenest families) and stop grumbling about the way things are organised.

Murdoch promises a benign media empire

Rupert Murdoch wants to ‘change the DNA’ of his global business. Perhaps inspired by his son James’ green credentials, the CEO and chairman of News International, which includes the Fox family in the USA, Sky and The Times and Sun newspapers here, has bought himself a hybrid car and begun a campaign of changing behaviour through his media empire. From MySpace to Fox Television, he says he hopes ‘to weave this issue into our content, make it dramatic, make it vivid, even sometimes make it fun’.

News Corporation has a carbon footprint of 641,150 tons a year and Murdoch aims to make it ‘carbon neutral’ by 2010. News International, which publishes his British newspapers, and the publishers HarperCollins hopes to achieve this goal by the end of the year and all books published by the imprint Fourth Estate are to be printed on recycled paper from 1 July.
It’ll be fascinating to see how an industry renowned for its extravagance deals with the challenge of trimming its wastefulness. The stars in the Fox film-lot in Hollywood are making a start by driving around in solar-powered cars. I suppose getting sweaty on bikes might smudge their makeup…

Plane crazy

Our desire to hop on planes whenever possible seems to be growing unabated. Over 2.5 million commercial flights have zipped around the world this May - more than any month in history. That’s an extra 114,000 flights and 17.7 million extra passenger seats compared with May last year - an extra 8,000 trips In and out of Britain alone, and an increase of 1.9 million seats over the year.

Flying is one of our fastest-growing sources of emissions (some experts estimate that flying could treble in the next 20 years), Sadly for the many of us who enjoy exploring far-flung places, it’s clear that we’ll have to drastically cut back on the number of flights we take if we’re to significantly curb our emissions.
In a major personal turnaround, Mark Ellingham, the founder of the Rough Guide books which who inspired so many people to travel around the world, says he thinks there’s now no such thing as a genuinely ethical holiday – especially not if it relies on ‘binge-flying’.

So rather than hopping on a plane, as usual I’ll be taking the train to Provence this summer. I’m already looking forward to sinking into a good book on the direct train from Waterloo to Avignon – so much more civilised than spending hours queuing for check-in and baggage reclaim!

Could climate change bid goodbye to fish and chips?

Our national love for fish and chips has been putting pressure on cod stocks for a while - the UK consumes 80% of European cod and a third of global stocks, mostly in batter with chips. Reports out this week focus on a WWF study claiming that the warming of seas as a result of climate change is putting extra pressure on the over-fished shoals, making a collapse of endangered north Atlantic cod stocks 'extremely likely'.
Food for thought along with your mushy peas…

Addressing the climate challenge overseas:

A lot of people moan to me that there’s little point reducing their own carbon footprint when other countries are producing so much pollution. Of course we’re not the only country struggling to deal with the challenges of climate change, but initiatives are cropping up all over the world that we could learn from.

Japan gets hot under the collar

Japan struggling to meet its carbon reduction targets – not helped by all the energy-guzzling air-conditioning of its densely packed offices. In an attempt to reduce the need for chilled air, the Japanese government has launched ‘Cool Biz’, a campaign bringing together fashion designers, famous department stores and captains of industry, and led by the Prime Minister.

From June 1st, government offices will set their thermostats to 28C (82.4F). That’s a little higher than Tokyo’s average August temperature and intolerable in a suit and tie, so the Cool Biz campaign aims to persuade salarymen to take off their ties, unbutton their shirts and cast off their jackets instead.

What better reason could there be for dressing down?

China gets out of its car

Chinese officials are launching a number of initiatives to clean up the grey skies of its major cities, as pollution takes a rising toll on health and growth.

Over 100 cities throughout China, including Beijing and Shanghai have agreed to close their roads for the country’s first ‘no car’ day on 22nd September. Private cars will be banned from some roads, forcing people to walk, use public transport or get back on the bicycles for which Chinese cities used to be famous.

And finally… Prince Charles becomes a model green citizen

The Evening Standard has given significant coverage to Prince Charles’ new waxwork model in Madame Tussauds, which was created to reflect his green views. A previous model of him was recycled to make the new one, augmented with clay, beeswax and organic pigment, and a minimum of electric lighting was used to illuminate the process. People working on the waxwork took to their bikes for the journey between Tussauds HQ and sculpting studios in Acton and the unavoidable emissions from the project were ‘offset’ by planting three trees.