Monday, 16 July, 2007
- 16 Jul 07, 05:07 PM
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Back to the Future?
Does this remind you of something? Of the period between 1945 and 1989 perhaps? The government is expelling four Russian diplomats in the continuing row over Russia's failure to extradite Andrei Lugovoi - the man British police want for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. Mr Litvinenko was poisoned with Polonium 210 in November. We'll be assessing the implications for relations with Russia.
Mayor Boris?
No, it's not another Russian, just Boris Johnson who is hoping to become Conservative party candidate for the job of Mayor of London, saying (among other things) that he wants to put a smile on the face of the capital. Are we in for a new wave of personality politics? Perhaps Jade Goody should enter the fray? We'll discuss Boris's Bid - but let us know which Celebrities and which Political Job you think perfectly match up by clicking here.
Tenner
Rather like the Biblical parable of the talents, the idea of giving schoolchildren ten pounds and seeing what creative ideas they come up with to increase their money, sounds like a good story. We think so. Inventive lot, British children. Tune in to find out how they made money.
Why are we so rubbish about rubbish?
How much of your household rubbish do you recycle? Across Britain, it's a mere 20% - making us the second worst recyclers in Europe. A committee of MPs described the government's recycling policy as "too timid" today. We've been to Austria - where 68% of household waste is recycled, and there are bold plans virtually to eliminate landfill sites.
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The UK should hang its head in shame at its recycling record. I remember being in Switzerland 20 years, and recycling (even cooking oil) was already under way. Here in Belgium, it's been a bit slow, but has caught up at last. I throw very little away.
John-in-Brussels.
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Phone tap evidence for justice? Niet! (It will blow our cover.) Tell the Russians we were on to their spies all along by booting four of them in retaliation? Da! Now lets get the self-proclaimed "straight" Mr Miliband on the show to explain the logic of that, without deviation, hesitation or obfuscation. Old Carbon Foot is about to discover feet of clay methinks. He might need to call on the undoubted judgement of Jacqui - "cleavage at the dispatch box" - Smith.
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Maybe, poor household recycling in the UK, has everything to do with lack of civic pride and an apathy for collective responsibility, rather than government policy. I seem to recall a huge amount of hostility on a recent Have Your Say debate on this very subject.
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Dear Newsnight
I'm glad the Russians are not extraditing Andrei Lugovoi. Perhaps the FO are too? If he is linked to the Kremlin do we really want to find out about this 'officially'?
what would happen then? better the dance of the deaf instead? they don’t want to tell us, we don’t want to hear it
However I’m sure the lessons have being learned one way or the other and the Kremlin might not be involved
What the world needs is peace. The Cold war is over, I think this is a public charade that had to be played out for all our sakes and I would expect people on both sides to be meanwhile doing some serious talking in private
best wishes
Bob
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perhaps recycling would be easier if it wasn't such a grey area for so many people. the key card which explains when to recycle in the UK is worse than useless. Maybe people would see the point in this scheme rather than getting 1 pick up a fortnight brandished at them as a threat to recycle more?
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What a dreary bunch of cheerless puritans the Austrians seem to be. They might have a clean country but it doesn't look like much fun. Shows what we could turn into if the eco nutters have their way. I don't mind recycling as long as it's not too inconvenient but all that fiddling around with coloured plastic bags and sorting out bits of paper just looks like too much hassle. Specially when over here the whole lot probably gets thrown on a boat and shipped off to China. Complete waste of time and effort.
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As an ex-pat now living the States I'm concerned to see the UK's record on recycling. Here, in certain cities, recycling has become very mainstream. Of course consumption per head is much greater, so it probably evens out in the end. I fail to see how a fortnightly collection will help though.
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"double standards" is a fair charge made by the ruskies on this diplomatic spat, am with the russians on this one, don't get me wrong, i don't condone actions from their agents with their 'licence to kill'(allegedly) with whatever methods used in getting rid of any critics of the kremlin leadership; something the British govt certainly over the years is not totally unfamiliar with the 'bumping off' of its critics or exposers of unpalatable truth, i think you will find that the Americans are mustard at this as well. To echo one post on here, i would suggest that an agreement was made to conduct a public fallout with the usual diplomatic rows, whilst the backroom agreements are made with firm handshakes, that happens all the time, have you seen the price of gas? Gordon Brown ain't that stupid now is he..is he?
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GIGO.
This was a very interesting piece, but to me didn't answer a key question: to what extent were we seeing the results of differences in official policy?
While the Austrians said they were 'happy to pay', even though they generate just as much rubbish (not looking quite so smart at the pack design/legislative end then) not once in the piece did I hear the mention of fines, chips and bins. Well, Ok, bins were mentioned a lot.
Now, I am looking at our RE:box right now besides my home office desk, which gets collected weekly with its paper haul, along with the basket that we fill with glass and metal. No TetraPacks or plastic, but that's because they are not accepted. Yet. Despite the efforts of some (such as Innocent - heard of their campaign?), I believe we still only have only one process plant for the former, which makes the enviROI (cost to environment) of logistics alone very poor. As to the latter, I combine (dedicated trips in the XC90 or Range Rover for two bottles of pop not perhaps the best) my trips to the supermarket with the equivalent of a yellow bag of plastics, where a lot of others seem to be doing the same. Mind you, the enviROI of a dirty great diesel truck lugging 98% fresh air around seems less than optimal.
So, sorry, I don't think the problem here is at consumer end. I think it is upstream, in terms of what is put into the system, and what 'we' are provided to deal with it all. Because, looking around, I see an awful lot of will, with too much no 'way'. And that.. is down to policy. Who in the UK can say that they are always within 500m of a recycling point... and that they know where it is all going?
I even have some sympathy with retailers. So the Austrian supermarket ships back a lot of stuff in its trucks at night. I'm pretty sure most of ours do too. I'm also aware of a few who are set to take back batteries, and even if they don't our local council site certainly does. If it's not national it should be, and that gets us back to...policy.
I don't know if ours are too timid, but they certainly don't seem very joined up, and that can, and does lead to a lot of waste with competing schemes, not to mention the vast amounts blown on different, often overlapping, 'initiatives' left, right and centre, which seem more dedicated to showing 'something' is looking like being done without actually knuckling down and coordinating anything actually (cost) effective.
Which brings me back to enviROI. Whatever we do let's make sure we do it with the actual intent of saving the planet, and not just meeting a few targets to get a quick bonus. I look at the Red Bull cup and think 'good idea!'. But is it? I don't know. It has to be collected, separated and steam cleaned, I presume, for reuse. You see, often one eco-measure (landfill) can conflict with another (energy carbon emissions). All must be (forgive the box-ticking pun) weighed up.
It's a pity the energy from waste issue is not being handled more maturely here. We are happy to live and work next to vehicles belching lord knows what out, or have a bonfire, but stick a metal chimney up and all hell breaks loose. Maybe if it looked like Willy Wonka's hookah more would be cool on the things. It's not like the quality of air can't be guaranteed... assuming you trust the contractor, operator and commissioning authority. Oh... well... moving on.
One thing that was not mentioned was the even more environmentally-friendly option of reuse.
I found it rather telling (unless it was a Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ 'edit for effect') to see a perfectly good pram go in a skip. Rather than recycling, there are some rather nifty measures for avoiding what is still an energy intensive process. Such as Freecycle or Junkk.com's (which also has hundreds of 2nd use ideas from thousands of people to spare almost anything from the bin if it can enjoy a new life) JunkkYard -
You see 'we', the people, may not be any more rubbish at rubbish than our Euro cousins after all.
All 'we' need are the right tools and some effective guidance from 'our' leadership. But, speaking of which, if you put garbage in at the front, that's pretty much all you can expect at the end.
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Andrew Mackinlay MP cowers to the Russians because he thinks our vested interests in gas and energy supplies from Russia is more important than finding out about the truth behind a gravely serious murder that took place involving radioactive material on British soil at the heart of our Capital city on a legitimate U.K citizen living under the sovereign protection of her majesty our Queen.
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nice to see the perfect austrians still have grafitti.
These days British citizenship is handed out with the loo paper at the immigration office. Who are these 'British' citizens who bring trouble to the UK?
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