ZERO TO WASTE LANDFILL

Halloween Waste – The Living Nightmare

Halloween is a time for pumpkin carving, spooky costumes, trick-or-treating with the kids and overeating on chocolate and sweets until you feel the size of a pumpkin. But there’s a dark undertone to Halloween which is the excessive amount of waste that we produce.

This year the UK alone will bin over 8 million pumpkins after the Halloween, a quantity which is equivalent to the entire nation having pumpkin pie to eat. This number would be even larger however a campaign #PumpkinRescue has an annual goal to reduce this number.

#PumpkinRescue

Pumpkin Rescue uses everyone’s favourite spooky staple as a way to talk about the edible food we throw away and easy steps we can take to make the most of it instead.

It’s a celebration of food that challenges preconceptions, teaches new skills and has some fun along the way.

More information on how you can join the campaign can be found here: https://www.hubbub.org.uk/pumpkin-rescue

Costumes

12,500 tons of Halloween costumes get sent to landfill each year perhaps this year consider creating your own costume. From metal juice lids to milk jugs, you’ll be surprised what recycled materials can be used to creative, classy Halloween costumes.

If you simply don’t have the time to create a eco friendly costume consider donating them to your local charity shop so they can be used again next year.

Check The Label

Halloween props such as broomsticks and masks can become plastic waste however not all props are non recycable so check the label and potentially reduce your plastic waste. However DIY is far greener and more fun to create, using eco friendly felt to create bats or painting a wreath black to create a eerie masterpiece the possibilities are endless.

If you’re a business looking for help with your summer event waste management, don’t hesitate to get in touch with North West Waste to learn more about what we do.

Glastonbury Plastic Free 2019

On average, music festivals generate 23,500 tonnes of waste, including plastic bottles, food containers, food waste, clothing and abandoned tents.

This year, Michael and Emily Eavis made the historic decision to make Glastonbury Festival 2019 plastic-free.

“We feel that the public very much bought into our campaign to reduce, reuse and recycle and we’re very pleased with the results,” a spokesperson said.

One of the highlights of the festival was the appearance of Sir David Attenborough praising Glastonbury’s decision to go plastic free. The highlight of his speech was the statistic “more than one million plastic bottles will have been saved by the over 200,000 festival attendees”.

Biodegradable confetti was used in performances at this year’s event, including the shows by Years And Years and Kylie Minogue, with roughly 40% of festival-goers traveling to Glastonbury also using public transport a big push has been made to make Glastonbury as energy efficient as possible.

How successful was Glastonbury’s plastic-free commitment?

Despite Glastonbury’s commitment to reducing plastic waste, this did not stop attendees bringing plastic with them and leaving it abandoned across Worthy Farm. People still bringing in throwaway plastic bottles clandestinely, as well as single-use camping chairs that were bound to be left behind. 1,300 volunteers are currently 90% completed the long clean-up operation to deal with all the leftover camping chairs, plastic bottles, blow-up mattresses, flip flops and cool boxes.

Unfortunately, it also emerged that the onsite Co-op sold items in non-recyclable packaging too, which was not in sync with the rest of the festival’s ethos. Most memorably, Co-op’s bags of ice were non-recyclable which were popular as temperatures soared to 28C.

Glastonbury is certainly leading the way in banning plastic from large scale events, but we still have a long way to go if attendees are going to commit to an anti-plastic frame of mind. As we saw with Co-op, brands and sponsors have to commit too for the impact we need to shape the future of music festivals.

If you’re a business looking for help with your summer event waste management, don’t hesitate to get in touch with North West Waste to learn more about what we do.

Sainsbury’s cuts plastic and become the first major retailer to reduce plastic packaging on their fresh flowers.

In a 12 week trial running across 167 stores nationwide Sainsbury’s will package more than one million fresh bouquets of flowers in recyclable paper and sealed with recyclable paper tape. The goal of the trial is to determine whether customer demand and experience of suppliers can manage the transition over a long term basis,

How Are They Removing Plastic?

    To save over 10 tonnes of plastic than one million bunches and bouquets will use:
  • Recycled paper packaging in place of plastic sleeves
  • Paper tape in place of sticky tape

    It forms part of the British retailer’s commitment to reduce plastics by 50 per cent by 2025, across its food operations.

    Quoted from Judith Batchelar, director of Sainsbury’s “We are proud to be the first retailer to reduce fresh floral plastics on a significant scale, across 167 of our stores. Our customers have made it clear that they want us to reduce plastic packaging – developing a more sustainable solution to minimise plastic on fresh flowers is a further step in the right direction.

    Removing Plastic Bags

    To achieve this commitment, other developments over the coming weeks include the removal of plastic bags from the bakery, and the removal of plastic bags from fresh produce.

    From the 30th September all plastic bags for loose vegetables and fruit will be removed from online grocery deliveries a move which is set to save 180 tonnes of plastic.

    Shoppers will need to bring in their own containers or buy a reusable bags charged at 30p.The change will apply in all convenience stores and about 500 supermarkets with more to follow.

    Sainsbury’s isn’t the only supermarket implementing sustainability measures as last month Waitrose revealed it would trial a “bring your own” scheme in one of it’s London stores to encourage customers to buy and refill produce.

    The supermarket giant will begin selling items such as cereals and pasta in large dispensers as part of the concept, which it hopes will effectively reduce waste from plastic packaging.

    If you’re a business looking for help with your summer event waste management, don’t hesitate to get in touch with North West Waste to learn more about what we do.

Plastic Pollution – Morrisons to roll out 20p paper carrier bag

Morrisons is to sell 20p paper carrier bags as an alternative to plastic in all stores by next month following a successful trial. The bags are made in Wales from sustainably managed forests and are strong enough to carry heavy weights up to 16kg. The supermarket hopes the move will save an estimated 1,300 tonnes of plastic a year based on customer uptake during an eight-week trial across eight stores since January.

Welsh stores will be the first to offer paper carrier bags next week, followed by English and Scottish stores in May. The retailer said the Welsh-made reusable and ultimately recyclable bags had a carbon footprint equivalent to its standard plastic bags, which also now cost 20p.

With plastic use dropping by 85% at Britain’s ‘big seven’ supermarkets since October 2015, when the Government introduced the mandatory 5p charge.

Andy Atkinson, group customer and marketing director at Morrisons, said: “We are taking another meaningful step that will remove an estimated 1,300 tonnes of plastic out of the environment each year.

“Our customers have told us that reducing plastic is their number one environmental concern so introducing the paper bag across the nation will provide another way of reducing the plastic in their lives.”


Morrisons removed 5p plastic carrier bags early in 2018 which led to a 25% reduction in overall bag sales.The 5p plastic bag levy was introduced in England in October 2015 and all large retailers have been required to introduce the charge.

Similar schemes run in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Figures from the Government at the end of 2018 showed that nearly two billion 5p plastic bags were sold in the last financial year.This is a stark reduction from 2014, when 7.6 billion carrier bags – the equivalent of 140 per person – were handed out solely by England’s seven largest supermarkets.


The end of the throwaway culture

At the end of 2018 it emerged that the original 5p charge on thin carrier bags would double to 10p as part of the Government’s plan to end Britain’s “throwaway culture” by 2020. An estimated 3.6 billion single-use bags are supplied free each year by England’s 250,000 small retailers. Under the new rules – that will come into force in 2020 – smaller shops will no longer be exempt from the charge.

Don’t Let Go – Balloon Releases On The Environment

Sourced from: https://www.facebook.com/MOEH242/photos/

If you haven’t seen this image on your social media timeline it is only a matter of time before you do. The Ministry of Environment and Housing have posted this image highlighting the impact of plastic and balloons being released into the environment.

A local traditions at memorials, schools, weddings, and other events balloon releases are something we have all done but have you ever considered the impact this can cause?

The Impact On Our Environment

Balloons that are released outside have end up somewhere, usually this is caught up in tree branches or electrical wiring.

Balloons that are not properly disposed of end up in the ocean and along coastal areas, becoming marine debris. This debris can be mistaken for food and eaten causing interal injury and potential death. The string attached to the balloons can also cause potential death as it wraps around marine wildlife and become entangled.


The Solution?

Instead of balloon releases you can instead have fun, celebrate, and remember with environmentally-friendly alternatives that The Ministry of Environment and Housing recommended.

If however balloon releases is not avoidable then the MCSUK have guidelines for wildlife friendly balloon use including the following:

  • Let go of balloons indoors only
  • Fill the balloons with air not helium.
  • Use balloons made of natural rubber latex rather than foil balloons.
  • When tying balloons use natural cotton string rather than plastic ribbon.
  • Hand tie balloons rather than using plastic valves.

    Be a party pooper We all know reducing plastic in everyday life is easier said than done but something so simple as balloon releases can be an easy way to do your part. It may be just one balloon but to a critically endangered species of marine wildlife it could be their last meal.