Northern Ireland to focus on waste tyre disposal

Northern Ireland’s Environment Minister Mark H Durkan has revealed that he is actively working to improve the management of waste tyres in the country.

Highlighting that there are an estimated 1.8 million tyres generated in the country every year (roughly the same as the population), Durkan said that disposing of the waste stream is a ‘priority’, especially as improper disposal can lead to toxic chemicals being released into the environment and harm human health.

As such, he is working to adopt a range of actions – such as developing a ‘council-led multi-agency approach’ for safe tyre disposal (i.e. energy recovery) and introducing a new producer responsibility scheme for used tyres – to ensure their safe disposal.

He commented: “My vision is for waste tyres to be used profitably, reused and recycled to boost the economy and protect the environment, not dumped and burnt illegally. We need the key players working together to make this happen.

“So many bodies have a role to play… We need to have a clear roadmap of who is responsible for what and how we can work collectively to address this problem.”

Durkan warned that his department will ‘prosecute people who illegally stockpile and irresponsibly dispose of used tyres’ and will be visiting businesses to ‘inspect for compliance with waste regulations’.

Find out more about tyre recycling in Northern Ireland.

Winners of European Week for Waste Reduction revealed

The six winners of the European Week for Waste Reduction (EWWR) Awards 2014 have been announced.

At the awards ceremony, which closed the ‘New Approaches to the National Waste Management’ congress (27 – 28 May) in Budapest, six projects were chosen as being the ‘most outstanding actions implemented during the EWWR 2014’.

The winners were:

Administration/Public Authority

• Food wastage in prison: let's reduce waste there too! – Strasbourg detention centre (Alsace, France)
• This project was recognised for highlighting the problem of food waste to around 1,000 prisoners via the interval video channel.

Association/NGO

• The food donations platform – Foodwe.org (Wallonia, Belgium)
• This online platform was praised for its ability to enable those in the food industry to supply unsold but edible food to charitable or civic associations.

Business/Industry

• United Against Waste Challenge – Unilever Food Solutions (Flanders, Belgium)
• This campaign ran in France, the Netherlands and Belgium and called on 36 restaurants to conduct an audit of their kitchens waste, and implement food waste reduction actions accordingly.

Educational Establishment

• One week for waste reduction - 600 clicks for the environment –
• Bethlen Gábor ÚÁG Kincskereso Tagiskolája (Budapest, Central Hungary, Hungary)
• This primary and secondary school created educational software regarding food waste reduction to raise awareness about waste among its students.

Citizens

• A year without waste bins – Yacine Canamas, (Brussels, Brussels Capital, Belgium)
• Yacine and his family took actions to reduce their waste over the course of a year. They produced 16 kilogrammes of waste (120 times less than the average European family) during this 12-month period.

Others

• Minimisation of uneaten hospital meals – José Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital (Badalona, Catalonia, Spain)
• In order to reduce uneaten meals, this hospital led a satisfaction survey on cuisine service quality, allowed patients to pre-select their menu choices, trained the nurses to increase the accuracy of diet patterns, and created software that enabled patients and cooks to communicate. The actions led to savings of 761 kilogrammes of food waste between 2013 and 2014.

The next EWWR edition will take place from 21 to 29 November 2015 and will have a theme of ‘Doing more with less’, with a special focus on ‘dematerialisation’.

Find out more about the EWWR Awards winners.

LitterARTI to create art from Bristol 10k waste

Bristol-based collective LitterARTI, which makes art from litter, has announced that it will reuse waste collected from Bristol’s 10-kilometre run on Sunday (31 May) to create ‘sculptures of art’.

Using funding from Bristol Green Capital 2015 Small Grants Award, the group will create ‘on-site live sculpture made from rubbish’ by Clifton Suspension Bridge to raise awareness on the detrimental impacts of litter, with particular regards to plastic waste.

LitterARTI curator, Annali Grimes, commented: “Everyone gets a chance to be creative and have fun with our accessible public art and performances, and enables us to think about rubbish, its environmental impact and how we can reduce it in fun and inspiring ways.

“We are hoping to get this message spread far and wide all across Bristol to start reviewing our use of plastics. Through the mythical and the mystical, we capture the imagination of young and old, encouraging us all to think deeper about these environmental challenges we face around climate change.”

LitterARTI is calling on members of the public interested in creating waste sculptures to visit the group by Clifton Suspension Bridge between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Sunday.

The group will also host a similar event at the Neptune statute in Bristol’s Centre Promenade on World Water Day (8 June), where it will encourage members of the public to create sculptures using litter collected from Bristol’s waterways.

Find out more about LitterARTI.

Lincolnshire man given 12-week prison sentence for fly-tipping

North Lincolnshire Magistrates’ Court has handed a 12-week prison sentence to a man who fly-tipped waste on private land despite receiving warnings.

Thomas Baker from East Parade, Brigg, was sentenced on Wednesday (27 May) after pleading guilty to three offences of fly-tipping.

The court heard that Baker had been interviewed under caution in February 2015 for dumping 70 bags of household waste – comprising food waste, nappies, fridges and carpet – on private land off Carr Lane, Worlaby.

Despite confessing to this offence, however, the council and enforcement officers traced two further fly-tipping incidents to Barker in April 2015.

Due to the fact that he had already been made aware of the illegality of his actions, the judge handed Baker a 12-week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, ordered him to pay £1,349 in costs and undertake 180 hours of unpaid work. Baker was also placed on curfew for four weeks.

Speaking after the sentencing, Neil Poole, cabinet member for neighbourhoods at North Lincolnshire Council, said: “In this case, Mr Baker simply ignored all the advice given to him and continued to flout the law with total disregard to the consequences. Unfortunately for him, the law has caught up with him and he will now pay the price.

“We believe this is the highest penalty ever given locally for fly-tipping. It sends out a strong message – that we won’t tolerate it. What is worrying is that people unwittingly hand over cash thinking they are doing the right thing, when they are in danger of getting into trouble with the law themselves by giving their rubbish to an unlicenced carrier.”

Poole reminded residents that everyone is bound under the Household Duty of Care law to ensure that waste is only handed to registered waste handlers, licenced with the Environment Agency.

Find out more about duty of care.