English

This report calls for greater efforts to reduce the rate of waste growth and for more re-use and recycling to combat the country’s growing rubbish mountain

The Channel Tunnel Rail Link and Terminal 5 at Heathrow, UK are just two examples of major construction projects that are currently utilising large quantities of recycled and secondary aggregates. However, until recently one of the major barriers to the wider use of these materials has been the lack of …

The Environment team at the British Embassy in Berlin, Germany have located a handy briefing note on envrionmental taxes in Germany. Written in January, this is an up-to-date review and is 11 pages long. It describes (in English) the ecological tax reform (ETR): introduction, continuation and further development. Through ETR, …

The EPS (expanded polystyrene) packaging industry is celebrating an unprecedented rise in its recycling figures for 2001-2002. The figures show that 10,800 tonnes of used EPS packaging was recycled – an increase to 40 per cent of EPS packaging produced in the UK. This places EPS packaging ahead of glass …

One of North America’s most comprehensive recycling collection programmes is having trouble getting a smooth city-wide operation underway. Resource Recycling reports that in March, Guelph, Ontario moved to a three-sort, all-bagged system called wet-dry plus Wet compostable materials are kept separate from dry recyclables, and both are bagged. Residents place …

Edmonton Alberta claims to have become North America’s hub for research in solid waste and wastewater treatment with the incorporation of the Edmonton Waste Management Centre of Excellence. Partners in the venture include the City of Edmonton, the University of Alberta (U of A), the Alberta Research Council, AMEC, Olds …

Early in March saw the introduction of the Dutch national waste management plan. 83% of waste substances in the Netherlands must be applied to useful purposes by 2012. This is an objective of the National Waste Management Plan (LAP), which centralises control of waste management at national level and replaces …

With its landfill sites almost full, Japan launched a plan last week to halve the amount of waste it buries by 2010. Reuters reports that though some other affluent countries produce more trash per capita in weight terms, the Japanese fondness for elaborate packaging leaves it with a lot of …

City residents in Ottawa, Canada should pay for the waste they create, says a city staff report that is already getting mixed reviews from members of council. The Ottawa Citizen reports that the city should “develop strategies to ensure waste-management costs are recovered on a user-pay basis,” says a staff …

According to a report by the GfK market researchers in Nuremberg, deposits on single-use beverage containers have had a positive effect on sales of refillable alternatives. Sales of refillable containers for those beverages affected by the deposits have ended their downward trend and increased dramatically. This Note also covers planned …