Banishing the plastic bag - the revolution continues
When the people of Modbury announced they were going to be plastic bag free everyone nodded approvingly, but no-one really thought it would last and nobody thought that within only six months 50 other cities, towns and villages across the UK would follow suit. They include 33 boroughs in London, the islands of Mull, Arran and Guernsey, and my neighbouring town North Berwick. The seaside town, famous for it's stunning beaches and a huge colonies of seabirds, has handed out around 7,000 questionnaires to all of the town's residents to ask their opinion of the proposal to ditch free plastic bags from all local businesses. So far only 400 replies have been received but of those 98% support the idea.
[via The Guardian]
Posted by Elisa Smith on September 24, 2007 10:00 AM
in Animal welfare| Green News| Planet saving
Permalink |
digg this | del.icio.us this
| 
Stumble It!
Permalink |
digg this | del.icio.us this
| Stumble It!
In a bizarre twist on the viability of carbon off-setting, there is now evidence that some of the schemes are causing an increase in child labour in poorer countries. In an example of such a scheme, Climate Care is paying poor and impoverished families in India to stop using diesel-powered pumps to irrigate their fields and replace them with human-powered treadles instead. One family ‘benefiting’ from Climate Care’s scheme is the Ram family. Their six year old daughter and her four young brothers now work flat out in the searing sun to pump water into their family field. Climate Care is the company that sells off-sets to British Airways customers, so they can feel better about their long-haul flights. 
Over the water in the USA, major retailer Wal-Mart has launched its own brand of compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). The low energy lightbulbs are being sold in over 3,000 of its US stores. Andy Barron, Wal-Mart General Merchandise Manager said: “The introduction of our Great Value bulbs make CFLs a more accessible option for our shoppers as we strive to sell 100 million CFLs by the end of 2007.” This brings the option of cheaper low energy lightbulbs to millions of people. If Wal-Mart takes the next step and removes high energy incandescent lightbulbs from its shelves, the amount of energy saved will be massive. This is a stark contrast to the attitude taken by some of our retailers here in the UK, mention no names, but read my previous post! It would be great if Wal-Mart introduced these CFL lightbulbs in its UK Asda stores as well. 
McDonalds, an institution more commonly known for its poor environmental policies and damage to the planet is trying to ‘green-up’ its image by using waste from its restaurants to generate power. Whether this is enough to outweigh the environmental damage McDonalds inflicts on the world is another question. The idea is for a small pilot scheme using 11 of its restaurants in Yorkshire, which if successful will be rolled out to all the other McDonald sites. Waste from the restaurants in Sheffield, Rotherham and Barnsley will be shipped to Veola Environmental Services who will treat the waste at its Energy Recovery facility in Sheffield. 
Government backed cycling group 
