Approval has been granted for the French aircraft carrier Clemenceau to be moved to Teesside, where it will be scrapped. Late last week the UK Environment Agency approved the recycling of the ship, in a contract said to be worth millions. The agency’s decision came after the Friends of Hartlepool, an environmental action group, lodged a second legal challenge to the dismantling on Teesside. The Court of Appeals rejected the group’s challenge. The Clemenceau dismantling at Able UK's Seaton Port TERRC facility will be the largest ship recycling project ever undertaken in Europe. Able UK satisfied the Environment Agency that it had in place ... Full Story

London’s East End is finding itself in last place for the second time when it comes to recycling performance. Tower Hamlets has officially become the worst borough in London for composting garden waste. It had earlier come in at the bottom of the list in the capital in regard to recycling of household waste. Earlier in the month, government figures placed Tower Hamlets below all other local authority households – throughout England – for household recycling performance, for the second consecutive year. Its poor performance has now moved to the garden, as figures released this week show Tower Hamlets as composting less than ... Full Story

Firms will be able to recycle their plastic waste on site, with the help of an innovation to be introduced by a UK plastics recycling firm. A mobile service provided by Reformo is incorporated into a truck wagon that is driven to plastics processor sites, allowing them to recycle plastic waste on the spot. The truck wagon has granulation and conveying equipment on board that is supplied by Summit Systems. The process involves scrap being loaded onto a ground-level conveyor, and then transported into the granulator. After the granulation process is complete, the material is passed through a metal detector and then ... Full Story

According to the Local Government Association (LGA), all English and Welsh households should be required to separate their food scraps into separate bins, in order to reduce landfill waste. The association is also calling for the necessary funds to extend schemes that are already in existence. Data that was obtained by the Daily Telegraph showed that 113 councils of the UK’s 434 that dispose of rubbish, separate out food waste already. Critics are suggesting, however, that adding new waste bins could be confusing for the public, especially pensioners. The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), funded by the government, has released figures showing that ... Full Story

A US-based mobile phone reuse and recycling firm that has come up with an efficient means of keeping the phones out of landfills has announced its expansion into the UK in 2009. Flipswap claims that it offers consumers a higher price for trading in their phones than its rivals. The company has received £9 million in venture capital and has said that it will use part of the funds to open businesses in both the UK and Europe. The firm’s chief executive, Sohrob Farudi, said to BusinessGreen.com that in order to support its expansion plans, Flipswap is partnering with "a company with ... Full Story

In conjunction with J&B Recycling, Tetra Pak has begun a collection service for its drinks cartons at businesses and schools in the North East of England. According to Tetra Pak, more than 12 million milk and juice cartons are used at the region’s schools annually, and the new collection service is meant to make it easier to recycle them. In the North East’s 23 local authorities, a web-based facility is available to businesses and schools for obtaining quotes from J&B Recycling, operator of the collection service. The commercial manager at J&B, Mark Penny, noted that people often found it difficult to recycle because ... Full Story

The group operating a financially-troubled Aberbeen farm that specializes in rare breeds is expressing its opposition to plans for building a recycling plant nearby. Friends of Doonies Farm, the group that runs the farm, have said that their concern is that organic waste at the site would endanger their animals by attracting vermin. According to the city council, however, no organic matter would be handled at the site. Earlier this year, the council withdrew the farm’s subsidy and it gave the facility six months to show that it could be viable. Doonies Farm is now operated by a charity. At a private meeting to ... Full Story

The Edinburgh City Council has reported that the Scottish capital is producing less household rubbish than anywhere else in the country. Over the past year, Edinburgh generated 1.165 tonnes of waste per household, as compared with the average 1.419 tonnes that is Scotland’s national average. Numerous waste minimization initiatives are supported by the City Council of Edinburgh, including awareness-raising efforts on topics such as home composting and recycling unwanted mail. The new figures were published in a report about the City Council’s Waste Prevention Strategy, which is part of the capital city’s response to the Scottish government's Zero Waste consultation. Edinburgh City Council’s environment ... Full Story

Cartridge World is encouraging its customers to create greener communities by joining with its stores throughout the UK to celebrate National Tree Week. Cartridge World is planning to plant a tree for every 25 refilled or remanufactured printer cartridges it sells during National Tree Week - by encouraging its customers to ‘Plant a Tree NOT a Cartridge'.  Its (participating) stores are now inviting nominations for trees from local schools, charities, nursing homes, parks and churches - or anywhere where the new trees will benefit the community. National Tree Week runs from Wednesday, November 26 to Sunday, December 7, 2008.  During this time, ... Full Story

Seeing your business disappear nearly overnight can be the end of the line for many entrepreneurs, but to one in particular it was the beginning of a new and lucrative opportunity. Six years ago Robert Shepherd ran his export company that was involved in supplying second-hand white goods to Africa, and also supplying other products, including HP Sauce. On a business trip to Senegal, he learned that due to a new EU environmental regulation, his firm would no longer be permitted to export fridges to Africa. “We lost a million pounds overnight,” he said. The EU directive was aimed at reducing CFC gas ... Full Story

The new £13 million integrated waste management facility (IWMF) that SITA UK is constructing in West Sleekburn, Northumberland will soon be completed. In 2006, the company entered into a 28-year PFT contract with the Northumberland County Council, and this new facility forms an integral part of the infrastructure to support that contract. The SITA UK general manager in Northumberland, Richard Hinchcliffe, said: "It is vital for SITA UK, as the county council's partner, to invest in state-of-the-art new facilities that can handle the ever-increasing amount of recycled materials collected, and also achieve the ambitious landfill diversion targets that have been set.” He added: ... Full Story

According to an announcement from the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NEASTA), Eigg is set to become the first green power island in Scotland. Eigg islanders have made it to the finals in the NESTA UK Big Green Challenge and have won a £20,000 grant. The purpose of the grant is to help islanders reduce carbon emissions on the islands to zero and also to fund a website to be called ‘Build Your Own Green Island.’ Eigg and nine other competition finalists are vying for a share in the £1 million in prizes. All projects will be judged in the coming ... Full Story