Recycling Rates In UK "Stagnating"

Household recycling in the UK has been "stagnating", according to an industry expert commenting on the latest official statistics from Defra. The figures showed that households are sending more waste to landfills for incineration; this indicates that the UK may not be able to reach the EU target of recycling half its waste by 2020.

According to the data released at the beginning of February, household waste recycling in England in the 12 months leading to June last year stood at 43.3%, a very slight increase from just above 43% in March 2012. The quarterly recycling rate, which can be seasonal in nature, reached 46.2% between April and June 2013 – the highest rate reached for this particular three-month period.

At the same time, waste managed by local authorities that went to landfills or incinerators went up 1.3% between April and June 2013 compared with the previous year. This figure is still 32% below the level for the same period in 2006. Household waste arisings stayed at a stable 22.7 million tonnes in the year to June 2013; previous years had seen this figure drop steadily by 10% in 2008, 2009 and 2010..

Rob Crumbie, communications director at recycling rewards company Greenredeem, said that although the figures are going up, the rate of change is minimal. A recent survey by Greenredeem showed that 64% of Britons feel the current schemes aimed at incentivising consumers to recycle are not working as they should. The government should work together with local authorities and environmental campaigners to help the UK reach the targets set by the EU, he said.

For more information on mobile phone recycling, visit the FoneHub website.

Recycling Firm To Build £25M Glass Recycling Plant

Recycling company Viridor has announced plans to build a £25-million plant in Scotland, where it will be able to process 200,000 tonnes of glass a year – the equivalent of 150% of all glass packaging that is currently collected in Scotland. The company hopes that the plant will reduce the necessity for importing glass in industries such as whisky production. Viridor has said the facility, which will be located at Newhouse in Lanarkshire, will be the most advanced in Europe.

The company already has a £100-million recycling network in Scotland, with this latest investment working towards bringing a £500-million nationwide strategy to implement a zero waste policy into practice. Commenting on the news, Viridor's chief executive Ian McAulay said the new plant will support the sustainability of the whisky production industry and associated areas. The director of operational and technical affairs for the Scotch Whisky Association, Julie Hesketh-Laird, said that whisky distillers in Scotland are committed to achieving a 40% proportion of packaging coming from recycled glass by 2020. Since glass is the main form of packaging for Scotch whisky, the industry welcomes any innovation in the supply chain that will improve the rate of glass recycling.

According to statistical data, approximately 1.65 million tonnes of glass containers were recycled in 2008, while the overall production of glass bottles and jars in the country stood at four million tonnes for the same year. These contained an average of 30% recycled glass.

For more information on the mobile phone recycling services that FoneHub offer visit our website or call us on 0207 377 66 44

The Best Smartphones To Be Released This Year

Smartphone technology is evolving rapidly and the new year is set to bring a number of devices with better screens, smoother operating systems and individual features to make the new devices even more appealing to consumers.

First on the list is the HTC M8, which is expected to come on the market in the spring, featuring a five-inch 1080p HD screen, a Snapdragon 800 processor, a 2GB RAM, and a 2.1-megapixel front camera. The device will run on Android's Kitkat.

Samsung Galaxy S5 is another new smartphone we can anticipate this year, perhaps around April. No specific features have been yet unveiled, but sector experts bet on a 64-bit operating system, to match the 64-bit CPU. There have been rumours that the Galaxy S5 will have a 16MP camera and a 4K screen, which will make it unique among smartphones.

Nokia Lumia 1820 is the next entry on the list, set to keep its place as the smartphone with the best camera with its Lytro-style device that allows you to refocus a picture after it has been taken.

The iPhone 6, whose release is only rumoured for now, is expected to introduce some notable changes, such as a curved screen, since Apple has declared interest in the technology, or maybe gesture technology, after Apple bought the company that makes the Microsoft Kinect gesture control system. The new iPhone could be on the market in September.

Blackberry, which has been struggling recently, is betting on two new models, the Q30 and the Z50, with the latter rumoured to sport a 5.2-inch screen with 1080p HD resolution, plus a quad-core processor.

Report Claims UK Recycles More Plastics Than Official Figures Suggest

A report that was commissioned by the British Plastics Federation's (BPF) Recycling Group has suggested that the amount of plastics packaging that government figures claim enters the market every year are majorly overstated by 300,000 to 400,000 tonnes.

Compiled in response to a request for corroboration of recycling rates that came from the Advisory Committee on Packaging, the report analysed the National packaging Waste Database and came up with a total figure of 2.5 million for the amount of plastics packaging placed on the market at present. Although the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) estimates a growth rate of 2.5% for this kind of packaging, the BPF Recycling Group says this is an overstatement, with NPWD data showing almost no growth in the period 2006 to 2012, after which a decline followed.

What this means is that reports about plastics recycling in the UK that have been sent to the European Union have been understated and have led to setting business targets based on mistaken information, which could have increased costs. What's more, with the European Union planning to increase the recycling targets for member states in the next couple of years, UK businesses could be put in a disadvantaged position compared to other member states. The chairman of BPF's Recycling Group commented that giving businesses an accurate baseline, according to which recycling targets are calculated, is essential in order to avoid distorted compliance costs for enterprises.

Fonehub can help you do your part for the environment through mobile phone recycling.

UK Company Builds First Plant For Mechanical Recycling Of LCD Displays

In December, Electrical Waste Recycling Group Ltd. (EWRG) said that it had obtained the approval of the Environment Agency to build the first recycling plant in the world that will process flat screen displays mechanically. The 100,000 square foot facility will be located in Huddersfield, Recycling Today reported.

Mechanical processing will significantly reduce the time needed for the reassembling of a flat screen; currently, manual disassembling takes around 15 minutes per display, while the mechanical process will bring this down to six seconds. This, according to Electrical Waste Recycling Group, is quicker and safer than other processes.

Commenting on the news, the company's managing director, Keith Patterson, said that extensive trials were conducted to ascertain the advantages of the new processing technology, and expressed hopes that the amount of screens to be processed at the plant will justify the investment. This is very likely, taken that the number of LCD screens thrown away every month stands at around one million. EWRG is currently awaiting a patent, and there are plans to replicate the recycling process at other locations in the country as well.

Flat TV screens and computer monitors contain mercury, a hazardous material, in the fluorescent lights. If the monitors are disposed of in landfills, it could leak into the soil and underground water. Industry experts advise that electronic equipment companies should start making more durable products with fewer toxic components. Unfortunately, for the time being, things are going in the opposite direction, which calls for the design of new recycling technologies.

For more information on the mobile phone recycling services that FoneHub provide, please visit our website.

Britain Approves PV Recycling EU Regulation

Late last year, the UK approved the European Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, and it came into force ahead of schedule on 1 January this year, a move that was praised by European recycling organisation PV Cycle.

Under the new directive, all photovoltaic modules that have reached the end of their lifespan, whether due to damage or because of warranty expiration must be disposed of appropriately. PV Cycle helps with the process, since standard regulation about the disposal of electric and electronic waste generally concerns household appliances and other consumer products, while PV modules are mostly used by businesses. These modules have a longer lifespan than consumer products, says David Burton, country manager of producer compliance scheme for PV Cycle UK.

The UK Department of Business, Skills and Innovation has been very helpful in the matter, consulting the photo-voltaic panel production sector in order to make sure that waste disposal is conducted appropriately and without harming the industry's long-term sustainability plans.

Under the new directive, all PV panel importers to the UK will need to register under a product compliance scheme, which requires them to take full financial responsibility for disposing of the expired panels they have sold on the market, as well as to report all relevant information, including locations of the panels sold and their numbers.

The WEEE Directive was amended to include PV modules in August 2012, and the industry had an 18-month period to become compliant with it before the national governments of the EU's 27 members incorporated the directive into their legislation.

For more information on the mobile phone recycling services that FoneHub offer then visit our website.

37,000 Brits Take Part In Tesco/Coca-Cola Recycling Campaign

An online campaign carried out by Tesco and Coca-Cola has drawn pledges from 37,000 people to recycle and be rewarded either with a 50p discount voucher for a number of Coca-Cola products or 25 bonus Tesco Clubcard points.

The campaign, called Together We're Making Recycling Count, was launched with its own website in June 2013. The site featured information about how to recycle along with a video from Coca-Cola demonstrating the company's recycling procedure. The campaign reached a large audience, with more than seven million consumers viewing the recycling messages on Tesco's main website, Tesco.com.

Among the people taking part in the campaign, around two-thirds of those who previously admitted they never recycle revealed in follow-up e-mails that they now always or almost always recycle. Interviews were made with those pledging to recycle, revealing an improved understanding of the wider environmental implications of recycling and the positive effect of the campaign.

Both Coca-Cola and Tesco said they were very happy with the results of their initiative and the chance it gave them to share recycling tips and other information with their customers. According to Nick Canney, sales and marketing vice-president of Coca-Cola, such initiatives have proved to be a powerful tool in addressing at-home recycling issues and encouraging people to do it. It has also shown to be invaluable in raising awareness among customers about the necessity of recycling, he added.

According to information from the British Plastics Federation, packaging accounts for the largest part of Britons' plastic consumption, with a 38% share of the total.

For more information on Mobile Phone Recycling please visit the FoneHub Website.