Blog 5- To what extent can individuals (i.e. you) make a difference?

At times there are many of us that feel there is little we can do as an individual to help with sustainable development. Some of have the attitude that if others are not going to do their fair share, such as reducing their CO2 emissions or recycling more, then why should they? But this is not the right attitude and if we carry on with this outlook on life we will slowly destroy the planet between us.

There are so many things we can all do to help. The fact is it does not have to be a massive thing. It can be something as simple as switching of lights or only boiling enough water as is needed to make a few cups of tea. These things are so simple and take no effort and yet they can make such a difference.

Recycling is one way we can all help to save the environment. There is so much emphasis placed on recycling at present that it is hard not to get involved. We can all do our part, making sure we recycle cardboards and papers, glasses, tins and plastics. Once you get into a routine it is very simple. In our house we have a bin for food waste, one for papers and cardboard, another for tins and one for plastics. Mum keeps all this out in the utility so it is out of the way and then once every few days we take it outside to the bins in the shed where it is ready to be collected. By making sure we recycle responsibly like this we can save the planet. Recycled bottles can be made into new bottles and old newspapers can be transformed into new ones. This helps to save money, time and reduce impacts to the environment.

Food waste is also a big problem. In Britain alone it is thought that we needlessly throw away £10 billion worth of food every year. This is a third of everything we buy. We all know that when we go shopping we cram our baskets and trolleys full of food, but the likelihood is we will not be eating all of it. According to recent research carried out by The Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) one in three of the shopping bags, baskets or trolley loads of food we purchase are thrown away. This is quite a scary statistic, especially with the current economic issues; many of us can just simply not afford to be throwing this amount of food away as it is just money down the drain.

Perhaps the most shocking fact of all is that most of the waste goes to landfill where it rots down and produces methane, a greenhouse gas that is 20 times more damaging than CO2 and much of the food wasted is still in date. The sad truth is all of this could be stopped if we just planned, stored and managed our food in a much more sustainable manner.

In my home county, Norfolk, the local councils are supporting the national Love Food Hate Waste campaign. The message is quite simple;

‘ If you want to save money and protect the environment, feed yourself, not the bin! ’

It is fair to say that in my home, with a family of five, there are times when mum will by too much and we end up throwing things away, such as yoghurts, meat and fruit and vegetables. Once again we need to educate people on storing food, looking at the ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates and look at showing people how to use their leftovers in recipes.

Another big issue in my family is the use of cars. With four of us in the family all having cars and driving most days we must be emitting lots of co2. Because of where we live we have very little choice as there is no public transport and no other means of getting to work of the surrounding villages or towns. For some people though this is not the case and using their cars is simply just a bad habit. We need to give these people reasons and incentives not to use their cars and to start using their legs or public transport.

So overall I believe there are lots of things we can do as individuals to help. We just need to be thinking sensibly everyday as we go about our daily routines. Do I really need that extra 5 minutes in the shower? Do I really need to use my car or can I walk or get a lift? Do I really need everything on my shopping list? Make sure I switch off any unnecessary lights, do not leave my T.V and laptop on standby all the time. Just silly things like this that I do not always do could make a huge difference to the current impact I personally am having on our one and only planet.

http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

www.norfolk.gov.uk/recycling

United Nations Debate

I feel I learnt a lot from the United Nations style debate. The country I was allocated was Ghana so I felt sure there would be lots of information available to me. Before I carried out my research I knew very little about Ghana and next to nothing about any sustainable development policies they had in place, so I was quite excited to find out more about this country. As I had assumed there was masses of information about the country online. Much of it was of little use and I found myself reading through huge documents so that I could prize out the information I felt was most vital to use in the debate.

The main issues I found were desertification and drought, lack of sanitation and clean water and deforestation. I was not surprised to learn this though as from the previous knowledge I had of Ghana I had already considered issues like these being possible challenges for the country. I was however shocked by the number of small villages and towns who were still without clean, safe drinking water, something many of us take for granted every day. It is shocking to think that an issue so small, such as providing clean water, can be such a big challenge. But with little funding Ghana continues to struggle with such issues.

I really enjoyed the debate and was interested to see what issues other countries across the world faced. There was a good variety of approaches from all countries involved and I was quite surprised at just how many countries faced similar sustainable development issues to Ghana. America, China and South Korea faced very different issues to my country, so it was interesting to see what problems they had to overcome. Some of Americas Issues were gun crime, drugs and pollution and China was facing such issues as the loss of its Panda and severe pollution problems. After hearing some of the sustainable development problems from some of the MEDC I felt Ghana was still very deserving of the money, perhaps even more so than countries such as China.

Overall I feel my countries plea for the money was very successful. We had a clear introduction that followed through to our most important sustainable development issues at present and what we felt we most needed the money for. I feel there was sufficient information in our handout, just enough to let people know what we were going to be talking about and why we felt we deserved the money. It also gave them a brief insight into Ghana and hopefully grabbed people’s attention so that they would listen to our speech and take our plea seriously.

If we were to carry out the debate again I think I would shorten out introduction a bit and try to fit in more information about our present policies and how they are working for us and push the point that the money would have a huge beneficial impact on my country allowing us to carry on working towards a more sustainable future. I would also like to rehears my speech more so that I do not feel I need the sheets of paper to help me along.

However perhaps the biggest issue overall throughout the debate and the preparation was the lack of team work. I had very little support and was left to prepare the handout and speech by myself. I do not feel my partner pulled their weight; they did very little research and did not read the handout I had produced until the day of the debate. I feel this lack of team work let our country down and put pressure on me to carry out all the work in a short space of time. On this occasion team work was not beneficial and left me feeling disappointed.

On the bright side I do feel I learnt a lot more about Sustainable Development thanks to the debate. It was interesting to see how different countries faced multiple problems surrounding the issue. I liked finding out how they could use the money in their countries to improve various situations and what policies they had in place at present and what they were hoping for in the future.

Northamptonshire joint municipal waste management strategy


Recycling is an increasingly important issue in the UK. It is something we can all do in the hope of making a difference. The county of Northamptonshire, like many others, has introduced a strategy and action plan in the hope to manage the county’s waste in a more sustainable manor. The Northamptonshire joint municipal waste management strategy is a revision of the one introduced and adopted in 2002 and the aim is to ‘produce a joint approach to managing the county’s municipal solid waste in the period from 2007/8 to 2020/21.’

One part of the strategy was the recycling and composting performance. They hope that by 2020/21 50% of household waste will be recycled or composted. The recycling rates vary across the county with numerous borough and district councils having different times of residual refuse and varying recyclable and organic waste. By having restrictions on what people can and cannot recycle the different boroughs and district councils affect the percentage of household waste recycling rates in their area. For example in 2006/07 the Corby borough council had a household recycling rate of 28.0%. Corby’s details of recyclables were paper, plastic bottles and cans. Whereas Daventry district council had a recycling rate of 47.0% and its residents were able to recycle paper, plastic bottles cans and also glass and textiles. Daventry’s recyclable waste was also collected weekly unlike Corby’s which was collected fortnightly. It also appears that the councils that had a cardboard collection had a higher percentage of recycling rates compared to those who had no cardboard collection. So perhaps by making all districts have a cardboard collection we could further still improve the recycling rates of even more of the districts.

Recycling also depends on the individual. It is up to each household to decide how they will manage their recycling. We cannot force people to recycle efficiently just because we believe it is best for the environment. Some large families with lots of children may find it very difficult to watch what goes into the normal waste bin and what gets recycled. It can also be difficult for people to decide what should go where when it comes down to some of the plastics and cans. I know endless people that still do not realise that many juice cartons are not recyclable. Of course there will always be some people that do more recycling than others. For example in East Northamptonshire the annual recycling waste produced per person is 89kg compared with just 66kg in Corby.

However by looking at table 3 in the document we can see there has been a dramatic increase in household recycling rates across the whole of Northamptonshire since 2001/02. These vast improvements are being put down to new waste collection services, including the new garden waste collection and improvement of the overall recycling performance of the Household Waste Recycling Centre.

So far it is plain to see there has been great success across Northamptonshire with recycling rates increasing dramatically, but there is always room for improvement. Perhaps rather than just trying to teach people to recycle correctly, we should be thinking about trying to help them reduce their waste in the first place. This in turn will benefit the environment and help to reduce the costs of waste management. There are lots of people who throw away food still in its packaging because it has gone past its sell by date, but if people didn’t buy as much in the first place they would not be stuck in that position. So it is not just about what we can and can’t recycle but also about being sensible when it comes to buying products. By working together I see no reason why Northamptonshire cannot further improve its Household Waste Recycling Rates.

Bad News Sells Papers!

Ok, so we have all been told not to believe everything we read in the newspapers, but just how accurate are the UK news reports on Climate change? There seems to have been a big increase in the coverage of climate change, this is most likely due to many events that have happened over the past 8 years. Such as the G8 meeting at Gleneagles, the release of Al Gore’s film, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and the release of the Stern Review. From week to week we see various reports on climate change in both the UK tabloids and broadsheets. It can be very difficult to decide which of these reports is fact or fiction, especially if you do not really understand what you are reading about. I believe it also depends on which type of paper you have brought. It would appear to me that broadsheet papers are aimed at an academic market and can often contain lots of scientific facts and research, making them more reliable than tabloid papers.

Tabloid papers on the other hand appear to aim themselves at the working class reader and although they are looking at similar aspects of climate change they tend not to be quite as scientific. They seem to rely on satire and much more accessible language to sell their papers and make them easier to read and understand. This has consequences though, as on many occasions papers such as The Sun and The Mirror have been said to be contributing to ‘climate complacency’ and misrepresenting climate change in some of the UK’s most widely read papers. Some research carried out by the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute found out that about a quarter of coverage in four UK tabloids from 2000 through to 2006 misrepresented ‘wide scientific agreement’ about Green House Gases having a large role in global warming.

News papers say they are just trying to cover a crucial area, but all I can see they are doing is scaremongering and making issues out to be far more devastating than they perhaps are. This in turn is leaving people feeling helpless against the fight of climate change. If you look at the tabloids such as the Daily Mail or the Sun you would be likely to spend longer looking for an article involving climate change than what you would if you looked at a Broadsheet like The Independent or The Guardian.

More often than not at the present the issues surrounding climate change relate back to sustainable development. No matter whether the article is about ecological issues or cultural and social problems involving climate change it always seems to be linked with sustainable development. An article in The Independent recently looked slashing the University of East Anglia’s carbon emissions. This Norwich based University is diving in to an £8million project to help it become the most sustainable campus in the country. They are going to have a biomass power station built on campus which will be powered using locally-sourced woodchips. Hopes are that it will reduce the Universities carbon emissions by up to a third after 2 years, making the University much more sustainable. More and more newspapers are looking at similar issues, where by reducing problems such as CO2 emissions we can start taking more action to help our planet and work towards a more sustainable future.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/power-station-to-slash-university-of-east-anglias-carbon-emissions-969244.html

Where would we be without private cars? For many people the private car is there only mode of transport. There are lots of locations which have poor public transport leaving the car as the only option for many. I can speak from experience on this situation as I live in a small village in North Norfolk where public transport is very limited. With a bus service that only runs through the village two or three times a week I have no other way to travel into work or nearby towns or villages therefore relying on my car.

Up until I was 17 I was dependent upon my parents for transport. Now however I have my own car and with my brother also being 17 and needing to get to work we have a total of 5 cars in the family. This is extremely unsustainable, but I am guessing we are not the only household that is in this situation. My car is petrol and not the most economic. It is too big and generally unsuitable for my needs. Making me just another one of the statistics leading to the rise in C02 emissions.

Of course public transport, walking, cycling or even car sharing are fantastic ideas in theory, but for many people these are not realistic options. For example if I was to car share a lift to work it would mean someone coming 15 miles out of there way just to get me. Therefore it is not about whether the private car is a good choice as for many it is the only choice.

This is why I believe there has not been much progress in reducing C02 emissions from private cars. In 2005 the average car was emitting 162g of C02 per kilometre. The European commission is hoping that by forcing carmakers to increase the fuel efficiency of new cars by 20% by 2012 it can reduce these C02 emissions to 130g/km.

It would appear that we are already taking a step in the right direction. There are new cars appearing on the market with great efficiency. Such as the new Volkswagen Blue Motion, a low C02 emissions car with good efficiency and the Peugeot 308 HDi diesel family car, also highly efficient in low C02 emissions. The Volkswagen Polo 1.4 TDi blue motion 3dr has a 1422cc engine and emits just 99g/km and the Ford Fiesta Econetic 1.6 TDGi DPF 3dr has a 1560cc engine and only emits 98g/km. These two cars are highly efficient in comparison to the Ferrari 612 Scaglietti with 5748cc emitting 470g of C02 per km or the Bentley Arnage 6761cc emitting 465g/km. There are some links below which have further information on some of the cars.

The Volkswagen Blue Motion Polo

These new economic cars could really help to lower our C02 emissions. If we try to educate more people on the situation then maybe we could increase the use of public transport and other more sustainable ways of travel such as car sharing when possible and If we all try to walk or cycle when we can maybe together we can make a difference today ready for our future.

www.carpages.co.uk/C02/
www.volkswagen.co.uk/bluemotion
www.peugeot.co.uk/308