The agreement to send the Clemenceau, once the flagship of the French navy, to Able UK, ends an embarrassing five-year saga that had the toxic vessel being passed around the world looking for a final resting place.  The deal to scrap the 32,700-tonne Clemenceau is said to be the biggest of its kind in Europe.

The French Defence Ministry awarded the contract to Able UK after the Environment Agency issued a waste management licence that allows the Hartlepool firm to dismantle ships and oil rigs at its TERRC facility at Graythorp.  The company is due to begin recycling work on the 780ft-long (238 metre) vessel later this year. (more…)

The changes have been made through the Waste Management (Landfill Levy) Order 2008, which amends section 73(3) of the Waste Management Acts 1996 to 2008.

The levy builds on a €20 a tonne tax which is already in place in Ireland for waste which is sent to an unauthorised landfill facility. This means that persons responsible for the illegal deposition must pay the levy and remove the waste, as required by Section 60 Policy Direction, and remediate the land, apart from any other penalties that may be imposed through the courts.

Mercedes are determined to make their model range run on alternative fuels in order to improve costs, become more eco-friendly and because the oil supply will eventually run out.

Mercedes are set to invest around £7billion before 2014, having already invested £2million on their new long-term Sustainable Mobility plan.  This money will be spent on making current Mercedes engines even cleaner and more fuel-efficient while increasing the amount of hybrids, emission-free electric cars and clean-fuel gas engines and the further development of battery and hydrogen-powered vehicles.

After recycling the metal, low level nuclear waste will be taken to the nearby storage facility at Drigg.  Studsvik say the operation will be completely safe and monitored on a regular basis.

A spokesman for Studsvik, which operates similar facilities in Sweden, said it would serve the UK’s nuclear industry, whose sites are now being decommissioned under the control of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA).

He said: “To meet the government’s decommissioning targets, new facilities need to be constructed to provide alternative methods for cleaning the materials that will be removed during the decommissioning process. (more…)

The project is being run in conjunction with an Australian owned recycling company called Closed Loop Recycling.  London Remade are also part of this great project, which is partly funded from WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action Programme).  The 6-month trial involves around 1,500 tonnes of recycled PET (rPET) plastics being incorporated into salad bowls, beverage bottles, recipe pots and trays, with the recycled content ranging between 30% to 50%.

The trial packaging was launched in Marks & Spencer’s stores across the UK earlier this month and carries on-pack declarations and messages such as “packaging made from 50% recycled material, 100% recyclable”, as well as the closed loop recycling logo. Throughout the duration of the trial customer reaction will be assessed through a series of in-store survey activities. (more…)

The plan includes building an ‘Energy from Waste’ unit - a combined heat and power plant to generate electricity for sale to the national grid and heat in the form of steam for sale locally.

A report prepared for the meeting said: “The new directive requires that the council significantly reduces the amount of biodegradable waste that it landfills, which means that the council must find an alternative solution.”

The report said the plant would take three years to build and would operate for 25 years, using waste that remained after recycling to create energy for sale. (more…)

The conference was opened by Indonesian Environment Minister Rahmat Witoelar, who said that his country was particularly exposed to the illegal dumping of toxic waste.

“Due to its archipelagic nature, with the second longest coastal line in the world, Indonesia is vulnerable to illegal traffic of transboundary hazardous waste,” he said.

The meeting is organised under the UN Basel Convention, an international treaty regulating the global trade in hazardous waste with the aim of minimising its generation and movement across borders. (more…)

European Union lawmakers approved new targets today for the recycling and re-using of waste, and measures to reduce the amount of waste that is incinerated or dumped in landfill sites.

The European Parliament voted for the target of re-using or recycling 50% of the main types of EU household waste by 2020, and 70% of all building and demolition waste.

Europe generates a staggering 1.8 billion tonnes of waste each and every year.  This amounts to around 3.5 tonnes of waste per person, with less than a third of this waste being recycled.  About one seventh of Europe’s rubbish is municipal waste, with the rest coming from shops, restaurants, industry and agriculture.  In some member states up to 90% of its waste is sent to landfill sites. (more…)

South Norfolk Council was one of the first in the UK to fit the bins with such microchips, but has abandoned the £250,000 scheme after the council beleived the technology used to weigh the bins was unreliable.

Councillor David Bills said: “The data that was coming out was not foolproof and you must appreciate that if one is charging or reimbursing people based on data, that data has got to be correct 100% each day of the year.

“If it’s not, people are going to start querying it and it’s going to lead to all sorts of problems.” (more…)

Mr. Horbach, 45, was most recently Group CEO of Suzlon Energy, a leading global Euro 2.5bn wind energy business.  Previously he had a 19-year career as a manager and CEO of a diverse group of General Electric’s industrial and consumer businesses throughout Europe.

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