December 2010 – Enviro-Mentalist

A surprise at the country park

We went for a walk in the snow today, partly to get some exercise and to enjoy the fresh air, partly to look for snowy photo opportunities.

I hadn’t planned to go to the country park, I figured that it would probably be fairly frozen and possibly filled with dogs – which if you are not a dog owner does not make for a relaxing stroll. However, after wandering along the old railway track and deciding we didn’t want to go into town we headed left for the country park.

We were a little surprised to see that all of the small streams that run into the country park appeared to be ice free, even at the edges and debated as to the reason for this.

We walked through the woodland on the west of the reservoir for a change heading for the entrance. There were a lot of small birds about, wrens, robins, blue tits etc, but nothing unusual.

We had just about made it to the entrance when I saw a water rail. Although I realise it is probably a sad thing to admit to, I have to admit that I was very excited. You see, I have seen reports of good sightings at Brandon Marsh, I have even been there on the days when the alleged sightings have been made, but I have never seen one. Now, here I was, about a metre away and with a camera fitted with my best low light lens. Such opportunities only come round once in a lifetime! Whilst these are not uncommon birds, they are quite secretive and I would never have expected to see one so close to the busiest part of the country park.

The cold weather had obviously made it decide that it could stop being secretive or it could be dead and that wandering into the more populated parts of the country park would have to be done. In fact it seemed so intent on looking for food that a bright pink small child wandering past noisily didn’t deter it from its wading. It was only the barking of a dog that made it run away but not before I had taken some reasonable pictures.

What a fantastic day – a nice walk in the park, a new birding first and some good photos – perfect. Bring on the waxwings!

Low Carbon Event

Northamptonshire Enterprise recently held a low carbon event over at the University – a morning of short talks by local businesses and organisations aimed at helping to promote low carbon growth in the county. I heard about it through the Daventry Environment Business Network and thought it would be good for my colleague and I to attend.

So, was it useful? Yes and no. As with all such events, speakers are there to make money and to advertise their wares – who can blame them, their time is valuable. However, I do believe that if you are going to speak at one of these events, you should have a worthwhile message to get across even if the audience is not in the market for whatever you are selling.

A lot of it was not new, it is already out there and it was not presented in a new way. However, it is easy to forget that long list of things that you had intended to do and never got round to. I also came across a couple of new ideas that I had not really considered before.

The first couple of speakers were very good and mainly spoke about waste minimisation, cleaner processes etc without too much of a sales pitch. Later talks were more about particular products – biomass and wood burning boilers, LED lights or services – water leak detection. I think I would have liked to have heard more about successes and efficiencies that local companies had achieved though, as this would probably have given me more ideas. However, I do not know where most of the other delegates were from, so maybe it was more applicable to them.

So, apart from completely unrelated things that occurred to me, what else have I thought about following this?

Firstly is an idea that has also featured in an environmental course I am doing – the idea that what is one person’s waste is someone else’s input stream and that recycling should be a last resort. I need to review all of our waste and see how much is avoidable and whether any other waste streams can be sold or given away. This points me towards some very interesting projects at one of our other sites.

Secondly, we really need to be more imaginative in order to change the hearts and minds of those around (and above us).

Thirdly was the saying from one of the speakers – do what you do, but do it better – that is – increase efficiency – this, I think, is the key to being more environmentally sound.

What will I be doing next? Waste audits, awareness campaigns (waste and energy), increased recycling and checking out renewable heat incentives and other available grants.

Continuing the recycling theme from previous posts I note that there were some rather fancy recycling bins inside the building – although, unlike us they do not have any facilities (yet) for crisp packet recycling! Perhaps I should send them a memo!

Recycling – the next step.

One of the things that I think that we have in common with many companies is that we had a big cupboard (or in our case an area on top of the locker room) which we used to store our waste electrical items. The WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) directive states that all waste electrical product made after a certain time should be taken back by the manufacturer – I think that most of our stuff was too old for that and as most of it is bought through our IT department it is probably difficult to find the original producer, much less make them take it back – it would just end up in a cupboard at a different site!

A recent visit to a centre that takes in WEEE waste provided sufficient momentum to get the process started – at least for our site although heaven only knows how much there is to sort out at the rest of the other sites. All in all the process is quite simple. They sent us a list of hazardous waste which we would have to pay an additional charge for as well as a charge for a consignment note. Once the order was raised we had a pallet box on site for a week and then it was collected – as it was not far away we went to watch it being disposed of and had a great tour round the site. I even took some pictures to prove to our IT department that they would not be usable afterwards.

The bits of equipment are bashed to smaller bits by huge whirling chains, then the ferrous metals are pulled out by magnets and other metals separated from the plastics. The separate components are then bagged up and sold. In addition the company operates in conjunction with some retailers to operate a scheme whereby products that are rejected (if, for example they have a scratch) are tested and sold at a cheaper price. Certain products sent from the council recycling centre are also sold on to vetted buyers.

My colleague was a little concerned about the huge amount of stuff that is unthinkingly thrown away, something that worries me constantly. However, in this case, the alternative is that they continue to sit up on top of lockers and under shelves etc (although I believe the WEEE directive states that they should be disposed of within 12 months). At least now the plastic has been separated and will be recycled, as will the metals and the bits that make up the circuit boards. However, it does raise the question as to how do we make more use of our electrical products and stop just throwing them away because a newer, faster model has just been released on the market.