Measure your recycling with the new Recyclometer

Measuring the impact of recycling is always a challenge, especially when trying to communicate the wider benefits of what is, lets face it, a pretty mundane household task.

However, during the summer, along with other bloggers, I was brought in to help road-test Coca-Colas Recyclometer, a brand new stats-crunching tool, which has been developed in association with WRAP.   After a few tweaks, the Recyclometer has now been officially launched, on the companys website and at Recycle Now. providing consumers with a means of calculating the wider impact of their recycling activity, by simply translating the action into energy saving data.

Saving energy and fuel resources are one of the key beneficial outcomes of recycling and the Recyclometer tool demonstrates the savings across a wide range of materials that youd find on your cupboard shelves.

For example, simply totting up the contents of my recycling actions today reveals that Ive saved enough energy to power a lightbulb for 12 hours.   Widen the impact of this nationally and the figures highlight that enough energy would be saved to power over 84,000 lightbulbs for a whole year.   Thats quite an incredible figure from just a few juice bottles, a can, our local newspaper, a breakfast cereal box and a loo roll tube.  It also demonstrates how wasteful it would be if I just bunged these into landfill.

To work out your own stats, just click on the image above.  Alternatively visit  the companys own website, where there are also links to the organisations waste-reduction actions, including lightweighting innovations, implementation of recycled materials and, more recently, their usage of plant-based fibres in plastic packaging.

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Washing with an Ecoegg

Having had a week of half-term fun, its time to channel the domestic goddess spirit and get back to the chores.   Can you sense my lack of enthusiasm?  Well I suppose a girl cant be off enjoying herself all of the time and before the excitement of Halloween kicks off, todays task is catching up with a huge pile of laundry!

Anyone whos followed this blog for a while will know just how much I adore my relationship with the washing machine.  In fact this old post about washing with balls was as true then as it is now, except for the tiny detail about the balls.

Dont get me wrong.  The Eco Balls have done a fabulous job, despite one getting lost and another getting warped, leaving me with just one single ball to tackle the washday woes! Theyve also saved us loads of money that we would have otherwise spent on detergent.  However, with only one fully functioning ball after three years of usage, I was recently left wondering how effective it all was.

Then just as I was pondering a temporary return to washing powder until I sorted out an alternative solution, out of the blue, in the guise of a fairy godmother, I received an invitation to test out something new.

Of course if it had been the real Fairy Godmother, my pumpkin would have turned into a carriage, Id have been adorned with glimmering satin and glittering diamonds and despatched to the nearest high society ball, with the local mice dressed as handsome footmen.

Instead, I was offered...... an Ecoegg!

I suppose that despite my dreams of running away from the domestic drudgery of the laundry, and having already won over my Prince Charming 19 years ago, this fairy godmother knew what I really needed and so the trial commenced.

Three months on, having tackled piles upon piles of laundry, I am pleased to say that the Ecoegg is still going strong. I havent lost it!  Its still in one piece and alls good. 

I cant tell whether the Ecoegg is more effective than the Eco balls in terms of washing results.  They are both comparable, absolutely perfect for getting your average laundry pile as fresh as a daisy but in need of extra help when it comes to more grubby marks that the children sometimes get on their clothes.

However, having experienced the two products, I admit that I like the Ecoegg more.  I love the fact that its a single item and from a design perspective, well it feels less clumsy.

If youve never considered the switch from laundry detergent before, Id seriously recommend giving it a go.  I cant remember how much we used to spend on monthly top-ups now but Id hazard a guess that since 2008 weve saved somewhere in the region of £350.

Admittedly the lack of "fresh laundry" scent takes getting used to at first, but it doesnt take long to realise that its actually one of the advantages and soon becomes more preferable to the chemically induced detergent scent that previously filled our drawers.

Well I guess all this talk of laundry is not actually going to get it done.  Ive already admitted how I let the side down for womanhood when it comes to multi-tasking.  So for now Ill bid you Adieu and go and salute the washing pile and then its time to hunt down a pumpkin....Fairy Godmother, if you are looking in, I still fancy the idea of turning it into a carriage once Halloween is over and perhaps popping to the ball too.  

Whats that..."In my dreams"?

Oh well - Washer Woman it is then - see you next week!

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More information about the Ecoegg and how it works can be found at www.ecoeggonline.com.  As a comparison, you can also find out more about the Eco Balls here.

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Zero Waste standards tours a party for good measure

The last few days of the international Zero Waste convention in San Francisco and the East Bay area have been very hectic with much debate and learning taking place.  It has become evident that this part of the world is very justified in having such high standards in its expectations regarding the future of zero waste initiatives.

Standards

On Thursday, there was much heated debate in Oakland City Hall, led by Gary Liss, on defining a Zero Waste standard for business certification.

It was clear that Zero Waste certification is already being carried out on some major international businesses and is currently being managed by a range of organisations, including UL, NSF-ISR and the US Zero Waste Business Council who, in consultation with the Zero Waste International Alliance, are preparing an American standard for Zero Waste for submission to ANSI.   Even though the current programmes are working towards high standards for Zero Waste (without landfilling or burning), it was debated that they arent yet high enough and there could be a range of loop holes.  Also there needs to be clarity of a standard for businesses that have very minimal wasted resources.


Pigs & Peacocks

Following the days debate at City Hall, it was back on tour again, this time for dinner at Marin Sanitary Service, a family-run waste management company that serves Marin County in the East Bay area.

Ive now been to a wide range of MRFs but Ive this is the first time Ive ever visited a site that keeps pigs or even peacocks, not to mention the chickens, which feature as a popular and unexpected item on their educational tours.

The philosophy of Zero Waste is at the heart of the companys activities and I love this poster where our host Devi Peri outlined how once youve harvested the low-hanging fruit, it is possible to incorporate other services to a point where the only things left are Extended Producer Responsibility, including redesign.

Mattress Recycling


On Friday we visited a mattress recycling company in Oakland, which is now processing 150,000 mattresses per year with only 10% of its waste ending up in landfill.

Mattress Recycling is a great example of how recycling is progressing but if manufacturers designed products for better deconstruction at end-of-life, waste reduction achievements could be even better. 

The companys landfill stats may appear to be minimum but there still needs to be a push for products such as the one below, which cannot be disassembled, to be redesigned for disassembly.

However, for the majority that can be separated, the company is able to deconstruct the mattresses into good quality components, including metal that is sold onto metal dealers, wood that can be used in mulch, compost or energy production and cotton & fabrics that are sent onto the textile markets.

Dual Stream Bins & Buy Back

Having stayed in Berkeley this week, it was interesting to have a peek behind the scenes at Berkeley Recycling, the citys waste management company that serves residents and businesses locally.

One of the key points I drew out of the tour was the success of the companys dual stream collection, i.e. collecting recycling in split wheelie bins.

This allows for better quality of materials as plastic & metal packaging can be kept separate from paper and cardboard, which means easier and more efficient sorting at the MRF and maintains their ability to create one of the cleanest streams of recycling the the Bay Area.  Currently Berkeley Recyclings MRF maintains just a residual rate of only 2-3% and thanks to the quality of its recycling streams doesnt experience any rejections.

It was also interesting to see how there are different service levels of participation to engage the public.  Residents have a range of options for recycling, which include the kerbside service through the dual-streamed bins and a front-end recycling centre at the MRF.

The bins shown above cater for all the kerbside materials plus hard plastic, but as you can see below there is also a Buy Back service, where visitors can get paid separately for bottles, cans, paper and scrap aluminium, incentivising those who want to earn some extra dollars either for themselves or a community initiative.

I was intrigued to know the amount of materials collected through these different service levels.  The figures are as follows:

Bring back: 100 tons per month
Buy back: 250 tons per month
Kerbside: 650 tons per month

It was also interesting to note that Buy back services are an integral part of recycling services, not just in Berkeley but across California.



Innovations in Reuse

Throughout the week I have seen many examples of how Reuse has been an important feature in this areas waste hierarchy but it was the visit to El Cerritos recycling centre which really demonstrated how this can be made not only visible to the public but also integral to a local culture.

The El Cerrito site underwent a major redesign in 2012 and has fast become one of most attractive recycling sites I have ever seen.  Its popularity amongst local residents is such that it restricts visitors to two hours onsite.  Two hours?  Most people I know are in and out of a recycling centre in just 20 minutes.

The attraction of El Cerrito is that it is not just a recycling centre, it is also an exchange centre, featuring an onsite book store, where you can pick up items of interest for free and those who are registered can also pick out various items from some of their deposit bins.  As well as managing a range of recycling streams on site, it also supports local community reuse organisations such as Urban Ore and the Goodwill charity.

For anyone interested in modelling reuse and community exchange facilities into their own recycling centres, it really is worth looking closely at the El Cerrito model and more information can be found on its website.


Party Time at Urban Ore

On the topic of reuse, one of the most amazing centres in this part of California... or indeed anywhere else that Ive had the pleasure to visit is Urban Ore, which is a huge reuse and building materials exchange operation in Berkeley.  It is also an active contributor to the Zero Waste programme and its website is really worth a visit for anyone who want to push activities further up the waste hierarchy in their own localities.

Urban Ore was also the venue for the end-of-week party and with the opportunity to browse around the store, I couldnt think of a better place to be.

This place is cool with a capital C!

Its not even afraid of reselling electricals and electronics.  The onus is simply on any interested purchasers to test them out onsite first!

But when I say that Urban Ore is huge!  It really is!  Even this photo of party central doesnt do it justice.  And in fact, the outside is even larger than the inside.

The Urban Ore party really was a fitting venue for the end-of-week celebrations.  It has been a great study tour of some of the best practice Zero Waste practices that are taking place in the world right now and if there are any local innovators, great thinkers and aspirational leaders in the UKs waste sector who want to be connected up to what Ive seen this week, I would be delighted to make those connections.

I know waste management and working towards Zero Waste to conserve resources isnt easy, but it starts with rethinking the impossible and realising its potential towards a new reality.  We should never be scared of these levels of innovation but should be excited about the technological, economic and social opportunities that they bring.

What Ive witnessed this week have been communities that care about making the impossible actually possible, forging ahead with their vision and working together with City officials, service providers and strategists who are not daunted by moving away from old models of thinking.

This is something that is worth celebrating big time!  So thank you San Francisco, leading the way with your 80% diversion rate, and to all the organisations from the Bay Area that shared their experiences this week.  I feel very privileged to have been here with many of my International friends.

Folk, I think its now time to watch this space.  Meanwhile, heres another photo from the coolest party Ive been to in a long time... and most probably ever!

California rocks!  And so does its path to Zero Waste!

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