Green dilemmas

Posted by Ben

I had a ‘green dilemma’ earlier this year when I wanted to produce some lanyards (you know, the things you hang backstage passes from at festivals and gigs) for an event - especially as they were meant to have a ‘green message’ on them. We sourced a manufacturer in South Fast Asia who could produce them from recycled plastics or recycled cotton but the shipping clearly had a carbon footprint  implications - and we weren’t able to be told what inks were going to be used. I could get European produced lanyards which meant less CO2, they did use unbleached cotton - great - and we could get ‘friendlier inks’ - but not on recycled materials. Hmmmm, one of those dilemmas.  We had another dilemma trying to work out what best to advise festivals on public transport - particularly between coach, bus and train.  In the end we realised that as coach travel to festivals usually involved full coachs (and we noted that the UK Government’s figures are based on occupancy of less than a third)  it seemed that coach travel was better - but it wasnt immediately obvious and these things need constantly reviewing. I have now just spotted an interesting article in the Times magazine (13th Sepetmeber) on milk packaging with the annoucement that the GreenBottle is being launched by Asda which will be a plastic bag in a carton made with 91% recycled waste paper. The bag and the carton can be separated for recycling and it is claimed that the GreenBottle has a carbon footprint 48% lower than plastic milk containers (HDPE bottles). So is the Green Bottle and the similar Calonwen (plastic pouch in  areuseable jug)  sold in Waitrose the future for environmentally friendly milk packaging? Well on first look surely the answer musyt be  ”yes” - it must be mustn’t it ?! Apparently 100,000 tonnes of plastic  HDPE get put in landfill every year - and they are bulky things too - filling up landfill. So is it a no brainer …… isn’t it? Well, the answer is actually ‘”maybe”. HDPE can be efficiently recycled and every empty plastic milk bottle is raw material. Currently most gets to China for recycling - but there is a growing UK recycling business and they need your empties - and HDPE bottles are “high value” and if plastic milk bottles disappear do we then wave goodbye to our home grown recycling plants? And as the Times says, if there were no more plastic jugs we would have to make plastic products from from virgin plastic which has a higher carbon footprint than recyclate. And even the “China” question is an interesting one - a recent study by the Waste & Resources Action Programme looked at the C02 emissions created by shipping recyclables (waste paper and plastic) to China and the preleminary results found that the C02 emissions from shipping ”did NOT outweigh” the benefits of recycling.  Funilly enough, the very next day the Observer magazine had an article titled “is it better to buy canned or frozen food” looking at the life of the humble pea: Undoubtedly the canning process is energy intensive - but cans are easily recyclable and once canned food can be kept almost anywhere. Frozen food - well the peas are blast-frozen in long tunnel - and then have to be kept frozen - and it is estimated that the electricity consumtion from our domestic fridges and freezers creates 62m tonnes of CO2 each year - equivalent to 2% of the total greehouse gas emissions from the European Community. And freezers are full of coolants stuffed with HFCs (hydroflurocarbons) - a gas with warming potential 3,200 times greater than CO2. But are both better than flying in mangetout 6000 miles from Africa in the middle of winter to be kept in open chilled cabinets? Its the same as the question of  ’fresh flowers from Amsterdam’ or ‘fresh flowers from Kenya’? Well Amsterdam is closer but relies on heated glasshouses and polytunnels. Kenya has real sun and the production of flowers is a valuable new industry - but again there are the emissions from air freight and the fact local land is taken out of local food production.  Its never simple is it!

Update: The UK’s plastic bottle recycling capacity is set to increase by 50% after news of a £12 million planet was given the go-ahead. Closed Loop Recycling who say their current Dagenham plant  takes milk and clear plastic bottles and turn them into plastic suitable for packaging food have approval for a new plant in Flintshire which will be able to recycle 50,000 tonnes of water, milk and other bottles that might of gone to landfill or been exported - and the Deeside plant will be able to turn these back into new plastic bottles  (Guardian, 15th September 2008).