Lost Innocence

"innocent" (those with the ethical smoothies) have just announced that they sold a 10-20% stake to the Coca Cola company. I think they sold their soul. Keep this in mind on your next shopping tour. Unfortunately, "Tropicana" is not much better, they are owned by Pepsi... But there are still a few alternatives around.

Hanno

Lynsey set up a justgiving site for the carbon offset fund! Check it out!

recycling - where it goes

Just saw some info from the local borough concerning recycling that I found interesting:
About 33% of the waste in the borough is recycled.

- Mixed paper and cardboard: is taken to transfer station at Taplow before being shipped to one of Severnside's mills in the south east. There it is primarily turned into fluting (wavy layer of a piece of cardboard) for the packaging industry.

- Tetra paks: transported to a recycling mill and turned into a range of different products – from plasterboard liner to high-strength paper bags and envelopes.

- Glass: is sorted from cans and plastic at the recovery facility in Rainham. It goes to the aggregate market and is used mainly for road surfacing.

- Steel cans: go to Hartlepool, where they are turned into girders for the construction industry.

- Aluminium: goes to Warrington and is used to make car engine castings.

- Plastic bottles: go to Dagenham, where they are used for the production of various items ranging from recycling boxes to computers or fleece jackets.

And for every ton of aluminium cans or foil collected the non-profit recycling organisation Alupro grows a fruit tree in Malawi. That's 48,000 fruit trees per year donated by recyclers from across the UK.
(source: "Around the Royal Borough 1, 2009).

2008 carbon survey results and prize draw

Hi everybody,

Last December, we launched the environmental attitudes survey focussing on transport. Here's a short summary of the results. 

We received 136 completed questionnaires (78 students, 52 staff), which should be a representative portion of the "Silwood population".

First, we wanted to know, how people travel to work: those who live less than 5 miles away get to work mostly on foot and by bike, those who live 5-30 miles away mostly by car, and only those who have to travel more than 30 miles come mostly by train. This clearly shows that local public transport (busses) is ineffective and we will have to work on this problem.

Since it's difficult to reduce the number of cars in the near future, we asked if car users would be willing to pay into a carbon-offset fund for their journeys: almost 50 % of them would agree to pay.

In the second part of the survey, we wanted to know, how many business-related flights the Silwoodians take per year: in 2008, there were 169 short-distance flights (up to 3 hours), 91 flights for 3-8 hours, and 81 long-distance flights (> 8 hours). Again, we asked if people would be willing to offset their flights: 78% would agree to pay into a carbon-offset fund.

These results show that a carbon-offset fund for Silwwod could work but should probably start on a voluntary basis.

And, finally the prize draw: the lucky winners of a "User's guide to the 21st century" are: Andrea Wallace, Gwendolen Hitchcock, and Paul Rymer. The first prize (bottle of British organic sparkling wine + the user's guide) goes to Meirion Hopkins! 

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to everybody who filled in the questionnaire!

Cheers,

Hanno