Do you agree with this?

People are disposable. Dump him or her and find someone else. Even get an upgrade! Someone better! This applies to employees too. Sack him or her and find someone else younger, quicker and better.

Goods are disposable and require getting rid of even if they still work. Not so long ago, we thought twice about getting something as simple as a microwave but they’re as cheap as £20 now. We can get multiple microwaves if we want to. If the knob breaks, there’s no need to make do. Just get a new one!

Technology is disposable. Why? Because it changes so quickly! The demand is huge and goods are again, cheaper than before. The need to travel and the demand for space means laptops and netbooks have become popular regardless of the fact that laptops wear out quicker than desktops. The battery becomes inefficient. Laptops cannot be built upon. A desktop can last for years, and you can continually build upon it, adding a new graphics card, hard drive etc.  Still; the laptop is in more demand. Just get rid of it and upgrade in a few years time!

Your identity is disposable. You can change it yourself. You can copy/clone it and then dispose of it.

Tissues are disposable. Recycled or not, why not use a handkerchief?

Cars are disposable. Generally people change their cars every 3 years. With the help of the government’s scrappage scheme more people can scrap cars that may work perfectly well. They’ve just got a bit older!

Nappies are disposable. Why bother with towel nappies when you can use and throw?

Did I leave anything out?

Have I painted a skewed picture?

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Heena

Here’s what i got re batteries from Tesco, Sainsburys and Waitrose

I wrote to a few supermarkets asking them what their stance is on the recycling of batteries. I raised it because a new Directive states that accessible recycling points must be set up for distributors to take spent batteries & recycle them! This is great! If I had to go to the local amenity site, I wouldn’t have bothered. If I can recycle them more easily, I will.

This Directive will make it easier, right? Here are the replies I got.

From Tesco (customer.service@tesco.co.uk): -

Dear Heena

I appreciate you contacting us with regards to recycling batteries in store.

I’ve looked into this for you and would like to let you know that the government has just this month enacted the law relating to Battery Recycling. This requires all battery retailers to collect portable batteries from Feb. 2010. Now the law has been clarified, the industry is establishing the framework to achieve this efficiently. Tesco will be partnering with a Compliance Scheme over the next couple of months in order to be ready to comply with the new regulations. We may choose to launch collections later this year, ahead of our mandatory obligations, if the economics of providing the service allows.

The delay from the date we originally indicated is entirely down to the government not being able to confirm the legal framework for battery recycling in the UK within the original timescales. We have a limited number of battery recycling points still in Scotland, around Swansea, and the S’oton area, following a trial we participated in with WRAP.

I trust this information helps and thank you for taking the time to contact us. If I can help further, please just let me know.

If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact us at customer.service@tesco.co.uk.

Kind Regards

Kavitha Shadaksharaiah

Customer Service Manager

Tesco Customer Service

From Waitrose (Customer_Service@waitrose.co.uk): -

Thank you for your e-mail.

We are currently trialling batteries recycling at our Waitrose Cambridge shop, which is an initiative part supported by the local authority. We apologise for any misinformation you have been given and the confusion this has caused.

In case you are not aware, the Batteries Directive is a new piece of legislation which will aim to make businesses that produce and sell batteries responsible for collecting and recycling spent batteries. However, the Batteries Directive is not expected to be transposed into UK law until September 2008. In the meantime, the Government is launching a consultation on implementing the legislation and the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) is carrying out work to determine the most cost effective way of collecting batteries to meet the targets under the forthcoming Directive. As a retailer of batteries, it is therefore likely that we will offer some form of batteries recycling in the future, either directly through our own operations or indirectly through an approved government scheme.

In the interim, the following websites provide more information on batteries recycling.

http://www.wrap.org.uk/local_authorities/batteries/index.html

http://www.recyclenow.com/what_more_can_i_do/can_it_be_recycled/batteries.html

We hope that this information will be of assistance.

Regards,

Katy Kelsey

Waitrose Customer Service.

From Sainsbury’s (customerservice@sainsburys.co.uk): -

Dear Heena

Thank you for your email about battery collection and recycling.

From November 2006, Freepost envelopes were available in Sainsbury’s stores nationwide to allow customers to send off mobile phones and inkjet printer cartridges and batteries, all of which were to be re-used or recycled.

Sainsbury’s Freepost recycling scheme for batteries was suspended on 19th Feb 2008 at the request of the Post Office.

A problem arose where large amounts of industrial batteries were being sent for recycling under the scheme, these are classed as hazardous waste and it is illegal for the Post Office to handle them.

Negotiations are under way to try to find a resolution which would allow us to resume the scheme. In the meantime battery recycling points are currently provided by local authorities. Please contact your local authority for more information.

Thank you for taking the time to contact us as our customers comments help us to improve our products and services.

We look forward to seeing you in store soon.

Kind regards

Denise McIntosh

Sainsbury’s Customer Services

Sainsbury’s suggested that I contact my local authority so I did. Here’s the reply I got: -

From: PublicRealm [mailto:publicrealm@harrow.gov.uk]

Good Morning Miss Modi,

We acknowledge receipt of your email dated 2nd October 2009, regarding disposal of batteries, these items can be recycled at our Civic Amenity Site, Forward Drive, Wealdstone,  Harrow, HA3 8NT.

Regards

Susan

Kind Regards

Access Harrow,

Harrow Clicks at www.harrow.gov.uk

Tel: 020 8424 1770

I then contacted Andrew Baker (andrew.baker@harrow.gov.uk) to ask if there was a way around what Sainsbury’s had said. Here’s his reply: -

If you are asking whether Harrow will help out Sainsburys and the post office, the answer is no. It is a problem for them to resolve with the relevant regulators.

We will continue to provide the facility at the civic amenity site for household batteries.

Regards

Andrew

What do you think of all this?

Is it OK?

Is it good enough?

Were supermarkets given enough time to prepare for this Directive? If so, is this lip service, are they stalling, do they simply not care?

The following information has been provided by Dave McKeon from Harrow Council

Compost is easy to make and provides one of the best quality soil conditioners that you can put on your garden and it’s free! It’s a great way to make use of your garden and kitchen waste such as fruit and vegetable peelings.

What to compost

• Shredded paper and torn card

• Rabbit/guinea pig bedding

• Dead cut flowers

• Soft hedge clippings

• Fallen leaves

• Grass cuttings

• Weeds (avoid persistent weeds and weeds in seed)

• Old plants

• Fruit and Vegetable Waste

Japanese knotweed must not be composted – please contact the council for advice.

Brown Bins in School

Items that can be placed in the brown bin for composting are:-

• Fruit waste

• Vegetable waste

• Tea bags

Definitely no cooked food, meat and bones

For more Information take a look at The London Borough of Harrow Website

Did you know any of this stuff about asbestos ?

A distinction which is never made in waste disposal is between asbestos fibre used as insulation, which can readily give off asbestos dust and presents a serious hazard to those handling it; and asbestos cement sheets and pipes, where the asbestos is intimately bound with cement and can only be liberated into the air by seriously irresponsible handing (such as a powered circular saw, which has long been recognised as bad practice).

Asbestos cement, despite the asbestos it contains, is benign and needs no special precautions to handle it safely – ironing boards 20 years or more old have a piece of asbestos cement as the stand for the iron – these remain in good condition and confirm that the material is stable.

Asbestolux insulation board was manufactured up to 1970, and is more friable than asbestos cement and presents an intermediate level of hazard.

If these distinctions were recognised, it would reduce both the cost of removing asbestos from buildings and industrial plant, and disposal.

Asbestos cement is an inert waste – the history of its use and satisfactory service in underground pipes shows this – it is capable of being sent to landfill without special precautions, including after 2015, or could be considered as a construction waste.

I was going through stuff in my flat recently. I came across a whole load of cards that I’d kept since I was 12 years old. It was so nice to look at them, read the messages and think back to those days!  

I didn’t want to keep them but I didn’t want to let go of them either so I found an alternative. 

I scanned them and uploaded them. It was free for those if you who are like me and think about the possible cost quite quickly! The pictures of the cards are now on line so I can still look at them but I don’t physically have them. 

I reduced my possessions.

I reused the cards by giving the front of it to the Reception teachers at the school I work in. They love things like that because the kids cut them up and make things out of them. There’s no point in giving them the other half as it’s boring in comparison and it’s unlikely that the children will be able to read it.

I recycled the other part of the card. 

I can view the cards and the messages anywhere! 

So where did I upload them? There are 3 websites that I know about and use. They are free, user friendly and they work fast!

These are: - 

flickr - you can use this site to upload photos/images and videos. You need a yahoo email address but that’s about it. The rest is easy. 

slideshare - you can use this to upload documents, spreadsheets or presentations. I used PowerPoint to insert the scanned images of some of my cards and uploaded them.

scribd  - you can use this to upload pdf files, documents, spreadsheets or presentations.

I could have used either of these sites to achieve the same goal.  

How you can share them

If you then want to share any of these uploads, you can send the link to the presentation or image, for example, and it can be viewed without the user creating an account.

Nice huh? A neat way to keep stuff!

Another personal plea.A friend of mine had to move very suddenly and with nowhere to keep many of the things she and her family had acquired; she was forced to throw or give away many things.

She had a whole set of encyclopaedias which I offered to take and keep in order to lend to the school I work in or give away to a less fortunate school. The less fortunate schools that I am aware of, are very far so I cannot get the books to them and the staff cannot collect them, so I am back to square one.

I would like them to go to a school so that they can be used by many rather than a few. I figured that they would be used well and treasured aboard but they are heavy and bulky. Thus I do not know how or where to transport them.

Do you have any ideas? If so please email me or reply to this post.
Thanks
Heena