May's Questions & Answers

I run night clubs. is it better for the Environment to have the fridges on timers or constantly running?

Due to the variation in brands models and styles, I would say I dont know which way to swing, plus I am aware cooling and warming of certain beverages will have an affect on their quality.

What I would suggest is that you do a trial at one club. By taking a meter read immediately as you switch off at 4am then again at 5pm after switching them on again at 2pm. And on a simmilar day at 4am leaving them on until taking a read at 5pm. Obviously try to keep factors the same as best as possible. I know most over night equipment use in food establishments is pretty constant.

I would suggest these other money and energy saving tips;

• You could reduce your fridge usage on quiet mid week nites. For example if operations allow operate with only 3 or 4 fridges Sunday - Thursday. Then for the busy weekend increase to full capacity. (This could be a big money saver if operations allow)
  
• Try to keep stock naturally cool. This will help when restocking fridges as the energy to cool them will be decreased.
  Increase the fridge temperature slighty, increasing gradually to see if it has an affect on quality, you might beable to get it as high as 5 degrees celcius and will save alot of energy.
  
• Try not to open and close the fridge door too often. This is very difficult for catering establishments.
  
• Don't overstock your fridges, it's important for air to circulate.
  
• If your fridge has coils, dust them regularly to remove dirt, which stops them working efficiently.

If an event such as an NFL game uses enough power to power 2,000 homes, what would be the carbon footprint?

According to two sources (BBC News & Times Online) they suggest that the electricity required to power 2000 homes is between 2MW and 3 MW, thus for this assumption I will use the mean, 2.5MW. Taking the average length of an NFL game, 3hrs 06 minutes, this would equate to 7.75MW of electricity. According to DEFRA research from 2005, the average emissions per KW/h was 0.43kg. 7.75MW is equal to 7750kW and multiplied by the Co2 per kWh would equal 3333kg or 3.33 tonnes of Co2.

How much litter is collected in the united states per year?

The United States generated approximately 245.7 million tons of waste in 2005, a decrease of 1.6 million tons from 2004. Excluding composting, the amount of waste recycled increased to 58.4 million tons, an increase of 1.2 million tons from 2004. This is a 2% increase in the tons recycled. The tons recovered for composting rose slightly to 20.6 million tons in 2005, up from 20.5 million tons in 2004. The recovery rate for recycling (including composting) was 32.1% in 2005, up from 31.4% in 2004. This equates to 4.54 pounds per person per day. This is a decrease of 1.5% from 2004 to 2005. The recycling rate in 2005 was 1.46 pounds per person per day. Discards sent to a landfill after recycling declined to 2.46 pounds per person per day in 2005.

For information on why we should recycle see our article Why Recycle?, Also for information on reducing household waste see our Guide To Home Composting and There's Nothing Wrong with Mouldy Cheese.

How much of the UK/Britains energy is provided by Fossil Fuels?

In the year 2005 the percentage of energy derived from major sources was as follows;

• Natural Gas 40%
• Oil 33%
• Coal 17%
• Nuclear 8%
• Renewable 2%

If you would like to switch to renewable energy from your supplier, some offer this switch for free, but have not publicised it. For more information visit Carbon Free Electricity.

Does anyone know how to get swansea council to start back up the plastic collection?

I don't understand why a council would stop recycling plastics. Even if they were to only collect the most common plastic PET. The questions you should pose are not only environmental but financial.

The current government landfill tax is £24 per tonne, plus a fee to the landfill owner. In addition to that each tonne of PET generates revenue of up to £270 per tonne. So by failing to collect PET it would cost them about £294 tonne in net revenue plus the landfill owner charge. If the collection network is in place and bins are provided, in a council area the size of Swansea substantial revenue could be generated at little cost.
Incinerating plastic releases chlorine into the atmosphere and leaves heavy metals in the incineration ash. If plastic is put in landfill, additives such as phthalates can leak into the water supply.

Plastics are derived from energy resources such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas, so any material recovered is an energy saving. 90% of the manufacturing process energy needed to produce new plastics is saved by recycling.

PET bottles and other plastics also take hundreds of years to break down, added to that the space they will also be taking up in landfills especially if not flattened would be large. Leading to the need for additional landfills, if constructed by the council or not this cost will ultimately be borne by the local residents through increases in council tax.

Legislation which is particularly relevant to plastics is the 1994 European Union Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste 94/62/EC (the Packaging Directive), which aimed to establish producer responsibility for packaging waste. The directive was implemented in the UK through the Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations 1997 and the Packaging (Essential Requirements) Regulations 1998. The former sets targets for the recovery and recycling of packaging wastes, including plastics packaging waste. These targets are currently being revised by the EU. The UK government has published the national packaging recycling and recovery targets for 2006 and beyond. These require 23% of plastics waste to be recovered by 2006, rising to 25.5% by 2010.

After checking the Swansea Council website, they collect paper and glass, these both generate revenue substaintially less than that of PET, Glass about £20 a tonne most likely will be mixed, and paper, from £60 - £140 a tonne.

They state on their website;

"Plastic is collected at two of our Civic Amenity Sites.

Plastic is a very difficult and expensive item to collect for recycling (collection methods however are already in place ??). There are currently no appropriate plastic recycling companies in the local area, so any plastic collected for recycling needs to be transported long distances across the UK to a processing company. Plastic is very light and would need to be sorted into the different types, squashed and baled to make it cost and environmentally effective to transport it these long distances. (then why collect them at amenity sites at all ??)"

I did a search for a reprocessor of PET bottles, using google maps there is one located a mere 76 miles away, and upto 6 or 7 within 200 miles. Is this really a long distance which would be evironmentally ineffective to transport the bottles too? Using some figures I have it would be feasible to transport them to the supplier and the energy saved would be far greater than that of the road transport.

You need to contact your council to ask for a real reason why they have halted collection of plastics. Many other councils areas in the UK can sucessfully collect PET bottles for recycling without the problems encountered by Swansea Council.

email: recycling@swansea.gov.uk

tel: 01792 635600

fax: 01792 511925

You should then send them a formal letter addressing your concerns environmental and financial. Obviously the more support you can generate from the community. You may wish to contact a local newspaper about the issue and let the community know the affects of not recycling plastics again financial and environmental.



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