We all know we should try and lead a green life style and make an effort with preserving the environment but there are certain things you just can’t seem to avoid…
There are some bits of rubbish that it is almost impossible to avoid generating; biscuit packets being a prime example in virtually any home or office. Increasingly popular, are coffee machines that use little pods of coffee which when spent will normally be put into the general waste bin. But isn’t there a better way of handling the waste arising from these modern luxuries?
So you’re on holiday, a break from day to day life. No dishes, no cleaning and… no recycling? Woah, did I just say that?! When we’re on holiday it’s a chance to forget about the mundane day to day tasks, but what about recycling? We don’t stop producing waste just because we’ve gone on holiday but if you’re staying in a self catering place should it be your responsibility to learn how the local recycling scheme works or deliver it yourself to the nearest set of recycling banks?
This week (25th July – 3rd August) is Love Parks Week. So why not make a special effort to leave your desk and visit your nearest park during your lunch break?
Rockpooling, surfing, building sand castles – all things you might find yourself doing on the beach. But what about finding Lego? Although it happened 17 years ago, there’s been a popular story this week about pieces of Lego washing ashore on beaches in Cornwall. On the 13th February 1997, the Tokio Express container ship was hit by a wave, tilting the ship and resulting in the loss of 62 containers about 20 miles from Lands End. The ship had been bound for New York. Shortly afterwards, various pieces of lego began to wash up on the beaches of Cornwall, and they’re still being found today.
Bees have been big news recently owing to their becoming increasingly endangered. Don’t worry – this isn’t yet another piece about why we should protect bees, rather I thought it would be nice to understand a little bit more about how they work. After watching Hive Alive on BBC 2 last night, I was fascinated by just how intelligent bees are. So how do they navigate? Why do they skip some flowers over others? How do they communicate with one another about where the best flowers can be found?
Hello again everybody, sorry we’ve been a little quiet lately; we have been busy organizing our annual zoo event, which was held last Friday. The event celebrated our clients’ environmental achievements and donations were made to our chosen charities. The highlight of the day was a visit by Max the eagle owl who was extremely majestic and with the exception of a minor “faux pas” (he had an accident all over the floor!) the event went smoothly.
With tomorrow being World Environment Day, what better topic for today’s blog entry? This year the day is being hosted globally by Barbados. Currently Barbados is leading the way in solar energy and as one of the smallest, independent states in the world they face a vast array of challenges: most notably these are rising sea levels and their vulnerability to natural disasters. In order to overcome these challenges they are working towards a green economy.
For a while now Friends of the Earth have been campaigning to save our bees. Bumble bees aren’t doing so well at the moment and they’ve called on the Government to draw up a Bee Action Plan.
So this week has been green office week (it seems like there’s a week for everything at the moment!). On Tuesday we went along to a client’s site to help their Green Team to promote their recycling scheme. Whilst we were there I had quite a few questions about how best to communicate your efforts to staff and how to encourage them to work alongside you. So in the spirit of green office week I thought I would share with you our top tips for a successful recycling scheme.
There always seems to be some kind of week going on. This week it’s pet week, compost awareness week and hedgehog awareness week. With our green thought already being about compost I thought it might be nice to mention some hedgehogs in this week’s blog. Find out what you can do to help out hedgehogs near you and test your knowledge with our quick hedgehog quiz.
About 6 times a year we hold breakfast events for our clients to come and benefit from Carbon Smart, our sister company’s, environmental knowledge and expertise. The most recent event was around how to market green credentials. After all, it’s all very well having an environmental award or accreditation, but how can you use that to win business and shape the image of your organisation?
...is another man’s treasure. There are all sorts of projects up and down the country ranging from our partner FareShare who redistribute unwanted food to those in need to a little cafe in Leeds who specialise in out of date produce. Bertie was really pleased to see this video and thought it was a wonderful way of managing our waste and resources.
This week Bertie was rather worn out from all his trips so we decided, rather than sending him down to Brighton we’d tell him all about it instead.
Our waste and resource management initiatives would be no use if we didn’t have clients who can benefit from them. To find out more about the benefits of our actions, Bertie took a trip to the National Theatre to find out what they do and how our work makes it possible.
Bertie was really excited this week because he finally got to go and see the reason for our 2degrees awards entry, our new MRF and Shredding Facility in Purfleet, Essex. He was ready to set off bright and early in his travelling bag.
On Wednesday Bertie decided to take a trip to Biogen to see what happens to the food waste we collect from our customers, after it leaves the Paper Round yard. Biogen run anaerobic digestion(AD) facilities, which is recognised by the government and Friend’s of the Earth as the best environmental option for treating food waste. So how does AD work?
Today I’d like to tell you about the 2degrees awards. 2degrees are a community for sustainable businesses who want to work together to increase sustainability. Anyone can become a member, all you need to do is sign up and it’s completely free. Over the next few weeks we’ll be campaigning across social media for votes with the help of Bertie, the BPR Bear.
