Be Eco Friendly

There are undoubtedly 101 ways UK small businesses can save energy and lower their costs. But just how significant would it be if SMEs increased their energy efficiency?

According to the Carbon Trust, UK SMEs account for 45 per cent of business energyusage and, says Harry Morrison, general manager of the Carbon Trust Standard Company, UK SMEs have the greatest potential for on energy: 20 per cent compared to eight per cent for larger organisations.

“That means that when added together, the potential for savings by SMEs could be up to £1.1 billion,” says Morrison.

The truth about UK small business energy consumption

The bad news, however, is that the big majority of UK small businesses are missing out on savings because they are not aware of energy efficiency solutions that can save them money and lower their environmental impact. Perhaps because engineering companies devising energy saving solutions for the workplace are not good at communicating with small business.

Read more: http://www.greenwisebusiness.co.uk/news/101-ways-uk-small-businesses-can-save-energy-and-lower-their-costs-2841.aspx

Children in Bolton have made calls for an arson-struck pub to be specially-transformed into a new recycling centre.

The empty pub in question, The Prince Rupert, in Morris Green, a suburb of the Lancashire town, was targeted on the 1^st of May. Around the local area, it is widely believed that someone first broke into the building before setting it alight.

Year five pupils of the nearby Lever Edge Primary Academy have made calls for urgent improvements to be made to the site and have already submitted a petition with 300 signatures and presented it to Bolton City Council.

Read more: http://www.recycle.co.uk/news/2811000.html

Local politics is often overlooked by campaigning groups but many of the decisions which have direct impact on your local environment are taken by local councils. Since the coalition government came to power, the relationship between local and central government has been changing: decentralising government is one of the current major themes – transferring power from central government to local authorities and the communities and individuals they represent. Whatever your political view, the truth is that now is possible a unique time to be able to shape your local area.

The Department of Communities and Local Government is presently undertaking a review of statutory duties that central government currently places on local authorities. They have identified 1,294 “duties” and admit that they are aware that this is not a complete list. (For those who are interested, “duties” are different from “powers” in that a duty which is something the Council must do and a power is something they may do i.e. discretionary).

You have the opportunity to comment on the duties and to challenge government on those which you feel are burdensome or no longer needed but you need to act quickly as the consultation is only open to April 25th. To make your views known, visit the local government website.

Source: Harold Forbes - http://www.hksuperh.com/Newsletter

Russia will become the world’s largest nuclear dump after a lucrative agreement is signed with the US.

The deal, which was withdrawn by George W Bush during his presidency, was resubmitted by President Barack Obama and gives the green light for nuclear waste from all US power stations to be stored in Russia. US power stations account for 80 per cent of the world’s radioactive waste.

Amidst Siberia’s beautiful forested landscape is the world’s biggest closed nuclear city, Zheleznogorsk. With the water sources near the site already contaminated, construction is underway to extend the plant to store the majority of the planet’s nuclear waste.

However, not far from the closed nuclear site is a village of rural families that have been tending the land for generations. More than two thousands miles away, activists are campaigning for the government to halt the proposed scheme. According to environmental opponents, the move will turn Russia into a giant radioactive garbage bin.

Greenpeace’s Vladimir Chubrov said that billions of dollars are going to bureaucrats, but local people are suffering from the deal. He added that the Russian people would be at increased risks of nuclear accidents.

According to local ecologist Nikolai Zubov, the large river close to the site is one of Russia’s largest. Mr Zubov said it does not make sense for Russia to take waste after another country has already gotten the energy.

The latest numbers from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) show that in the age of austerity Britons are throwing away less food.

Figures from the most recent data collected by the state department show that food waste fell last year by 2.7 per cent dropping to 23.6 million tonnes. According to experts the downwards trend comes from people becoming increasingly conscientious of waste and making things last.

As trends move towards sustainable living and growing your own food, more people have set-up compost heaps in their backyards and begun buying fewer groceries at the store. Even celebrity chefs have hopped on board the craze, creating easy recipes using food scraps.

Read full article: http://www.recycle.co.uk/news/2715000.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+recyclenews+(Recycling,+Green,+and+Environmental+News)

A new EU directive proposal was presented on Wednesday calling for national plans to be drafted over the next few years, as the international body still has no permanent storage sites for radioactive waste.

As plans are made, exports of nuclear waste outside of the EU for long-term storage will be banned. The commission said that current sites are usable for 100 years at most, however, high-level waste created by nuclear power facilities can take nearly a million years to decompose.

Finland revealed plans to have long-term hazardous waste storage facilities operational by 2020. Sweden will follow in its neighbor’s footsteps by 2023 and France announced a target of 2025 for a long-term waste repository.

Each year, the EU creates around 7,000 cu m of high-level nuclear waste. A majority of the radioactive rubbish is comprised of spent nuclear fuel that is no longer usable. EU Energy Commissioner, Guenther Oettinger said that safety was of the utmost importance and that if a nuclear accident were to happen in one country, it could also have devastating effects for other member states.

The Commission said that among scientists there is a broad consensus that highly-toxic waste is best disposed of underground. Nearly 200 scientists advised that spent nuclear waste be buried deep in the ground in a report published last year.

Currently, 14 of the EU’s 27 states contain nuclear power plants. France, at 58 nuclear facilities, has the largest, by far. In total, there are 143 nuclear power sites still in use within the EU, yet scientists say that infrastructure for storing the slow-decaying waste is lacking.

Sainsbury’s announced the opening of its store in Crayford, which will mark the first use of geothermal exchange technology in a supermarket in the UK.

The superstore, which covers 9,000 square meters, has been built to use Greenfield Energy’s latest innovative technology that uses ground heat to heat and cool the store. The extension to the Greater London-based Crayford store is just one in a series of new store openings for the UK supermarket chain.

According to the firm, the extended store is the world’s first supermarket to use the technology. The ‘geo exchange’ system allows boreholes underneath the structure to draw up energy from the earth and use it to generate natural heat and cooling.

Mike Coupe, group commercial director for Sainsbury’s said that it was an exciting move for the grocer and that the team at Crayford had worked hard to create an innovative new store with several firsts in features for Sainsbury’s. CEO of Greenfield Energy, Grahame Newton said that the system was cutting-edge and that the firm was proud, as a smaller renewable energy venture, to have such a brand name as Sainsbury’s to be implementing the equipment.

The supermarket chain has calculated that the move will save 30 per cent in carbon emissions compared to its traditional supermarket buildings. Sainsbury’s added that despite the store being two and half times bigger, it gives off the same carbon output because of the revolutionary new system.

The Government has scrapped the controversial wave power scheme planned at the Severn Estuary.

The proposed 10-mile damn that would run the length of Somerset to South Wales would have generated five per cent of the country’s energy, said supporters. However, Chris Huhne, energy secretary, said that a study of the proposal has revealed that the project would not be a strategic move.

Instead, plans have been announced to build eight new nuclear power stations by 2025. Plants have been proposed for Somerset, Gloucestershire, Suffolk, Lancashire and Anglesey.

The Severn barrage was set to use a hydro-electric dame to capture tidal energy from the ebb and flow of the tide as opposed to the river. The estuary houses the second-largest tidal range on the planet.

The project, however, has been deemed a high risk within a feasibility report and concluded that it will be too difficult to attract private investors. Mr Huhne said that the proposal will be kept as an option in the future, but that market conditions first must improve.

The study also shows that at the moment public funding is not healthy enough to support such a scheme. He added that there were other low carbon options that would prove a bett