Coffee Cups - Or London Buses

I don't know - you wait ages for one initiative to come along and then two arrive on consecutive days! Now it's the turn of Starbucks to offer disposal bins in their outlets (or at least some of them). It will be interesting to see if there is any impact on the debris we collect during our next village litter pick in the spring. I'm not holding my breath.

Coffee Cups Take 2

I've chuntered on about the scourge of disposable coffee cups on a number of occasions (see my post of 2/11/16 for instance). Now comes news that Costa is launching a recycling scheme. The idea is that any take-away coffee cup may be returned to a Costa store for recycling. One's immediate gut reaction is that the nature of "take-away" rather precludes a lot of returns but apparently there have been successful trials in London and Manchester. So, I shall suspend my scepticism and hope that the initiative has a significant effect. And, in any case, at least Costa is doing something and should be applauded for that.

Autumn Statement - Could Do Much Better

Plenty of food for thought in the comments reproduced here. It was noteworthy that neither Hammond nor MacDonald even mentioned climate change - that was left for Caroline Lucas to do.

A Question of Plastic

Edie reports that research by the Co-op has indicated that some 2/3rds of recyclable plastic waste in the UK is actually going to landfill or being incinerated. As with most commercially sponsored research the report is partly a puff for the Co-op's eco-credentials. Never-the-less, if this conclusion is close to the truth that is a terrible indictment of consumers' indifference, manufacturers' unhelpfulness and local authorities' confusing messages.

I'm not the most unintelligent being on this planet but I am on occasion confused as to what may go into my recycling bin, what may be taken to the local facility for recycling, and what is genuine waste. What is also somewhat shaming is the quantity of material that does go into that recycling bin each week. Do we really need all that packaging etc? The old mantra "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" seems to have died a death.

Many consumers are naturally lazy and cannot be bothered with carefully checking the nature of a plastic container and comparing that with often confusing advice on their local council's website before deciding whether it goes in the blue or grey bin (or whatever). The Co-op makes a good point when it advocates making as much packaging as possible recyclable so that the consumer is not burdened with decision making. Perhaps it could also work on the "reduce" part of the old strap line?

Give GM a Chance

Every so often there is a flurry of anti-GM noise, usually associated with the announcement of another trial. The arguments are familiar: we don't know the long-term effects (how could we?) and therefore do not know what health or ecological problems could arise.

Of course, mankind has practiced GM for centuries - it's just that the methods available these days are very different to selective breeding and the like. Also there is actually mounting evidence that GM trials have, so far, not resulted in ill-effects, and if well designed can be quickly brought to an end and their effects reversed.

We really should get away from knee-jerk anti-GM reactions and consider the risks and benefits of each trial on its own merits. Release of sterile GM mosquitoes, for instance, should result in lower use of potentially harmful insecticides. Perhaps the modified mosquitoes are the better alternative?

UPS - What a Shower!

I had a package to send this week so I booked an afternoon collection for Monday with UPS. Monday afternoon was glorious - but I stayed in for the full stretch. Did UPS show? Did they, hell!

So, I got onto their internet chat. There was a very pleasant respondent who apologised for lack of pick up and said he'd rearrange for collection the next morning.

First thing the next morning I received and email from UPS implying that it was probably my fault that there had been no pick up the day before! That's not what I'd call good customer service.

Anyway, I stayed in all Tuesday morning. Guess what? No pick up.

Back to square 1 and I rebooked for an afternoon pick up today (Thursday). Glory be - a van arrived to take my parcel - at 10.35 am. Since when has 10.35 am migrated to the afternoon? It was fortunate I was in. Ten minutes later and I'd have been out on a job for our local Good Neighbours charity.

What a shower!!

Coffee Cups

This article from Edie states that ministers have rejected a call for a levy on disposable coffee cups. Well, maybe for the time being that's the right decision. I think the analogy between charging for cups and charging for plastic carrier bags may not be a sound one.

However, that is not to say that there is no problem with the recycling rate of disposable cups and that, in that time-honoured phrase, "Something must be done". In our village we have just undertaken the latest of our biennial litter picks. At each event there appears to be an unholy competition between coffee cups and Red Bull cans as to which can be the worst offender. As it happens, this time around Red Bull just "won" the competition but both categories of waste were far too prevalent.  So - Costa, Starbucks, Cafe Nero etc. - what are you going to do? And come to that, the same question goes for Red Bull.