Long on Words, Short on Action?

Without delving into the numbers myself I have had suspicions that many countries actions and national plans fall short of their Paris commitments. Now there is a report from Grantham Research and ESRC that suggests that just 16 countries have set targets for cuts that are consistent with their Paris nationally determined contributions. This assessment matches the earlier Climate Action Tracker findings.

While this is not surprising - it ever was the way of the political world - it is very disappointing. Once again we are being poorly served by politicians with, at best, a 5-year horizon to the next election.

Floating Solar Farm is a Neat Idea

I'm obviously way behind the times. United Utilities has announced that it is building a second floating solar farm at one of its reservoirs capable of fully powering one of its water treatment plants. I had completely missed that the first existed!

This is a neat idea.

Disaster Looming on the Plastics Front?

Edie has posted two articles recently that have worrying implications. In the first it reports that the UK plastics recycling industry is facing an investigation into fraud and abuse. This comes after 6 plastic waste exporters had their licences suspended or cancelled in the last three months. It would appear that some operators are claiming for dealing with waste that does not exist; some waste is not being recycled but is just being allowed to rot and leach into the environment; illegal shipments are taking place; and serial offenders are continuing to export. All this comes on top of China banning UK waste and other countries looking as though they may do the same.

This latter issue has led to increased costs for local councils, which is the subject of Edie's second report. Some councils are claiming cost increases of the order of £0.5M per year.

The combined effect could be very bad news for plastic recycling in the UK.

MI5 and Privacy International

Privacy International exists to promote and defend privacy in an age of ever more surveillance, particularly bulk surveillance of citizens who are under no suspicion of committing any crime. The UK intelligence agencies, for instance, have been shown to be hoovering up such information as travel movements, financial records, and internet and telephone use. The Investigatory Powers Tribunal has twice ruled that the UK agencies' access to the databases so created has been unlawful.

Now it has become clear that not only has data relating to Privacy International been swept up by GCHP, HI5 and MI6; but MI5 has also unlawfully read and captured Privacy International's private data as part of an active investigation.

Why are our intelligence agencies wasting their time and money spying on a human rights organisation that is working in the public interest? Surely MI5 has bigger fish to fry?

SP Sells Gas Plant to Drax. So What?

Edie has carried a story that Scottish Power has sold its gas generation plant to Drax. This process has been accompanied with a certain amount of ballyhoo:-

Greenpeece UK, for instance:
“Big utilities across Europe have been shedding their dirty fossil fuel infrastructure because it makes economic and environmental sense.”

This is nonsense. All that has happened is that the deck chairs on the Titanic have been rearranged. As Edie's piece points out, there has been no change in the UK's power plant portfolio; and SP will still be purchasing "brown" electricity.

The Greenpeace statement does a disservice to the renewables cause. They should stick to applauding genuine shifts in the nation's generating capacity.

Home Battery Collection - Could It Be A Runner?

This is a short article from Edie about Currys PC World trialling home battery collection when they deliver new appliances. A survey last year indicated that 6 in ten of those questioned hoard used batteries and that the total holding amounts to some 178M. The UK's battery recycling rate in 2016 was just below the EU target of 45%, which , in itself, seems to me to be somewhat unambitious.

So, if Currys' pilot is successful will it make a difference? I have no idea how many domestic deliveries Currys make in a year but let us suppose that they visit 1% of UK households. That could result in up to 1.8M batteries being recycled. Now, some of those would have been recycled anyway; let's say 50%. A nationwide scheme might thus make a net gain in recycling of 0.9M units.

On a quick trawl of the net I was unable to find a figure for the total number of units recycled in a year, only details of overall weight (OK I'm a lazy so-and-so). However, my gut feeling is that the scheme could work.

ONS statistics show that there are some 19M families in the UK, or, to take a different cut, 27M households. That would suggest that each household, on average, is retaining 6.5 batteries. This actually compares nicely with the 7 that I currently have awaiting a trip to a recycling point.

There is another action that I think could help and that is for retailers to make their recycling points more obvious. The regulations relating to providing recycling facilities are quite stringent - a shop selling on average one pack of 4 AA batteries per day would be expected to provide such facilities; but how often does one notice them? It's a case of out-of-sight, out-of-mind. A little encouragement could go a long way.