Evergreen Online. February / March 2004

Evergreen Online

The Newsletter of Wirral Environmental Network

Digest Edition

February / March 2004

In this month's online edition:

Doomed: warnings about state of the planet becoming more insistent

Local Recycling Wins Ł5m

Help WEN - recycle your mobile

DOOMED
For the doom merchants amongst us, 2004 showed its fearsome teeth in a cracking start before it was even 10 days old. On 7th January, a report in the journal Nature said climate change could speed a million land-based species towards extinction within the next 50 years. The next day, the Worldwatch Institute declared modern lifestyles were bad for us and unsustainable for the planet. The UK government's chief scientist now says climate change is a far worse danger than international terrorism. A triple onslaught like that defies anyone to head into the new year feeling even slightly positive about the human condition. Yet life goes on, and most of us worry more about paying the Christmas bills than about a world bereft of a quarter of its animals and plants. We believe the scientists: we simply do not connect their findings to our lives, our families, ourselves even. Some of us just refuse to react, blaming the messengers for their message and accusing the scientists of scaremongering. Most of us are convinced by the message - yet still we go on as if we had not a care in the world. But, whether because of climate change or not, we are already losing species so fast that biologists talk of the Earth undergoing its sixth great extinction since the Big Bang. We are losing species we do not know exist, which could be vital to our survival. A few years ago, when the world's gross national product was worth about Ł9.85 trillion, the value of nature's goods and services to us was estimated at Ł18.05 trillion. Similarly, the evidence that human activities are intensifying natural climate change is impressive, and hardening. The world really is changing, almost imperceptibly, but in line with what science says will happen. There are sincere people who regard both the global extinction rate and the changing climate as entirely natural developments which need not concern us. However, the effects of the warmer climate can be seen in Birkenhead Park. The trouble with imperceptible change is that for a long time it has virtually no impact, certainly not on the political timescale of four or five years. And politicians respond (often) to what they think matters to voters. Yet the record preserved in cores drilled out of the Greenland icecap shows climate change can be very rapid indeed, flipping from one stable state to another in a few decades. It is not fanciful to envisage our children living in a Britain where the Gulf Stream has ceased to flow, and where climate change means winters as cold as northern Canada's ? Perhaps it will take some sudden, savage reversal of nature to make us sit up and take notice. But we can change just as unpredictably as nature can. Who predicted the peaceful end of apartheid in South Africa or the melting of the Soviet Union ? When enough of us have changed imperceptibly enough to start acting on the warnings we are hearing, the resulting critical mass will cause some very rapid change of its own.

Local Recycling wins Ł5m

Recycling on Merseyside has been given a Ł5m government grant. The funding has been earmarked for the development of a waste sorting facility. It means recyclable items collected from Merseyside homes will be divided so that cans, bottles, plastics and paper can all be sold on to be turned into something new.

Up to 20 jobs are expected to be created by the facility, and a linked education unit. The investment from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) was announced by Environment Minister Elliot Morley.

Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority (MWDA) proposes building the facility at its existing Bidston site. It will separate recyclables from Wirral, with capacity for other Merseyside districts to supply materials.

MWDA chairman John Fletcher said: "This is wonderful news. A lot of hard work has been put in by our team to obtain the investment, but it's been worth the effort.
We'll be working very closely with Wirral council and our contractor, Mersey Waste Holdings Ltd, to create the new facility. This is just the first step in an ongoing programme of building recycling infrastructure. We'll be working with all of the districts in Merseyside to develop further facilities in a bid to attain our target of recycling 22% of waste by 2006."

The facility will also include composting vessels. Further composting provision will be created at Gillmoss, to the east of Liverpool. This will allow the collection and recycling of green waste, which can be resold for landscaping.

The investment will also provide funds for an education centre at Bidston and MWDA, together with Wirral council, is working on an education strategy which will teach the recyclers of tomorrow why it is essential to reduce and reuse waste, rather than creating further landfill sites.

The education facility will provide information about kerbside recycling schemes, how materials are reused, and how a sorting facility will increase recycling participation.

Help WEN: recycle your mobile

Three quarters of a million old mobiles will have been discarded or dumped since Christmas, according to a survey. Just four per cent of those questioned in a poll for The Body Shop said they would bother to recycle them.

Toxics in dumped mobiles can harm the environment, but more than a quarter of people with new models said they would just throw their old ones in the bin. It is estimated 15 million mobiles are replaced annually, with owners updating them on average every 18 months.

It is thought about 3.75 million mobile handsets will have landed in Christmas stockings in 2003, according to NOP, a figure which is likely to grow next year. however, many mobile owners are not aware of recycling schemes for phones.

Mobile phones may contain toxic substances which can be released into the air or our water supply when burned or disposed of in landfills, creating threats to human health and the environment.

The good news is that your mobile can be re-conditioned for use in developing countries. Simply send your phone in a padded envelope (stamps are not required) to Greener Solutions, FREEPOST LONI7592, PO Box 32343, London, SW17 9ZZ. Special bags are also available from us should you require one.

For every phone donated, WEN will receive a small payment. Please put a note in with your phone saying that WEN is your nominated charity.