This month has seen me attend my second LARAC conference of the year in Wales and what a fantastic event it was.
Held at the Cardiff Marriott hotel we had excellent speakers and some great insight into how Wales is achieving so much. It must be said but you can’t help but feel inspired after going to a LARAC conference!
As I mentioned in last month’s blog, I attended the Carpet Recycling UK Annual Conference. What struck me there was the high percentage of carpets (97%) that are made of plastic. As a sector, they have focussed on diverting waste carpets from landfill, so the majority now go to incineration, but I was shocked how unwanted waste household carpets are for recycling due to their low quality and heavy wear. Office carpets and carpets used for events are more highly prized as they are in much better condition. This brought home to me one of the challenges of the circular economy, that there has to be the ability for the item to be genuinely recycled once it becomes waste, as well as the infrastructure there to recycle it. Interestingly there is research going into chemical recycling which chimes with work being done on the same for mixed household plastics.
I write this in the last week of school term just before the summer holiday. We have just experienced two days of interminable heat this week that caused wildfires and so many problems here in the UK. Nothing could have brought home to our doorstep the reality of the changing climate and weather extremes we experience more frequently now. I am old enough to remember the summer of ’76, experienced as an 11 year old. I remember cooling off in paddling pools, ice creams and standpipes. I don’t remember people losing their homes to fire or the rail transport network of the country shutting down. I missed an event in London because there were no trains into Kings Cross the day after the heatwave. This was a truly red-letter day but not one of happiness, one of note worthiness.
On the cusp of the summer holidays, it is notable that I must again express my sadness that the consultation responses to DRS and consistency for English collections have still not been published. Wales and Scotland have had their collection models available for a long time and have made the change to ensure a high-volume high-quality supply of recyclable materials is available. DRS is UK wide but only Scotland are making headway at this time. Welsh and Scottish councils can move forward and start to think more along circular economy principles for their strategies whereas England seem prepared to wander around the start line in no hurry to get into the starting blocks. This lethargy is morale sapping for LARAC and its members who are keen and eager to get started on making real change in our sector.
Let us hope for more after the holidays and I hope that you have an enjoyable summer holiday, wherever you choose to do it.
