Whilst at first glance the UK’s government apparent U-turn on the going back to weekly wheelie bin collections would seem like a poor decision, yes there are many benefits, not just the obvious one’s either, like no longer struggling to fit two week’s worth of rubbish in to your bin, thus reducing the number of bags you have to carry down the drive and place at the side of your wheelie bin in the hope the refuse collectors take it with them.
The government has said the cost to local councils will be too high to provide a weekly bin collection service to all their residents, and you have to agree the cost whilst I have no idea how much that would be nationally, I can see that a whole new refuse teams and refuse lorries would be needed, great in theory, job creation nationwide but this would all need to be paid for by someone, rate payers perhaps?
Another relevant point that has not been highlighted much is the cost of changing all our wheelie bins, these would all be swopped for smaller ones, we won’t get such large wheelie bins with weekly collections so all the old ones would have to be collected from every house and new ones delivered in their place, again job creation but lots of lorries and fuel required.
Given that the majority of UK wheelie bins are produced in Germany some 600 odd miles away all these new bins would carry a fair size carbon footprint during their travels over land on the back of lorries burning high amounts of fossil fuels, not to mention the wear and tear on the lorries and their consumables such as tyres, brakes engine oil.
Ignoring for one minute the cost of wages and new refuse Lorries that need to be paid for and focus just on the environmental impact of the UK going back to weekly refuse collections the true cost to the planet adds up to quite an alarming amount, take the amount of oil used in manufacturing a plastic wheelie bin, add to this the oil being burnt in the factories producing the bins and then the oil burned by the lorries delivering the raw plastic material and then later the finished wheelie bins right from a factory overseas to your driveway in the UK.
Rinse and Repeat
The life span of your average wheelie bin isn’t as long as you might think, on average a wheelie bin has reached the end of its useful life after just 5 years, it then needs to be swapped for a new one, the old one collected and taken to a plastic recycling company who process the old broken wheelie bins back in to pellet form to start the whole process again, maybe even the recycled plastic is re-used in the next lot of bins.
My final point is to ask yourself a question, given that most of us in the UK either have two or sometimes 3 different wheelie bins at home would you really want to have to put the bins out on the bottom of your drive or on the pavement 3 times a week, once for each one?
Monday, 27 June 2011
The Wheelie Bin Travels
Wheelie bins travel a fair few miles in their lifetime, bear in mind that the life of a wheelie bin is a hard one, they get knocked about, kicked, lids get slammed and the then twice a month a lorry comes along and shakes it about trying to empty it of loads of rubbish.
So have you ever stopped to think how far a wheelie bin travels in its lifetime, well read on to find out more. The vast majority of wheelie bins in use today throughout the UK are made in Germany so roughly speaking that’s around 600 miles (Berlin to London). Once the wheelie bin arrives at the distribution depot they are then transported out typically to the local authorities or their respective agents, the distance here will vary dependent on where you live within the UK, for purposes of this article let’s say that’s another 200 miles to get your wheelie bin dropped off at your local council depot, the final part of this first stage in the life of your wheelie bin is the last few miles to your house, lets add another 30 miles to the tally and hey presto your new bin sits proudly round the side of your house having been loaded and unloaded several times and driven around 830 miles to get here.
Okay so the first part of a wheelie bins travels were pretty easy for it, what follows is where the wheelie bin has to withstand the punishment of twice monthly collections and all round general abuse we all through at our wheelie bins without a care or thought about respect for them.
A typical wheelie bin will have a lifecycle of around 5 years and based on an average twice monthly collection service will equate to be emptied around 130 times before your wheelie bin will reach the end of its useful life. Taking an average home and working out the distance from side of house to the road side typically could be 30 yards there and back roughly works out at an additional 4000 yards over its 5 year working life, which adds about 2 ¼ more miles to the running total of the distance your wheelie bin has travelled.
So have you ever stopped to think how far a wheelie bin travels in its lifetime, well read on to find out more. The vast majority of wheelie bins in use today throughout the UK are made in Germany so roughly speaking that’s around 600 miles (Berlin to London). Once the wheelie bin arrives at the distribution depot they are then transported out typically to the local authorities or their respective agents, the distance here will vary dependent on where you live within the UK, for purposes of this article let’s say that’s another 200 miles to get your wheelie bin dropped off at your local council depot, the final part of this first stage in the life of your wheelie bin is the last few miles to your house, lets add another 30 miles to the tally and hey presto your new bin sits proudly round the side of your house having been loaded and unloaded several times and driven around 830 miles to get here.
Okay so the first part of a wheelie bins travels were pretty easy for it, what follows is where the wheelie bin has to withstand the punishment of twice monthly collections and all round general abuse we all through at our wheelie bins without a care or thought about respect for them.
A typical wheelie bin will have a lifecycle of around 5 years and based on an average twice monthly collection service will equate to be emptied around 130 times before your wheelie bin will reach the end of its useful life. Taking an average home and working out the distance from side of house to the road side typically could be 30 yards there and back roughly works out at an additional 4000 yards over its 5 year working life, which adds about 2 ¼ more miles to the running total of the distance your wheelie bin has travelled.
Life After Death For Your Wheelie Bin
Wheelie bins are made from plastic using a process known as injection moulding, the two main elements which are the head and body will be formed separately, and additional parts such as wheels, axle and hinges will of course be added to make a fully functional wheelie bin.
Because wheelie bins don’t exactly have an easy life and quality does vary between manufacturers UK/EU bins will be certified and tested to EN840 and an additional feature of quality wheelie bins is ultra violet protection which is highly beneficial as without this the wheelie bins exposed to sunlight go brittle much quicker and tend to split very easily as do the lower quality wheelie bins which often originate from China.
The number of bins that are replaced each year from damage and wear is considerable, 100’s of thousands of wheelie bins are replaced and rather than sending these bins to landfill they are collected by local authority’s and then passed to specialist plastic recycling companies.
Once the old or damaged wheelie bins have been collected by the plastic recycling specialists they need to go through a few steps prior to being recycled,
Step 1:
Washing, all the years of crud inside and outside needs to be removed, along with any stickers such as house numbers, all these stickers have adhesive behind them that needs to be removed prior to any recycling taking place.
Step 2:
Removal of the wheels, axles and hinges, basically all that a plastic recycler is interested in is the parts made from plastic, metal and rubber components would be stored separately and these would be collected by their respective recyclers.
Step 3:
At this stage the body and lid of the wheelie bin get dropped in to large shredders and comes out the other side as small regrind pieces of plastic, this regrind plastic is then tested and graded as to its composition. Regrind plastic is often re-used as is by adding a quantity to a mix with virgin plastic in the production run of a new plastic product, any that is not used will go on to the next stage in the recycling of plastic process.
Step 4:
This is the final stage in the recycling of plastic wheelie bins, here the cleaned granulated plastic is processed in to a recycled compound by melting and extruding in the form of pellets. These plastic pellets can then be used to manufacture a wide range of products, some of which could be more wheelie bins but equally likely is your new cars bumper could have been your tired old wheelie bin in a previous life.
Because wheelie bins don’t exactly have an easy life and quality does vary between manufacturers UK/EU bins will be certified and tested to EN840 and an additional feature of quality wheelie bins is ultra violet protection which is highly beneficial as without this the wheelie bins exposed to sunlight go brittle much quicker and tend to split very easily as do the lower quality wheelie bins which often originate from China.
The number of bins that are replaced each year from damage and wear is considerable, 100’s of thousands of wheelie bins are replaced and rather than sending these bins to landfill they are collected by local authority’s and then passed to specialist plastic recycling companies.
Once the old or damaged wheelie bins have been collected by the plastic recycling specialists they need to go through a few steps prior to being recycled,
Step 1:
Washing, all the years of crud inside and outside needs to be removed, along with any stickers such as house numbers, all these stickers have adhesive behind them that needs to be removed prior to any recycling taking place.
Step 2:
Removal of the wheels, axles and hinges, basically all that a plastic recycler is interested in is the parts made from plastic, metal and rubber components would be stored separately and these would be collected by their respective recyclers.
Step 3:
At this stage the body and lid of the wheelie bin get dropped in to large shredders and comes out the other side as small regrind pieces of plastic, this regrind plastic is then tested and graded as to its composition. Regrind plastic is often re-used as is by adding a quantity to a mix with virgin plastic in the production run of a new plastic product, any that is not used will go on to the next stage in the recycling of plastic process.
Step 4:
This is the final stage in the recycling of plastic wheelie bins, here the cleaned granulated plastic is processed in to a recycled compound by melting and extruding in the form of pellets. These plastic pellets can then be used to manufacture a wide range of products, some of which could be more wheelie bins but equally likely is your new cars bumper could have been your tired old wheelie bin in a previous life.
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
The Ebenezer Scrooge Guide to Energy Saving
Without trying to sound like the stingy character in the Charles Dickens novel most people can relate to the need to reduce our energy costs, especially those with teenagers addicted to the latest gadgets and being born without the ability to switch a light off when leaving a room.
With the almost constant rise in energy prices the vast majority of us in the UK are starting to question even switching on an electric light until it’s really dark, either that or we spend our entire day following the kids around the house switching things off all the time trying not to say “Bah Humbug”
Quick Ways to Save on Energy Bills
Remove all the bulbs from the light fittings and use the candles that are at the bottom of the kitchen draw left over from a birthday cake 10 years earlier. Okay maybe a little extreme and I’m not sure I could sleep very well knowing the kids are walking around the house with lit candles.
A safer option If you’ve not already done so is to swap all your light bulbs for the low energy counterparts, low energy light bulbs when they first came on the market where a little pricey but today even the spot light type GU10 and similar have come down to an acceptable price, shop around though as prices vary wildly. If you really want to cut down further then consider the light fittings themselves, do you need 5 bulbs in your living room, even though they all might only be 5 watts individually the total adds up to 25 watts, this could be reduced if you only had one 5 watt bulb, so either change the light fitting or remove a couple of bulbs from the lamp.
If you have an open fire then burning your kitchen packaging waste rather than buying logs or coal is a thought, the amount of heat may not be much though and many people either don’t have open fires or if they do they live in an area restricting the smoke output.
Put an extra layer of clothing on, this could be a jumper or a base layer, ladies can put tights on whilst the men could do the same a set of thermals might be seen as slightly more manly, but who’s going to know, your secret is safe with us!
Keeping doors and windows shut helps a great deal, costs nothing (Scrooge would approve) once a room is warm the last thing you want to do is let the heat escape through an open window, doors on the other hand are a little more tricky as teenagers do struggle with these, closing doors seems to be beyond comprehension, even after spending time training your teenagers they still cannot soak in the complexities of closing a door, what do they teach at school these days?
Is there a Solution to Cheap Energy Bills?
Yes and no, wrap up warm and eat cold food, remove all electrical gadgets from your house, these are all choices that could be made, doubtful as they may sound, for some people they are already heading this way. There is an alternative solution for long term low energy bills in the way of solar energy, here in the UK the government has pledged to buy back any energy you produce for the next 25 years at the current rate of 41.3p per Kw. Whilst initial setup costs of installing Solar energy systems for your home are never going to be cheap this government backed “Feed in Tariff” really does make it a long term investment worth considering.
With the almost constant rise in energy prices the vast majority of us in the UK are starting to question even switching on an electric light until it’s really dark, either that or we spend our entire day following the kids around the house switching things off all the time trying not to say “Bah Humbug”
Quick Ways to Save on Energy Bills
Remove all the bulbs from the light fittings and use the candles that are at the bottom of the kitchen draw left over from a birthday cake 10 years earlier. Okay maybe a little extreme and I’m not sure I could sleep very well knowing the kids are walking around the house with lit candles.
A safer option If you’ve not already done so is to swap all your light bulbs for the low energy counterparts, low energy light bulbs when they first came on the market where a little pricey but today even the spot light type GU10 and similar have come down to an acceptable price, shop around though as prices vary wildly. If you really want to cut down further then consider the light fittings themselves, do you need 5 bulbs in your living room, even though they all might only be 5 watts individually the total adds up to 25 watts, this could be reduced if you only had one 5 watt bulb, so either change the light fitting or remove a couple of bulbs from the lamp.
If you have an open fire then burning your kitchen packaging waste rather than buying logs or coal is a thought, the amount of heat may not be much though and many people either don’t have open fires or if they do they live in an area restricting the smoke output.
Put an extra layer of clothing on, this could be a jumper or a base layer, ladies can put tights on whilst the men could do the same a set of thermals might be seen as slightly more manly, but who’s going to know, your secret is safe with us!
Keeping doors and windows shut helps a great deal, costs nothing (Scrooge would approve) once a room is warm the last thing you want to do is let the heat escape through an open window, doors on the other hand are a little more tricky as teenagers do struggle with these, closing doors seems to be beyond comprehension, even after spending time training your teenagers they still cannot soak in the complexities of closing a door, what do they teach at school these days?
Is there a Solution to Cheap Energy Bills?
Yes and no, wrap up warm and eat cold food, remove all electrical gadgets from your house, these are all choices that could be made, doubtful as they may sound, for some people they are already heading this way. There is an alternative solution for long term low energy bills in the way of solar energy, here in the UK the government has pledged to buy back any energy you produce for the next 25 years at the current rate of 41.3p per Kw. Whilst initial setup costs of installing Solar energy systems for your home are never going to be cheap this government backed “Feed in Tariff” really does make it a long term investment worth considering.
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Cheap Electricity for Next 25 Years
Here in the UK there is a government backed scheme known as the Feed In tariff that guarantees you an income from solar energy for the next 25 years.
By having solar panels installed on your roof the energy produced means you will receive 41.3p per Kw of energy produced, plus produce any surplus and receive an extra 3p per kw when you export this back to the national grid. This means any electricity you use that’s been generated via your solar panels will not only cost you nothing but you will get paid for it as well.
A typical 4KW solar power system on your home should earn you around £1500 a year, and this is guaranteed for the next 25 years!
Solar energy produced by the light from the sun is clean and efficient, solar power is produced by taking the light from the sun via solar photovoltaic panels and converting it to electricity. We already know that solar energy is environmentally friendly and now that the government has pledged to buy back the energy produced for the next 25 years installation can make financial sense.
What if you move house
Upfront costs of installing a solar power system to your home isn’t cheap but once you look at the potential returns solar power seems like a no-brainer. So let’ assume you might move house in a few years’ time, ok so you’ve enjoyed the benefits and potentially free electricity for years but can you imagine what a potential buyer of your house is going to think, the way energy prices seem to be rising buying a house with access not just to free electricity for personal use but a guaranteed income from the electricity as well. In the future we will see houses coming on to the market that already have solar panels fitted.
Technology Constantly Advancing
If we look at how fast technology has moved in recent years, take the internal combustion engine, 25 years ago engines were unreliable, in efficient and usually worn out by 100k miles, todays car engines can go for many miles between servicing and 100k miles is easy achievable and took much less fuel to cover them. You cannot talk about technology advancements in over the last 25 years without mentioning the personal computer, I used one to write this and you are using one to read it,
but look back to the days before windows existed, Amstrad and BBC Basic are museum pieces now days.
The point here is solar power will go the same way, efficiencies in the amount of electricity produced are improving all the time, build quality of the panels are so good that many are guaranteed for 20 years or more, in fact there have been solar panels in space for over 50 years and going from -160 to +200 degrees C every 90 minutes.
Solar power is here to stay, and rest assured they can produce energy even on cloudy days which is just as well if you live in the UK.
By having solar panels installed on your roof the energy produced means you will receive 41.3p per Kw of energy produced, plus produce any surplus and receive an extra 3p per kw when you export this back to the national grid. This means any electricity you use that’s been generated via your solar panels will not only cost you nothing but you will get paid for it as well.
A typical 4KW solar power system on your home should earn you around £1500 a year, and this is guaranteed for the next 25 years!
Solar energy produced by the light from the sun is clean and efficient, solar power is produced by taking the light from the sun via solar photovoltaic panels and converting it to electricity. We already know that solar energy is environmentally friendly and now that the government has pledged to buy back the energy produced for the next 25 years installation can make financial sense.
What if you move house
Upfront costs of installing a solar power system to your home isn’t cheap but once you look at the potential returns solar power seems like a no-brainer. So let’ assume you might move house in a few years’ time, ok so you’ve enjoyed the benefits and potentially free electricity for years but can you imagine what a potential buyer of your house is going to think, the way energy prices seem to be rising buying a house with access not just to free electricity for personal use but a guaranteed income from the electricity as well. In the future we will see houses coming on to the market that already have solar panels fitted.
Technology Constantly Advancing
If we look at how fast technology has moved in recent years, take the internal combustion engine, 25 years ago engines were unreliable, in efficient and usually worn out by 100k miles, todays car engines can go for many miles between servicing and 100k miles is easy achievable and took much less fuel to cover them. You cannot talk about technology advancements in over the last 25 years without mentioning the personal computer, I used one to write this and you are using one to read it,
but look back to the days before windows existed, Amstrad and BBC Basic are museum pieces now days.
The point here is solar power will go the same way, efficiencies in the amount of electricity produced are improving all the time, build quality of the panels are so good that many are guaranteed for 20 years or more, in fact there have been solar panels in space for over 50 years and going from -160 to +200 degrees C every 90 minutes.
Solar power is here to stay, and rest assured they can produce energy even on cloudy days which is just as well if you live in the UK.
Forward Thinking Poole Council
Resident of Whatleigh Close maisonettes in the heart of Poole town centre now have 55 solar panels on the roof of their building, which now power the communal lighting for the block.
Next steps for the Poole housing partnership who are responsible for the management of all council properties within the borough of Poole is the installation of solar panels on more than 1000 council house rooftops.
Poole housing partnership is now being paid for every unit of electricity it generates under the feed in tariff scheme backed by the UK government.
If you are interested in hearing how you could get paid for every kw of power you generate then contact Manor Solar today for your free solar survey and quotation today.
Next steps for the Poole housing partnership who are responsible for the management of all council properties within the borough of Poole is the installation of solar panels on more than 1000 council house rooftops.
Poole housing partnership is now being paid for every unit of electricity it generates under the feed in tariff scheme backed by the UK government.
If you are interested in hearing how you could get paid for every kw of power you generate then contact Manor Solar today for your free solar survey and quotation today.
Solar Powered Railway Tunnel Opens
A first in railway history, a stretch of tunnel just over 2 miles in length between Paris and Amsterdam which passes through the Belgian city of Antwerp which was built to avoid felling trees 9n a nearby forest produces enough electricity to power all of Belgium’s trains for one day per year. The energy produced is also being used to help power Antwerp station
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