Farm and General Services Weblog

The 2008 Royal Show, proudly organised by the Royal Agricultural Society of England, is to take place from Thursday 3rd July to Sunday 6th July inclusive. The Show remains committed to promoting the Best of British Farming and also to providing an excellent family day out with action-packed entertainment for the whole family to enjoy!

NEW for 2008 - the Energy & Sustainability Park is an exciting new feature regarding aspects of Energy, Non food crops and bio-energy.

Please visit The Royal Show 2008  for further information.

Knowaste, a Canadian company which recycles disposable nappies and other waste products in the US is set to invest £20 million in a UK version of the recycling plant within the next 5 years.

About 750,000 tonnes of nappy waste is thought to be created in the UK each year and it is thought that the new facility, destined for Birmingham, will be capable of converting 4% of this nappy waste into plastic, cladding and roof tiles, with an aim to eventually recycle up to 13%.

The site will predominantly process nappies, bed liners and incontinence products from commercial sectors but plans to eventually target the domestic market.

From today, all fuel companies in the UK will have to replace a certain percentage of their annual fossil fuel sales with biofuels, by law.

Known as Biofuels Day, it means that 2.5% of fuel produced in the UK will have to derive from renewable sources such as crops and waste as opposed to oil. The introduction of the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RFTO) will mean that all drivers are making a contribution to reducing climate change, without the need for any modification to their vehicles.

Biofuels are made from crops. As the crops grow, they absorb carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere. So the carbon dioxide that escapes when biofuels
are burnt is subsequently absorbed by new plants growing to produce more
biofuels - it’s a ‘virtuous’ circle.

To fulfil the 5% inclusion rate, the NFU estimates that ‘375,000 hectares will be needed for the wheat for ethanol and 840,000 hectares of oilseed rape will be needed for the biodiesel’.

For further information please visit Biofuels Day

DEFRA has announced this week that despite the growth in recycling and energy markets for clean wood, the material is still being overlooked as a resource for Biomass fuel and at present up to 10 million tonnes of waste wood is being sent to landfill each year.

One of the many problems facing the sector is that there are limited wood-burning biomass plants in the UK and consequently alternative outlets for the lower grade waste wood are being sourced abroad to avoid the waste being sent to landfill.

DEFRA is now calling for more wood combustion facilities in the UK and has launched a £4 million fund to support the installation of biomass-fuelled heating and combined heat & power projects, including anaerobic digesters.

As evidence, DEFRA published a study  that outlines the substantial and largely untapped biomass resource available in municipal, construction & demolition and commercial & industrial waste streams.

To view the report click here

According to the latest figures from ‘Love Food Hate Waste’, a campaign formed by WRAP to tackle food being wasted in UK homes, an astounding 4.4million whole apples are being thrown away untouched every day in the UK, contributing to the £3 billion worth of fruit and vegetables binned each year.

The majority of the waste is made up of fruit, vegetables and other perfectly edible foods with the remaining proportion being things like peelings, bones and cores. Once the food waste reaches its destination, it emits methane, a powerful gas contributing to climate change and green house effects so we need to divert as much as possible away from landfill.

The study shows that the main reason Britain throws so much out is simply because we do not eat it before it goes off and we could be making the problem worse by not storing food in the correct conditions. A simple solution for this problem would be to store fruit and vegetables in the fridge, keeping them at a cool temperature and prolonging their life span.

Climate change, green taxes, zero carbon standards, carbon footprints, land fill tax. All words we are familiar with in this day and age. But how many people really know how landfill tax works?

The Chancellor again referred to this rather specialised tax in the 2008 Budget, announcing that the standard rate of landfill tax will increase by £8 per tonne to £40 per tonne in 2009/10. But this is a form of taxation which only a few people need to know about.

It is now nearly 12 years since it was introduced, applying to all waste disposed on or after 1 October 1996 by way of landfill at licensed landfill sites. It is charged by weight and there are two rates of tax: £2 per tonne for inactive or inert waste and standard rate for all other taxable waste. Back in 1996, the standard rate was £7 per tonne, rising steadily to £15 per tonne in 2004. Since then it has risen by £3 per year and for 2007/08 it is currently £24 per tonne. In 2008/09 the standard rate will be £32 per tonne and the inert waste rate £2.50.

However, tax credits (another buzz word favoured by the current government) are available to reduce the amount of tax payable.

The Landfill Tax Credit Scheme encourages landfill site operators to fund local community environmental projects. In simple terms, 90% of a donation to an enrolled environmental body for spending on an approved object, can be claimed against the landfill tax liability, subject to a maximum of 20% of the total tax payable in a 12 month period. (For example, if total landfill tax for a 12 month period is £100,000, the maximum tax credits claimable are £20,000 which would allow donations of £22,222, 90% of which is £20,000.)Approved objects include public parks, architecturally interesting or religious buildings, and conservation projects all in the vicinity of the landfill site.

As well as hiking up the rate of landfill tax, the government has imposed on each waste disposal authority an allowance for the amount of bio-degradable waste it may dispose of to landfill for the years 2005 to 2020. Any authority that goes over its allowance faces a penalty of £150 per tonne on top of the cost of disposing of the waste. The UK is now required under the EU Landfill Directive to reduce to 35% the amount of biodegradable municipal waste going to landfill sites by 2020, and 50% by only 2013. At present, we recycle only 37% of our waste compared to 50-60% across much of mainland Europe.

This all sounds rather gloomy but there is light on the horizon. Riding to the rescue is a set of new technologies that could dig everyone out of their landfill hole. The technologies already exist to gasify the waste and turn it into heat and power and the next few years will see a whole host of new technology companies competing to make the technology economically viable, Countrystyle being a trend setter!

Students from the Open University completing an ‘Environmental Control and Public Health’ course have conducted a study on 107 households in England to analyse their waste generation and disposal during 2007.

The key findings from their report shows that:

• The average rate of waste arising from each household amounted to 18.6kg per week in 2007, compared to 13.0kg in the previous year.
• More than 80% of households set out waste for kerbside recycling.
• Over 50% of all waste recycled in 2007 was recycled through kerbside collections. 25% was recycled at CA sites, 13.7% at other recycling sites and the remaining 8.5% was donated to jumble sales and charity shops.
• The majority of waste recycled by households in 2007 was packaging waste.
• 26% of waste deposited at CA sites was garden waste, a significant drop  from the 41.8% between 2000 - 2005.
• Waste analyses showed that food waste comprised 34.7% of the residual waste stream.

A full version of the report is available for download from:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/waste/research/index.htm

FGS Plant has just purchased a brand new Telehandler from JCB. The 535-125 has an impressive capacity/lift height of 3.5tonnes/12.3metres and its Q-fit allows operators to change between a huge choice of attachments rapidly.

The WRA (Wood Recyclers Association) is working in partnership with the Wood Protection Association to develop and establish ‘acceptable’ contamination levels in waste wood, based on scientific facts and evidence.

The organisation is hoping that the protocol will not only provide clarity to wood recyclers regarding the quality of their material but will also encourage the government to reassess its current regulations, taking into account the risks associated with the material.

For further information, please visit the WRA’s website at http://www.woodrecyclers.org/

New information presented by The Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI) has indicated that in 2007, the UK collected in excess of 8.6 million tonnes of recovered paper, a 7.5% increase of that collected in 2006.

After a disappointing 3.4% increase on paper collections in 2006, this latest result shows encouraging growth and falls more in line with that reported in both 2005 (8.7%) and 2004 (12.8%)