Tag Archives: recycling

‘INCREASE III Fund offers £88,049 to two Argyll GRAB Trust community waste projects

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The INCREASE III Fund, alongside the Climate Challenge Fund, exists to enable communities to make environmental changes at local level. Today it has announced that two projects in Argyll and Bute have been offered a total of £88,049 to deal with waste at community level. With these awards, the fund has supported successful applications to a total of £4.7 million.

The two  GRAB Trust projects which have been offered this support are a furniture reuse project in Lorn and Oban and the promotion of the use of real nappies in the Argyll and Bute area.

Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead says: ‘The latest round of successful projects shows that the community sector is continuing to play a significant role in dealing with waste in a sensible and imaginative way.

‘A number of today’s successful applications epitomise the spirit which we want to see from Scotland’s communities in making this country a cleaner, greener place. Everyone must play their part in reducing waste, and only by all working together in this way will we be able to achieve a Zero Waste Scotland’.

The INCREASE III Fund has a total of £7.2 million to spend over three years. With today’s announcement taking its spend to date to £4.7 milion, this leaves it with £2.8 million. Its support for community recycling has four strands: grants for waste prevention; enterprise (recycling); small grants (under £5000) and capacity building.

‘INCREASE III’ (Investment in Community Recycling and Social Enterprise) funding is distributed through the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) Scotland. This is funded by the Scottish Government to undertake a range of programmes to help individuals, businesses and local authorities reduce waste and recycle more, making better use of resources and helping to tackle climate change.

A commitment to recycle is one of the Scottish Government’s 10 Greener pledges and its key targets on municipal waste are:

  • to stop the growth in municipal waste by 2010
  • to achieve 40 per cent recycling/composting of municipal waste by 2010; 50 per cent by 2013; 60 per cent by 2020 and 70 per cent by 2025
  • no more than 25 per cent should be treated by energy from waste by 2025
  • no more than 5 per cent should be landfilled by 2025

It’s good to see Argyll’s work in this field recognsied and supported as it has been today.

Falklands War surrender signed on her deck – but you can buy a piece of Clydebuilt HMS Intrepid on ebay

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Not the most dignified end for a fighting ship but at this moment HMS Intrepid is being taken apart in the UK’s biggest recycling project – with hazardous marerials like asbestos already safely removed.

The Technical Demolition Services team dismantling her at Liverpool dockyard  aim to save almost 96% of her materials.

Around 11,000 tons oof steel, iron and copper will be melted down for re-use. Items like her engines, anchor chains, winches, metal lavatories, plastic mess chairs etc will be sent to recycling agents for selling on or sale as scrap.

Built at the John Brown yard on the Clyde, Intrepid was launched in 1964. She was the eighth Royal Navy ship of the name, the first being a 64-gun wooden ship, the Serieux, captured from the French in 1747.

Along with HMS Fearless, her sister ship, Intrepid was at the heart of the amphibious assault in the Falklands War. She was Command HQ for the Royal Navy Commandos, home to around 1,000 troops, 15 tanks and up to 4 Lynx Helicopters. The surrender ending the War was signed on her deck.

Many veterans wanted her to become a floating museum for the Falklands conflict. More than 300 of her former crew signed an online petition on the No 10 website calling for Gordon Brown to save her. They are now angry that with the petition open until 7th February, demolition has begun.

Some important items from the ship will be saved for purchase by former crew members as mementoes. Others will be put on ebay for public bids.

This has already begun, with the breaker Levesley International selling items including an officer’s bath (£50), a soap dispenser (£5) and the ship’s compass (£740).

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Here’s one for Islay and Cairndow – Cumbernauld to recycle left over Christmas sprouts for electricity

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Cumbernauld is planning to recycle left-over Christmas sprouts and other food refuse and turn it into green compost and, eventually, electricity powering homes and businesses. Trials will start at the Scottish Water-run Deerdykes Organics plant in the new year.

The Cumbernauld plan is an echo of Islay’s existing initiative to turn whisky wastes into biogas but will start with making green compost. The great left-over sprout and other food refuse will be stored in huge tunnels where friendly bacteria breaks it down into a green compost, known as Pod.

This will go to domestic gardens, at Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens and at Dirleton Castle which hosts the world’s longest herbaceous border.

It will also be used to supply power to Scotland’s first new town in 50 years – Polkemmet in West Lothian.

Eventually – as with the Islay initiative, , the plan is burn the gases produced during the recycling process to produce electricity.

Waste from farms and distilleries to produce biogas to run Islay vehicles

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In an exciting development on Islay, the example of a successful Swedish plant has inspired islanders to start exploring the feasibility of capturing methane as biofuel from farm and distillery wastes.

David Protherough, of Recycling Islay and Jura Group (REJIG – great acronym) says: ‘We are looking to produce methane or biogas to use as road fuel to try and isolate islanders from rising fuel costs’.

The initiative would have additional advantages – it would provide better quality organic fertilisers for farmers and greener waste disposal.

Where the new convention for deriving energy from organic waste is to produce heat or electricity from it, Islay is looking at a plant where farm waste, dregs and pot ale would be digested by naturally occuring microbes to produce methane gas.

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Volunteer for Master Composting Project

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This does sound like something Private Eye would have fun with, but the GRAB Trust (Group for Recycling in Argyll & Bute) is looking for volunteers to be part of its new Master Composting Project. You will be trained in successful home composting techniques and you’ll then be in a position to pass on what you’e learned to others in your community. Contact Matthew Lewis at the GRAB Trust either by phone on 01546 600165 or by email: matthew.lewis@argyll-bute.gov.uk