News

Derry City Council currently spends £1.6m every year on cleaning its streets. However, litterers are now being targeted in Londonderry and the Council has issued thousands of pounds in fines, with nearly 200 on-the-spot fines issued since October 2012.

In the last seven months, more than £14,000 in fines have been issued, with the maximum fine for littering being £75, which is reduced to £50 if paid within 10 days.

Derry City Council's waste services manager, Conor Canning, said signs have been put up to warn people about the new fines. He said, "We have deployed huge resources to combat the problem. We have additional litter bins and cleansing crews but ultimately we are still faced with litter on the streets. Enforcement is just one way of tackling the problem."

SDLP councillor Shaun Gallagher added, "It is beyond a joke. Millions of pounds of ratepayers' money is spent on people who are too lazy to put litter in a bin".

For more information, see the:

• Litter (Northern Ireland) Order SI 1994/1896;
• Litter Control Areas Order (Northern Ireland) SR 1995/237;
• Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment (Northern Ireland) Act 2011.

The Government has published a discussion paper on a Review of the UK's Producer Responsibility Regimes, such as those relating to waste packaging, waste batteries, and waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), in an attempt to reduce the regulatory burden on businesses under its Red Tape Challenge.

Comments received on the proposals described in the paper will inform the development of specific regulatory changes under each of the regimes, which will be the subject of separate consultations. The first of these consultations is on the Implementation of Recast WEEE Directive 2012/19/EU and Changes to the UK System.

Under UK producer responsibility regimes, producers must pay a financial obligation to bear the costs of collecting, treating and recycling or recovering a proportion of their products to meet legal targets and minimum standards, in accordance with the "polluter pays" principle.

The review proposes small producers should be excluded from bearing the cost of recycling and recovery, but as of yet hasn't defined the criteria for exemption. However it's likely this will be set according to turnover, staff numbers and/or product tonnage.

In the case of WEEE and batteries, it's likely due to the specific Directive requirements that these producers will still need to register.

Also outlined in the discussion paper is a change to cost recovery for packaging and WEEE regimes through the introduction of a compliance scheme subsistence charge - as already exists for the batteries scheme. This would see compliance schemes pay an annual subsistence charge, plus a charge for each of their producer members, while direct registrants (packaging only) would pay a registration charge.

Other proposals made within the review include:

• removing the need for exporters to identify end destination sites for exported material;
• extending the "carrying forward" of evidence to WEEE and batteries;
• introducing a common registration process (either single deadline or staggered);
• adopting the option of group registration for WEEE and batteries;
• imposing fees on waste producers if targets are not met;
• streamlining registration information;
• consolidating the producer registration charge across all the regimes, based on a two-tier charge according to producer size;
• introducing a "common competency test" for all operators; and
• standardising terminology used across all three producer responsibility regimes.

Responses to the proposals must be received by 31 May.

For more information, see the:

• Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations SI 2006/3289;
• Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations SI 2007/871;
• Producer Responsibility Obligations (Packaging Waste) Regulations (Northern Ireland) SR 2007/198;
• Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations SI 2009/890.

Smart-thinking bods at Newcastle University have constructed a pop-up cafe within the university's main campus which is entirely made from recycled materials, apart from the coffee.

Local engineers, architects, and social scientists have spent three months building the cafe which is constructed from food packaging - including plastic bottle chairs, walls made from cardboard boxes, and aprons made from plastic bags.

Designed to challenge the perception of waste as well as explore new ways of creating sustainable buildings, the cafe is the brainchild of civil engineers Professor Stephanie Glendinning and Dr Mark Powell and director of architecture Graham Farmer.

''Upcycling is about taking material that would normally be considered waste and turning it into something of value,'' explains Dr Powell. ''It's already happening in areas such as the fashion industry but we wanted to see if we could take it up a scale and use what we would normally throw away to create a sustainable structure which not only raises awareness but also triggers discussion and motivates change."

''In other words,'' adds Farmer, ''The cafe itself will stimulate conversation and hopefully a change in mindset about what is and isn't waste. In this project we are exchanging coffee for conversation, asking people to think about how they might re-use stuff they normally throw away.''

The U-cafe project has been carried out largely by postgraduate architecture students as part of a linked research project. The project connects research directly with teaching and develops a sense of responsibility amongst young designers to use and source sustainable materials.

Professor Glendinning says the next step is to look at how materials could be re-engineered at source with a view to being reused at the end. ''This would completely change the way we view waste,'' she explains. ''For example, if we can design a milk carton like a Lego brick that could be fitted together with hundreds of others to build a garden shed then the carton ceases to be waste. If these carton components can be joined in a multitude of different ways, then the construction and business possibilities are endless, limited only by the imagination of each individual."

For more information, see the:

• Waste (England and Wales) Regulations SI 2011/988;
• Waste (Scotland) Regulations SSI 2011/226;
• Waste Regulations (Northern Ireland) SR 2011/127.

The 43rd annual Earth Day has arrived!

Earth Day, which was born in America in 1970, occurs on 22 April every year and is a day set aside to raise awareness of the environment and climate change.

There are various events occurring around the world today in a bid to promote eco-friendly living. For example, the Earth Day Network reports that in:

• Argentina, volunteers from the Surfrider Foundation are cleaning up the local beaches and planting evergreens and Tamarisk shrubs to help prevent wind and water erosion;
• Milan, thousands of people are gathering for the Earth Day Italia Festival to learn about environmental issues and spur action on local green initiatives;
• Seoul, South Korea, Ecomom Korea is organising an "Eco-style" Earth Day Flash Mob, a variation of the popular song "Gangnam Style" as well as hosting an Earth Day walkathon and an Earth Day exhibition, which will showcase "The Face of Climate Change" photo display.

There is even an Earth Day festival in Santa Barbara, California and Google has designed a special "doodle" to mark the occasion, as it does every year, which can be seen on its homepage.

So, what are you doing for Earth Day 2013? You can tweet us with your ideas @cedrec_news.

For more information, see the:

• Earth Day Network website, at earthday.org.

As heartthrob Peter Andre was filming new scenes for his smash TV series "Peter Andre: My Life" near the Dungeness B power station in Kent, little did he know that the plant was spilling a radioactive material called tritium.

An international chemical firm, Tata Chemicals Europe Ltd, has been prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for multiple incidents which put them in breach of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations SI 1995/3163.

Chester Crown Court heard of three incidents involving safety at Tata Chemicals in 2010. The first incident involved an employee who suffered severe burns when their right foot fell through a missing part of metal grating which exposed them to a toxic liquid at temperatures of 95°C.

The second incident happened six months after, when a dangerous gas was released resulting in high levels of carbon monoxide in the area of the plant where employees were working. Investigations found that employees didn't have enough practical training for the activity which caused the gas leak and the emergency procedures were inadequate.

Then, in November 2010, a worker was injured when part of the gantry they were walking along gave way due to corrosion. When the HSE inspector visited the factory, they discovered the company had failed to report another part of the grating on the same walkway collapsing two days before the incident.

Tata Chemicals Europe Ltd was fined a total of £100,750 for six offences and was ordered to pay £71,082 in costs.

HSE inspector Gill Chambers said, "A company the size of Tata Chemicals should never have allowed these incidents to occur, and the lives of its workers were put at risk as a result. The general conditions we found at the plant were extremely poor. Some of the gantries were in desperate need of repair after becoming badly corroded and the practical training for staff was also inadequate, meaning they did not take appropriate measures in emergency situations.

"The chemical industry has the potential to be extremely dangerous so it’s vital that firms like Tata Chemicals make health and safety their top priority. Unfortunately, the company fell way below acceptable standards on multiple occasions."