Too fast for me

Standing on the platform at Stevenage railway station last week, waiting for the train back to Leeds, an announcement advised that the next train at the platform opposite would not be stopping. A few seconds later a train passed through the station at 125 miles per hour.

Some minutes later, the same thing happened at the platform I was standing on. However, this time the train hurtling down the track at 125 miles per hour was probably 3 feet away from me, or less. You could feel the turbulence in the air around - this was truly unnerving and my colleague and I were quite disturbed by this.

I have thought about this quite a bit. So here are a few points to consider. If you come and visit my factory where we injection mould and blow mould plastic products, you will be required to wear specific safety clothing to ensure you are visible and you will not be able to get anywhere near any moving machine parts which are protected by screens, locked panels and the like.

If you go anywhere near a railway line, quite correctly you will be removed by the police and whilst this is going on the trains will not run until you are removed.

You can't go for a walk down the hard shoulder of a motorway because it is dangerous to be close to traffic moving at high speed.

It is right and proper that health and safety should be a priority and the previous statements are proof that this principle is generally being followed.

How then can a train be allowed to travel at 125 miles per hour just inches from members of the public?

Does anyone share my concerns?

--------------------------------------------------
I'm adding some notes having just been at Huntingdon station today. There are four lines. Many trains passed through at speed - all on the central two lines and well away from people. This is sensible and not a problem. I think if there are only two lines through a station it should be forbidden for a train to pass through at anything like the speed they are doing.

To sort or not to sort

Readers may recall that last June I asked the Prime Minister about what he could do to improve the quality of recycled materials collected in the UK, specifically to deal with the issue of material of such a poor standard that it could only be exported to India or China. As I reported at the time, the PM answered a different question about recycling, not the one I had asked him.

So, when Mark Prisk, the Minister for Business & Enterprise came to Leeds a few weeks ago, I asked him the same question. Prisk also answered a different question and told me that he would be working with packaging manufacturers to improve the recyclability of materials not currently collected. All very worthy, but not what I wanted to know.

Rather than letting Mr Prisk off the hook, I wrote to him to explain in more detail. I pointed out the potential for job creation through improving the quality of recycled materials collected and I further pointed out that the recent Waste Review had make all the right noises about this issue but had failed to translate these into policies.

To his credit, Mr Prisk sent my correspondence to Lord Taylor of Holbeach who is the minister responsible for recycling.

Lord Taylor replied in October and a copy of his letter was forwarded to me. This stated that the Government believes that the choice of collection methods is up to individual local authorities and should reflect local circumstances, demographics and customer needs. He went on to explain that collection methods ranged from "fully source separated" to "fully co-mingled" and in the latter case the material would be "separated in a Materials Recycling Facility or MRF".

Whilst the Government has faith in these MRFs being able to provide material of a suitable quality for domestic and export markets he acknowledged improvements could be made. To this end, his department (Defra) would be working with the waste management industry to develop a "MRF code of practice" to promote quality. The code would be voluntary but possibly could be mandatory.

Now to go back to basics. If you collect recyclable materials and sort them at the kerbside you end up with well sorted, high value, high quality material. If you collect in the "co-mingled" method described by the minister, you then have a problem to solve. The MRF is one such solution to that problem.

A voluntary code of practice for MRFs is a bit like a voluntary Christmas dinner for turkeys. The bar will have to be set very low for many MRFs to sign up to it.

But here is where the fun starts. My friends at the Campaign for Real Recycling (CRR) reckon that Defra has incorrectly transposed the European Revised Waste Framework Directive into UK law and that commingling is contrary to the spirit of this legislation. The CRR has been granted a judicial review and Defra believes that it is going to lose this.

As such Defra has announced that it intends to change the wording of the legislation to ensure that "multi bin recycling systems are not imposed on residents", but ensuring quality is maintained. However, either the Directive requires separate collections or it does not and it is difficult to understand how Defra could change the law to make something that is illegal allowable.

So now, all of the vested interests are making a lot of noise. But at the end of the day, the Directive is what it is and poor quality is surely unacceptable. The materials industry is now coming together under the new Resources Association to stand up for quality. The battle lines are being drawn. Government is on the fence.

It will be fascinating to see how this plays out. Daily Mail readers should prepare for the frenzied headlines that will surely follow.

On weekly waste collections

Eric Pickles. FB for Brentwood and Ongar.

I was interested to hear that in the hard times we live in, when schools can't afford books and hospitals leave people to die on trolleys that Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has earmarked £250 million pounds for that one priority that stands over all others - the weekly collection of rubbish.


Pickles seems to be the only one who wants this, so why has he been allowed to spend so much public money on restoring what no-one either wants or needs? 


It is interesting that Pickles, so critical of wastefulness in government, seems to be bending over backwards to encourage householders to waste as much as they possibly can. Indeed the Government's own research suggests that the policy could result in an additional 1.5 million tonnes of waste being sent to landfill every year. 


So called "fortnightly collections" are now carried out by around half of English councils. This not only saves money, cuts the carbon footprint of the collections and raises revenue for local councils but also encourages people to recycle a lot more. The problem of bins becoming smelly over a fortnight has been addressed by somewhere around one quarter of those on fortnightly collections by a separate weekly collection of food waste. This method is recommended by WRAP, the government agency responsible for recycling. 

Mr Pickles says be believes that: "every household in England has a basic right to have their rubbish collected every week."

But Julian Kirby, the Friends of the Earth's waste campaigner, said: "A return to weekly bin collections is an astonishing waste of taxpayers' money and will have a disastrous impact on recycling." 


So what do the public think? Pickles is on record stating that fortnightly collections are "unpopular and unhygienic". Recycling specialists May Gurney, who run many local authority contracts, recently carried out a survey to see which local authority services people most value and those which they would most like to see changed. Refuse and recycling services were named as the most important council service by 44% of respondents - more than any other answer. Only 13% thought this area needed improving. So the government line does not appear to follow what the public want, as support for recycling is in fact very high.


However, reading between the lines, it seems Mr Pickles could have shot himself in the foot. Pickles provides the finances for local councils but it is Caroline Spelman who is responsible for recycling policy. According to the Daily Mail (no fan of recycling it has to be said) she is indeed earmarking the £250 million for weekly collections, but for smelly waste only. That means food waste and that as I pointed out earlier is the correct way forward.


Pickles hates food waste collections calling the caddies "slop buckets". We have made several million such caddies, proudly produced in the UK from recycled plastics creating jobs and value for our shareholders. As the Prime Minister told me himself earlier this year, "they are not slop buckets". We all know this, Daily Mail readers excepted. 


So it seems Mr Pickles is out of step with his boss, his voters and the environmental lobby. But having got his grubby hands on a cool £1/4 billion, it could well be that it is all going to be recycled into more food waste collections after all. Nice one Eric! 

Lessons from a marketing genius

If you haven't read Hegarty on Advertising yet then you should. It is a great book by a great man. Sir John Hegarty was responsible for such great advertising campaigns as Vorsprung durch Technik for Audi and the great launderette TV campaign for Levis. The latter actually created a boom in demand for boxer shorts (showing underpants was not allowed) and also got Marvin Gaye in the charts at a higher position than he had been first time round with I heard it through the grapevine.

So when I heard that Sir John was speaking at The Telegraph Festival of Business I made a point of going to listen to him.  Here are just a few of the words of wisdom he shared.

Sir John had three key principles which he says apply in marketing:

1) The power of ideas is fundamentally important

2) The quality of the product is also important

3) Don't fear being different - because in difference value is created.

He went on to say that the first lesson of marketing is "can I remember it" claiming that memorability is the most important thing. Music to my ears as memorability is one of my Straight 10 Commandments. 

Market research was given short shrift with Sir John claiming that research ultimately will make everything the same. Difference is too important to ignore.

During the Q&A session I told Sir John that I had enjoyed his book immensely and that whilst it was initially a large book that I thought might take some time to read, the very large print and the thick pages actually made it a very quick and easy volume to digest. I then asked if he had ever advised a company to be so different that it damaged their brand. Sir John said that he probably had but he couldn't remember specifics. 

Later on I collared Sir John for a brief chat. Straight plc does some work with Zag, a spin off of BBH and I have visited their offices just off Regent Street in London a few times. I told him the question I really wanted to ask was where he found all of the beautiful women who work there. He just gave me a knowing smile, patted me on the back and was off to his next engagement. 

Times must be hard

Last week I was a delegate at The Telegraph Festival of Business in Manchester. Several hundred business owners and managers from a wide range of SMEs attended to hear various speakers including the Chancellor George Osborne.

During a Q&A session I asked George a question about Capital Gains Tax. I commended him on raising entrepreneurs' relief but reminded him that a problem remains with employee incentives.

My key staff who have share options and LTIPs (long term incentive plans) do not own 5% of the business and as such do not qualify for the 10% tax band. They all work hard in order to make the business a success and they will all deserve to be rewarded should the share price rise or should the business be sold.

They would all be taxed at 28% under current rules. I believe there is an inequality here where the people gaining the most from such transactions (i.e. the owners) will pay a much lower rate of tax than those who are benefiting substantially less.

To his credit, George understood the question perfectly. This was refreshing. I asked David Cameron the same question about 1 week into his premiership and he appeared not to understand what I was asking. Osborne said that he had every sympathy but that he had to be careful not to create any new loop holes that might be exploited.

It was then that I noticed the great big hole in the sole of George's shoe. Being quite a smartly presented fellow I am sure he would be horrified to know that anyone had seen this. I tweeted about seeing this hole, which was then also noticed by Daily Telegraph City Editor Richard Fletcher. Somehow word got to columnist and cobbler John Timpson who has offered to collect George's shoes and fix them. What a great idea as long as Georgie boy submits a declaration of interest of course.

They are not slop buckets!

Research by Friends of the Earth has found that more than 80% of people separating food waste for disposal say that the practice is not a nuisance. More than half of those who do not have food waste containers also agree.

This dispels the slop bucket myth being propagated by the Daily Mail, Eric Pickles and others.

At the CEO Summit the Prime Minister told me that "they are not slop buckets". I know this, having supplied many millions of kitchen and kerbside caddies to households around the UK, but it is good that the man at the top shares this philosophy.

FoE waste campaigner Julian Kirby said:

“It’s a load of rubbish that food waste collections are smelly and unpopular - most people think they’re hassle-free and want all councils to provide them. As food prices rise, it is even more important that we cut waste and recycle the scraps that cannot be eaten, and we can make genuinely renewable energy from what is left over. David Cameron must build on the success and popularity of recycling by setting a goal to halve the rubbish England throws away by the end of the decade.”

Hear hear.

Would you walk over hot coals?

Well, would you? I was asked to do this to raise money for charity and I must admit that initially I was not keen. After all, who in their right mind would walk over 20 feet of red hot embers?

I have agreed to do this on 30th October - just a couple of months away. Having researched it, I believe there is more science and less mind over matter and it is a combination of the poor conductivity of the coals, the insulating properties of carbon and the short time the feet are in contact with the coals that makes this possible. Nonetheless, I still expect it to be a challenging and somewhat daunting experience.

My part of the deal is to tell you all how I get on and possibly let you have some pictures. Your part is to sponsor me. Please do so at the link below.

www.virginmoneygiving.com/team/LJWB5

Thank you.

Keep taking the tablets

I am rarely parted from my iPad using it for a whole host of activities which it simplifies and makes more accessible. It is also a pleasure to be able to review e-mails whilst sitting in a chair rather than being at a desk in front of a monitor.

We should not forget, however, that the idea of a tablet PC is not new. I was an early adopter of this technology and I used one of these HP Compaq TC1000s which I bought nearly 10 years ago - in 2002. It was an amazing machine being compact and light as well as having a detachable keyboard. With its digital pen, I used it as an electronic notebook for several years. This was preferable to my many paper notebooks all of which I have had to keep in case I want to refer back to anything. Having digital notes was a dream.



The pen broke after a couple of years, but I still used the tablet for a while more - in fact up to 2007 when it proved to be just too slow. I looked far and wide to find something similar, but to no avail. There were some Fujitsu tablets but these were too heavy and got very hot whilst running. No one had what I wanted.

So the iPad  was keenly antiricpated (bought on day 1 of availabilty) and whilst is not very good for taking written notes it is great at most other tasks. So the current travelling kit is an iPad and a Moleskine notebook with a real pen.

I read today that HP is pulling out of the tablet PC market. Having been a pioneer in this field, this is a real shame. But it is also a lesson about seeing the value in what you have available in your business. HP were years ahead of Apple but failed to recognise the true potential of their intellectual property. The rest, as they say, is history.

It I can take a positive out of the HP and Apple experience, it shows that you don't actually have to have a great idea to be hugely successful. Something which lacks originality but remains innovative can be great too.

Vertically integrating hardware and software has also been shown to work. HP was reliant on Microsoft's clunky Windows for Tablet PCs whilst Apple controls the lot. I think this demonstrates the wisdom in Google's purchase of Motorola as a platform for Android.

So whilst my HP tablet was a great piece of kit, not surpassed until the advent of the iPad - I would still rather have the iPad any day of the week.

The future of education

A letter arrived last week from the Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove.  It seems that it was sent to everyone who attended the Time CEO Summit back in June.

In the letter he asks if I (either as an individual, or through my business) would like to sponsor an academy. Gove does not want my money, he wants my expertise. His department will find an under-performing school and then it is up to me to choose a head, appoint leaders, set goals and apply my "skills" to put the school on a "path of sustained improvement".

The letter goes on to inform me that I don't need to know anything about educational theory. I should think about where I would send my children (the implication is that this will not be a state school) and then apply the qualities that establishment would have to a failing state school.

As a bonus, it I want to "embrace the challenge" I can meet the Prime Minister.

I could not believe this letter. I thought it was a hoax. This is not a Government policy I had previously heard about or read about.

Yes, get business people to help because we may have skills that are not evident in the public or educational sectors. But isn't this what being a school governor is all about? But giving someone with no experience in education whatsoever the responsibility to run a school? Just because we went to a high flying conference. These are real children with their futures at stake and it simply is not fair to experiment with their lives.

Mr Gove told us that at age 11 a child in Singapore has better skills in English than a child in England. So it it actually so hopeless under his regime that anything would be better or nothing would be worse?  Or is it just when it goes spectacularly wrong that they can say that it was not their fault?

I'm waiting for more letters now, perhaps inviting me to run a battalion in the Army, a Navy frigate, a police station, maybe a hospital or a job centre. Perhaps HM Government would like us entrepreneurs to fight the war in Libya - after all we couldn't make much worse a job of it than they have.

Why collecting garden waste is ludicrous.

The residents of Kirklees are not happy. Their council is now going to charge for the collection of garden waste as part of a major cost cutting initiative. Householders will pay £1 for a bag and will have to buy at least 5 bags at once.

Household waste sites will still take the waste but in my view this is still not the correct solution.

Noreen Logan of the Huddersfield and District Pensioners' Organisation calls this "ludicrous". She states that this will hit the disabled and the elderly.

Aside from any obvious arguments along the lines of people not being so disabled that they can still do the gardening but when it comes to taking the waste to the household waste site they are incapacitated, having garden waste collected is ludicrous full stop.

Let's look at what is needed for people to have their garden waste collected.
1) A separate wheeled bin
2) Bin lorries to collect the garden waste
3) An industrial composting facility
4) Somewhere for the used compost to go.

The alternative is to compost at home.
1) Compost bins cost less than £20 via the council
2) The material does not need to be collected saving CO2 emissions, lorries and extra bins
3) There is no need to an industrial composting facility with the associated energy consumption and CO2 emissions, space needed and odour problems to those nearby
4) The compost is made at home and dug in at home. This completes the carbon cycle and can actually reduce CO2 rather than the collection method which only increases it.

Anyone serious about gardening should be composting at home - end of story. Kirklees have got it right. There is a clear financial incentive for home composting and their plans will save £250,000. Other councils are following suit and good for them.

So, Ms Logan, it is you who are ludicrous. Stop this crusade against what is best for the environment and get composting!

The United Bank of Carbon

The article below was posted on the United Bank of Carbon blog about the work Straight plc has done on carbon offsetting. This was to offset all 2010 emissions associated with our Steelybin product. The article was written by Jonathan Wild, former Chairman of Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate. Straight plc is delighted to be associated with this project and we thank Jonathan for promoting the work we are doing.

Congratulations to one of our project sponsors, Straight plc, which has recently enjoyed a couple of notable business successes. The Yorkshire-based recycling company has won a contract for the largest single order to date of its Steelybin containers. Straight will supply the London Waste and Recycling Board with over 1,000 Steelybin four wheel recycling containers as part of the Board’s recycling programme.

Straight also celebrated being awarded the right to display the Carbon Trust’s Carbon Reduction Label on all its polypropylene recycling containers, showing that it is committed to actively reducing the carbon footprint of its products over time. Products must have undergone an assessment of their total greenhouse gas emissions at every stage of their life cycle in order to display the label.

This business vision is complemented by Straight’s investment in a UBoC project in Uganda, Trees for Global Benefits, which links small holder farmers to the international carbon market, sequestering carbon through reforestation and agroforestry. The company has purchased 1,000 Plan Vivo Certificates (voluntary carbon credits) from Ecotrust.

 Straight’s partnership with the Ugandan rainforest project gives its environmental work a ‘completeness’ and demonstrates its leadership intent. As one of the UK’s leading suppliers of waste and recycling products, the company is committed to continuing to be at the forefront of innovation and setting the benchmark for others to follow. Straight’s success is another a great demonstration of how a commitment to the environment delivers real business benefits.

On seaweed

I was visited a few days ago by the inspirational Dr Craig Rose from the Seaweed Health Foundation. Seaweed is interesting stuff. I eat Japanese seaweed from time to time, there is one call arame which is really good.  Also, anyone who likes sushi will be eating nori which is the green wrapping.

Seaweed is not really the right word for these type of foods. It would be better to call them sea vegetables or even marine vegetables.

What is really interesting is that some species are very high in protein. WRAP advised that if we are to hit our carbon emissions targets, meat consumption needs to fall by 50-75% over the coming years. Innovative sources of protein will be important and I think that some seaweeds might just fit the bill. And with over 70% of the earth's surface covered by sea there should be no shortage of space to farm it.

But it doesn't stop there. A team at Sheffield Hallam University has been experimenting with a seaweed derived salt substitute. We all know that too much salt is bad for the blood pressure. This product is only 3.5% sodium but has all the taste. Seaweed it truly a wonder food.

And just when you thought it couldn't get any better, Dr Rose believes that seaweeds could be used to generate electricity through anaerobic digestion. Again, we are not short of space to farm the stuff.

I'm off now to think about seaweed-based vegeburgers. I think seaweed will play a big part in the future.

Visit www.seaweedhealthfoundation.org.uk - they even have recipes!

Marcus Brigstocke

Thank you to the lovely Louise Simmonds from 

MRW for sending me this great photo of the 

wonderful Marcus Brigstocke admiring my moustache.

My specs are KH by Eyewitness.

On moustaches

I attended the National Recycling Awards in London last week as a judge of the competition and a guest of the organisers, Materials Recycling Week. All of the judges had their pictures posted up on the video screens running through much of the evening and a good time was had by all.

We were entertained by the extremely amusing Marcus Brigstocke who was very funny, unless of course you were Scottish or French or came from Norfolk in which case you probably would not be quite so amused.

Marcus took to the stage looking wonderfully hirsute as you can see in the image below. He said that he had grown this moustache and beard for a part in The Railway Children and seeing as this was not his usual appearance, he had been very nervous about doing his standup act with this new look. Until he saw the picture of me, that is.



Marcus leapt from the stage and ran to my table to shake my hand telling me that my moustache was wonderful. There was a lot of laughter - I hope with me, and it was all a lot of fun.

I then met the inimitable Ranjit Singh Baxi who like me uses moustache wax. His is home made. He told me how he makes it but I am not sure if I am allowed to share the recipe as I think it is a family secret.



For the record, my own moustache now needs two coats of wax each day. For more years than I can remember I used the American Pinaud wax which was perfect. Then they changed the formula and it was not quite firm enough.














The only product I could find as a replacement that worked was called Hungarian Moustache Wax, bought from Bremen. And because the Germans don't take credit cards it is a real pain to get hold of. The only problem with the Hungarian product is that it is white.





So, I put a coat of the new Pinaud wax over the top to get the colour right.  The Pinaud wax comes with a free plastic comb which is pretty useless. They are also not recyclable.













So now you all know how the Straight moustache is manicured.
Those who were expecting a post about seaweed will have to wait a day or two longer.


For the truly devoted, there is a picture of Marcus and me on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nra2011/5939148635/

Rupert Murdoch

Readers of my posts will note some positive comments made in recent weeks about Rupert Murdoch. These were written before the whole 'phone hacking scandal blew up. If it is demonstrated that he was involved in everything that has been alleged than clearly no one in their right mind would want to defend such a character.

Someone asked me today why Murdoch looks so smug in his recent photographs. I suppose if you are more powerful than any government minister and if you can control the police it must be one hell of a secret to keep to yourself. Maybe this now being common knowledge gives some sense of satisfaction?

I think I should now start to write about something else. My next post will be about seaweed.

Why supermarkets will continue to sell less and less

With ASDA and Tesco recently reporting falling sales, I thought about the afternoon in London in March 2007 when WRAP revealed its latest research. We were told that 1/3 of food purchased is thrown away - most of it good enough to eat.

This staggering figure, 8.3 million tonnes per year, is simply wasted.

At the time, I thought how this might pan out. There were two possible outcomes.
1) We all eat 1/3 more - consequences, we all get very fat and very ill
2) We all buy 1/3 less - consequences, massive reduction in revenues for retailers and everyone along the supply chain.

Since then WRAP has worked hard on educating the public into wasting less food. One study in Oxfordshire showed that people do respond to this  with an extra 4% of people committing to wasting much less food than they previously were.

I would like to think that supermarket sales are falling because people are wasting less. The collective belt-tightening we are all going through must surely help in this respect.

But how can anyone run a business knowing that 1/3 of what they sell goes straight in the bin? That really is criminal. Common sense needs to prevail and I am afraid when it does, supermarket sales might fall further still.

The Campaign for Real Recycling

Straight plc is a proud founder member of the Campaign for Real Recycling which wants government and local authorities to act urgently to improve the quality of materials collected for recycling in the UK. Real recycling is about maximising the economic, environmental and social benefits of recycling for everyone, from the local council tax payer to the global reprocessing industry.

The press release below was sent out today. We hope the Campaign is successful.

The Campaign for Real Recycling believes everyone involved in recycling will benefit from knowing where they stand with regard to the requirement of the revised Waste Framework Directive for ensuring separate collection of paper, plastic, glass and metal by 2015. CRR believes that it is better that all stakeholders establish together this year, rather than some time in the future, whether the UK's transposition of the rWFD is consistent and lawful, such that everyone can plan for the medium-to-long term.

Accordingly, an application by a representative group of CRR stakeholders for a judicial review of the Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011 was filed last week in the High Court. In the view of the claimants, these Regulations, which allow full comingling in collections, fail to transpose properly rWFD Article 11 and are therefore not a proper and legal transposition of the rWFD as a whole.

Mal Williams, Chair of CRR, said: “We have not requested this judicial review lightly. We understand the concerns of councils and their service providers. If we are to build an industry that is in step with our European counterparts, capable of maximising value from the UK's waste resources, this is an issue which needs resolving this year.

“Kerbside-sorted recycling collections produce the quality of material favoured by materials reprocessors in the UK and this approach is also consistent with obtaining best value for money. For reasons which will no doubt become apparent to everyone in due course, Defra has not taken the opportunity to enact regulation consistent with these facts or in our view with the wording of the WFD. Given that, obtaining clarity in this matter unfortunately requires us to resort to legal action, but that clarity is surely something to be welcomed by all parties in our industry.

“Regardless of the outcome, we hope that local authorities recognise the priority of obtaining high-quality recyclate and the potential for closing the loop with UK reprocessors. We urge all councils to work with this branch of the domestic recycling industry to drive standards.”

What a waste

A couple of weeks ago, the coalition Government published its Waste Review. 12 months in the making, and no doubt many millions spent on its research and publication, it has been eagerly awaited by the industry. The Government claims to want to be the greenest ever. Buy, oh dear, they forgot  to tell anyone how they were going to achieve this ambitious goal.

The Waste Review is a truly appalling document. It is full of good ideas, but empty of clear policy or direction. It is also totally devoid of anything radically new or any real ambition.

But don't just take my word for it.

Friends of the Earth said, "The Government has spent a year reviewing its approach to rubbish - at vast public expense - and all it's managed to do is reduce its ambition, recycle old ideas and dump its commitment to a zero waste economy."

"The Government's Waste Review published today (Tuesday) is disappointing, lacking a clear programme of delivery," from the British Retail Consortium.

The Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee - "The strategy is trying to hurtle towards the future with its eyes firmly fixed on the rear view mirror."

And whilst the Chartered Institute of Wastes Management welcomed some of the proposals it acknowledged that "more needs to be done".

Apparently Caroline Spelman (Secretaty of State for the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) has fallen out with Eric Pickles (Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government) over the Waste Review and they are now not speaking to each other. It is a pleasure to know that something good, however small,  has come out of this sad and sorry document.

The Future Tent

This is the future tent. It was designed by Vanessa Harden and will last 3 days before biodegrading. It is also embedded with plant seeds, so something will grow where the tent was once pitched.

Apparently Vanessa designed this tent in response to the 40,000 tents which are abandoned at Glastonbury each year. That is a lot of tents. Are tents really cheap, are the people who go to Glastonbury filfthy rich and just don't care? Or is it the case that the Glastonbury Festival encourages the type of behaviour not fitting a civilised society? Do let me know.

Back from the Summit 2

The CEO Summit earlier this week was a collection of the great and the good in British industry and government.

As well as the Prime Minister, and the Leader of the Opposition, we were entertained by Boris Johnson and lectured by Michael Gove. Michael told us that at age 11 children in Singapore out perform our own schoolchildren in English, what an absolute disgrace.

Delegates included Dr Mike Lynch of Autonomy, Lord Paul from Caparo, Sir Stuart Rose, Willie Walsh, Lord Wolfson from Next, and Vittorio Colao, CEO of Vodafone,  who told us all that his wife had trouble getting a mobile broadband signal during a weekend away in the countryside. Remarkable honesty but also quite funny.

But with all these high flyers and leading politicians, let me tell you who really impressed me. It was Rupert Murdoch.

Here is a man who is 80 years old but physically in great shape with a razor sharp mind, great sense of humour and an ability to cut through to the core of an issue in a very direct but perhaps outspoken manner.

Worth more then $6 billion he sat with us all during the conference, apparently with no security, and certainly no pomp or fuss. He spoke with passion and vision about his new venture into educational media in the US and told us how he was embracing digital distribution. He said he did not care if we did not buy his newspapers because the content would be viewed on line instead. This is quite something from a man who made his fortune from newspapers.

When I briefly spoke to him after his presentation he was charming, polite and grateful to receive positive feedback. 

So I wondered what the secret of having that much energy at 80 years old must be.  Well, it turns out that his wife Wendy Deng (who is a mere 42 years old) is a vegan. He must have been eating great, healthy food for the last 12 years since he married her. As another pro-vegan I can vouch for the wonders of a near vegan diet and I fully expect Rupert to be impressing me and others for many years to come on the back of it.

Back from the Summit 1.

Earlier this week I was invited to attend the CEO Summit in London. This event, run by The Times was a collection of CEOs of businesses as well as their chairmen and others besides. There were some seriously big names there.

We listened to politicians and business leaders talk about a radical agenda for growth in the UK. Some of it was radical, some of it not quite so radical.

We then debated our own thoughts over lunch and came up with key points to put into a letter to George Osborne. This was published in The Times today and I suppose sent over to George at the same time.

Poor George was not able to attend the Summit himself. He had a Greek banking crisis to deal with and had to drop out at the last minute. He was hastily replaced my Ed Milliband who amazingly does not have a speech impediment when heard in person. (I think the BBC must edit it in post production just to make him sound like an idiot).

Prior to all this, on Monday evening a group of about 100 of us assembled at The Times offices for a keynote address from the Prime Minister followed by dinner. He is always impressive, speaking confidently without notes and able to take questions on anything. But David does have a tendency to say what his audience want to hear. He also has a habit of not answering the questions he is asked. This was the second time that I have asked the PM a question and it was the the second time that he did not give a clear answer.

My question was about recycling in the UK. Specifically about improving the quality of material collected. Some material we collect is sorted at the kerbside giving high quality, high value material which can be reprocessed and used within the UK. Other material we collect is mixed together and once sorted out is of such poor quality that is has to go overseas, generally to China or India. I reminded the PM that his coalition had committed to being the greenest government ever and that in the recently published Waste Review it had stated that waste made up 1/6 of our non fossil fuel exports but only 2% of the value. Surely by increasing quality we could keep valuable material in the UK, create jobs (50,000 according to FoE) and reduce emissions. The current lack of a high recycling target for England could lead to more exports and a drift towards incineration. Would the PM consider a target at least?

Well, he said he would look at a target, but this is a bit late as the Waste Review is only days old. He rambled about local authorities having a market for their materials, how the landfill tax was going up and how councils could use incentives - all to increase recycling. But material quality, the key issue, was not mentioned once. This was not lost on other members of the audience.

If I take one grain of comfort from this it was Mr Cameron telling us all that a food waste caddy is a great piece of kit, not a "slop bucket" as the Daily Mail calls them. I like food waste caddies having designed a range of them and then supplying many thousands, all of them helping to recycle an awful lot of food waste.  

So, being a persistent sort of a person, I will write to David Cameron and try again. Wonder if I'll get a reply? Watch this space.