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.