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?

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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.