Date published: 2006/03/25
The latest edition of "Cambridge Matters" has arrived through the door. As usual, it is more worthy of being composted than being read, and you have to wonder how much energy is wasted producing and distributing it.
At least in this edition we learn that broken glass should not be left in the kerbside black boxes (page 10), but apparently broken glass can be left in bottle banks (page 14). And Pyrex and Visionware cannot be recycled with ordinary glass (page 13 and again page 14). Unfortunately useful information like that is buried in the midst of pages and pages of propaganda.
In the article on glass recycling (page 12) it states: "every tonne of glass recycled saves 1.2 tonnes of raw materials and the equivalent of 30 gallons of oil in energy". Well, they do not state it, but presumably that is ignoring the cost (and so consumption in energy) of gathering and sorting the glass. If recycling glass (or anything else) really was so energy efficient, companies would pay to go around collecting it.
In the "welcome letter" (page 3) it says: "UK recycling has had some bad press recently, with rumours of it being landfilled by unscrupulous companies. In this edition we examine what happens to your recycling after you put it out for collection". Well, except they don't really. In particular, they fail to mention that all the plastic they are picking up at great expense is getting shipped off to China. (And who knows what happens to it there.)
Cambridgeshire is also getting a new waste treatment facility (page 17). Needless to say, the bureaucrats will dump this on some unsuspecting and powerless rural community and expect them to live with the consequences, without any compensation.
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