Category: James’ Diary

This month sees Recycle Week take place – running from 25th September to 1st October and championed by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP). The theme is Recycle – It’s Worth It, focusing on the idea of what goes around, comes around. The concept is to highlight the lifecycle of materials and food from

As I have previously noted on this blog, good intentions in healthcare don’t sort waste, and there is a clear challenge to improve segregation rates when it comes to hazardous and non-hazardous wastes across the healthcare sector. The proper use of colour-coded bin liners for different grades of hazardous waste is clearly at the front

The results of a large recycling survey undertaken for coffee producer Nespresso showed that many urban respondents wished they could recycle more. Reasons for not feeling able to recycle included lack of bins, lack of information and – significantly, living in a flat. In fact, while 91% of people surveyed by the company living in

Interesting news from Norway recently as the government committed to tackling rogue operations in its cleaning sector, and improving conditions for cleaning operatives. It’s fantastic to see policymakers take this key issue very seriously – so-called ‘cowboy’ cleaning outfits give everyone a bad name, and their practices can even involve the enslavement of some cleaners

A flurry of stories have recently hit the headlines about plastics and recycling, from demands for a tax on plastic drinking straws to the naming and shaming some of the worst offenders for unrecyclable packaging. This in turn has promoted renewed calls for manufacturers to produce packaging that can be used again and again, and

It is a waste of time, effort and resources to implement separate waste collection for healthcare facilities if staff and visitors are not on board with the initiative. Cromwell Polythene Managing Director James Lee explores the problem of good intentions failing at the point of disposal, and what can be done to tackle this.  

It’s no coincidence that rejection rates at material recycling facilities (MRF’s) are increasing as the switch to commingling gains momentum. And where’s the sense in that? Are we seriously prepared to negate all those years of painstaking education, in which we preached the value-added virtues of separate waste streams, for the sake of a minority