Waste collection & recycling: example for municipalities from UK

The councils are being focused upon in a new scheme designed to improve recycling rates in the UK. The Local Government Association (LGA) is backing a project from the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) to get councils to commit to increasing their environmental efforts.

WRAP

a) WRAP helps individuals, businesses and local authorities to reduce waste and recycle more, making better use of resources and helping to tackle climate change.

b) Established as a not-for-profit company in 2000, WRAP is backed by government funding from England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. WRAP also receives funding from Advantage West Midlands.

c) Working in seven key areas (Construction, Retail, Manufacturing, Organics, Business and Markets, Behavioural Change, and Local Authority Support), WRAP’s work focuses on market development and support to drive forward recycling and materials resource efficiency within these sectors, as well as wider communications and awareness activities including the multi-media national Recycle Now campaign for England.

d) More information on all of WRAP's programmes can be found on www.wrap.org.uk

LGA

The LGA is a cross-party organisation which represents over 350 councils in England.

A ten-point voluntary agreement called the Waste Collection Commitment has been drawn up by WRAP and councils are being urged to sign up.

1 - Explain clearly what services you can expect to receive;

2 - Provide regular collections;

3 - Provide a reliable collection service;

4 - Consider any special requests that individual households may have;

5 - Design our services and carry out collections in a way that doesn’t produce litter;

6 - Collect as many materials for recycling as we can and explain to you what happens to them;

7 - Explain clearly what our service rules are and the reasons for them;

8 - Tell you in good time if we have to make changes to your services, even temporarily;

9 - Respond to complaints we receive about our services; and

10 - Tell all our residents about this commitment to collecting waste.

Waste collection and recycling is a serious problem in Indian cities. The effort made by UK government provides a good model for adoption by the municipal corporations.

India Should be Proud of Nano

It was JRD Tata who made air travel affordable to the common man. The history has been repeated with the launch of Nano. This time it Ratan Tata who realised the dream of million of Indians to own a car, at an affordable price. The middle class Indian finds it affordable even in these times of slowdown. Tata Nano is a great accomplishment of which all Indians should be proud of. There are two good reasons.

(a) Innovation: It is a vehicle fully designed, developed and manufactured in India. The car with an engine of 643 cc and a mileage of 23 kmpl, offers the comfort and luxury of the best car of its type in the world. The car satisfies all safety and emission norms. Besides, the company will be able to manufacture and export many vehicles.

The secret behind the Nano's performance is rather a simple engineering solution. The firing angles for the two cylinders are exactly 180 degrees apart, with both the pistons reciprocating exactly in tandem with each other. The result is a very impressive torque fugure of 48 Nm available from 2500 to 4000 rpm.

Just have a look at some of these cute features:
* Top speed 105 kmph; 0-60 kmph in 9 seconds
* BS III compliant, BS IV ready. It has lower emissions than the best selling 100 cc bikes in the country
* Seats four
* Turning diameter 8.0 m, parking easy

(b) Affordability: Even the idea of $ 2000 car was once ridiculed. The team Tata have proved all the doubting Thomas wrong. The Indian middle class nuclear family was kept in mind. Notwithstanding the statements of some environmentalists, the car is likely to reduce the road congestion and be environmentally friendly in the long term, if we consider that one car will replace at least two scooters. Besides, congestion is not am issue in rural India.