The government is scrapping charging for household rubbish in favour of a recycling rewards scheme. Which is more likely to cut rubbish and boost recycling?

UK government environment departments say £250m of cuts will have to come from conservation and green building schemes

Green organisations were today assessing how hard they would be hit by the £250m of cuts imposed by the coalition government.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will lose £162m, or 5.5% of its budget, and the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc), a comparatively minor £85m, or 2.5%. But both departments said today they would not be able to deliver the savings solely by limiting recruitment and making in-house spending and would be forced to cut capital programmes.

Britain's 200,000 farmers and landowners, who receive tens of billions of pounds of European subsidies for owning land and growing food, will escape most of the cuts because European common agricultural policy payments are made directly from Brussels. But conservation and green building efforts may be severely hit by a significant withdrawal of funding for regional development agencies which subsidise many agricultural, environment and renewable energy schemes.

Defra, which oversees planning, recycling, waste and conservation efforts and large watchdog organisations like the Environment Agency and Natural England, said it would have to slash capital programmes "across the board". A spokeswoman said that it could take "weeks" to finalise details. "Nothing has been decided yet," she said.

However, she added that the cuts would include flood defence funding, surveillance of some diseases, and IT programmes for farmers. Many of Defra's "daughter" or "arm's-length" bodies like British Waterways are also expected to be hit hard.

Decc, which spends far less on administration than Defra, is expected to have to cut deeply into home energy-efficiency programmes which could undermine the public take-up of low-carbon technologies. "It will be challenging for Decc as it already has low administrative spend, so we will have to look at some of our programme work," said a spokesman. He added that budget cuts would be made to as yet unallocated funds and no existing programmes would be hit.

The department's three largest delivery bodies, the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency, the Carbon Trust and the Energy Saving Trust, are all expected to see budgets cut by an average of 1% this year.

The Environmental Transformation Fund, which invests in emerging low-carbon technologies, will see its budget for this year cut by 22% to £120m, and the Low-Carbon Building Programme (LCBP), a grant scheme to support the installation of clean energy technologies in homes, will end immediately and will not be extended. LCBP grants for electricity-generating systems such as solar photovoltaics and wind turbines had already been withdrawn following the introduction of feed-in-tariffs that reward homeowners for each unit of clean power they produce. But until the government's announcement on Monday, grants were still available for heat-producing technologies such ground-source heat pumps and solar water heaters. The scheme is now closed to new applicants.

Although the ending of the LCBP is a relatively small cut – the savings will be just £3m – the announcement will most likely mean there will be no support for greener heating systems until at least spring 2011, when Labour's proposed Renewable Heat Incentive scheme is scheduled for launch.

Any cuts that Defra makes come on top of similar swingeing cuts made in 2007-08 and 2008-09 when £200m was slashed from the budgets of British Waterways, nature conservation organisations and other environment initiatives. "We have been cut to the bone already. There's not much left to slash," said one Defra insider today.

Environment groups reacted cautiously to the cuts. Ben Stafford, head of campaigns at the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) said: "The pledge to cut £600m from quangos looks politically attractive, although we don't at the moment know exactly where these cuts might fall. Ministers must recognise that cuts to public bodies will not always be consequence-free. A number perform important functions in the fields of planning and natural environment protection, and it is important that their departments champion these functions, including the ongoing importance of independent advice to ministers. Swinging the axe too vigorously now could mean greater costs later."

Paul King, the chief executive of the UK Green Building Council, said: "The coalition must be careful that the proposed abolition of Regional Spatial Strategies does not result in missed opportunities to deliver sustainable infrastructure, such as heat, water and waste across local authority borders. Integrated policy to deliver these services can offer carbon and cost savings – which can be missed if we don't have a regional overview."

The RSPB today urged the government to consider the health of the environment when it makes its decisions about where to cut and where to invest.

"We are calling to the government to freeze the costly and environmentally perverse Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation [which drives demand for unsustainable biofuels], protect existing co-financing funding for agri-environment schemes, invest in marine protected areas and end the investment by the nationalised banks in climate polluting activities," said a spokesman.

• Green building
• Recycling
• Conservation
• Renewable energy
• Solar power
• Wind power
• Energy
• Energy efficiency
• Waste
• Feed-in tariffs
• Endangered habitats
• Farming
• Water
• Economic policy
• Liberal-Conservative coalition

Should you peel off labels or rinse out cans? Where does used glass go? Take a few simple steps to better recycling

The average British recycling rate is just 18% of the collective bin – a long way off the 50% required by 2020. Expect local authorities to turn up the heat. RFID chips have already been fitted to wheelie bins in 68 local authorities. While residents in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, can face penalty fines of £100 for any non-horticulturally related items discovered in their garden-waste bins.

Most recycling is now "co-mingled" – recyclables are mixed in a box or bag. They are taken to a MRF (pronounced "murf" – a materials recycling facility) for sorting and grading, to the chagrin of the Campaign for Real Recycling (realrecycling.org.uk), which wants single collections.

By all means rinse out cans, but don't peel labels off or remove plastic windows from envelopes, as these will be melted off in the MRFs. Precycle: choose the product that comes in the least packaging, or bring your own bag. Also, think compost. Up to 35% of the bin is made of kitchen/organic waste.

As generic recycling has modest aims – glass goes to road aggregate and old clothes are sold on as cheap clothes to Sub-Saharan Africa – divert any material you can. Traid.org.uk recycles clothes but also customises and reworks them for resale via its shops. Or join the British Zero Waste Alliance (zwallianceuk.org). No waste, no bin, no recycling.

• Recycling
• Ethical and green living

Thanks to the success of Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, there are now millions of pairs of 3D glasses kicking around. But what happens to them?

• Lucy Siegle: Can I wear glasses or contacts and be green?

When Alice in Wonderland screened in cinemas earlier this year it was estimated that around 10m pairs of plastic 3D glasses were distributed worldwide. A similar number had been sent out when Avatar was released a few months earlier; if the notional 42.1m pairs of glasses used to watch the film had been laid end-to-end, they would form a line 3,987 miles long. So, is this ever-growing number of glasses a potential environmental menace?

Cineworld, which operates 77 cinemas across the UK, admits that "due to the success of 3D, the volume of glasses that require disposal has become an increasing concern". It says it plans to reduce the price of a ticket to any customer recycling their glasses. From today customers at Odeon cinemas will buy glasses for £1 but get a discount – the Odeon doesn't say how much – each time the glasses are reused.

Meanwhile, Vue Cinemas, with 69 cineplexes across the UK, has large recycling bins in its cinemas. "The glasses are taken to be cleaned and repackaged," says a spokesman. "Any that are damaged go to plastic recycling and are made into pellets, for use in the plastics industry."

Imax, the Canadian high-definition cinema corporation, boasts its glasses can be washed up to 500 times, but, in reality, how many times are 3D glasses recycled? Vue says the average pair has "around three or four uses". With 3D films expected to account for 25-30% of box office receipts in 2010, it says it will "use around 7m pairs of 3D glasses in 2010". That's a formidable mountain of scratched glasses queueing up to be pelletised.

However, one Californian firm thinks it might have the answer. Cereplast is to distribute "compostable" glasses made from plant-based plastics which biodegrade within six months. That sounds good, but glasses made from popcorn would be better: we could eat them when the credits start to roll.

• Ethical and green living
• 3D
• Recycling
• Waste

They may promote green values, but summer music gatherings are often the biggest culprits in terms of carbon emissions and waste

For an event that usually takes place in a field, the average festival is far from a green affair. Emissions from travel to and from the sites, the mounds of litter and those diesel-guzzling on-site generators mean that, while a lot of major festivals promote a green ethos in principle, their actual carbon footprints tell a different story.

Oxford university researchers have analysed the environmental impact of 500 UK festivals and found that, combined, they emit around 84,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. Research from campaign group A Greener Festival shows that the green issue is a high priority for some music fans, with 48% of respondents saying they would pay more for greener events and 36% stating that green issues were an important factor when buying a ticket. So what are festivals doing to respond to this demand?

The experts are in unanimous agreement when assessing which part of a festival has the biggest impact on the environment: transport. According to Julie's Bicycle, an organisation set up to help the music industry reduce its carbon footprint, moving people to and from festivals contributes 68% of the festival sector's total emissions – around 45,000 tonnes.

In response to this, lift-sharing initiatives such as the Glastonbury Car Share Scheme have been set up across most of the major festivals. Latitude places a strong emphasis on sustainable travel by offering people who lift-share the chance to win a VIP upgrade. However, it is clear that festivals still need to do more to make public transport to the sites widely available, and to encourage people to use it.

A major headache for the big festivals is the question of how to deal with the major side-effect of having a party with a 100,000-strong guest list – namely, the heaps of litter. Most provide recycling facilities on-site that make it easy for people to separate their rubbish. Interestingly, Festival Republic – responsible for promoting Glastonbury, Reading and Latitude – tailors its wast-management schemes to different audiences, so that younger crowds like those seen at Reading and Leeds are offered incentives to dispose of rubbish properly in the form of beer and money. Forty nine per cent of the rubbish at Glastonbury was recycled last year through the use of clearly labelled recycling facilities. Even so, an army of litter pickers is deployed every year for a week following the festival to clean up after messy guests, proving that there is still much to be done.

A growing trend among some festivals is clean energy generation. The Croissant Neuf Summer Party in Wales runs entirely on power from renewable sources, but larger festivals will struggle to generate enough electricity to power themselves in this way.

One thing is for sure: there is a world of difference between possessing good green intentions and having the resources and organisation to put them into practice – especially for the larger gatherings. Ben Challis, from A Greener Festival, says: "We have noticed that the smaller festivals are better for dealing with environmental concerns but the big festivals do have a lot to consider. A proposal to put recycling bins everywhere could clash with health and safety or crowd regulations, for example."

In 2009, Bestival and the Isle of Wight were the only big UK festivals to receive an "outstanding" award from A Greener Festival for their commitments to reducing their impact on the environment. Let's hope that more of the big festivals can clean up their acts this year.

• Carbon emissions
• Travel and transport
• Pollution
• Waste
• Recycling
• Renewable energy
• Energy
• Reading and Leeds festival
• Glastonbury
• Latitude festival
• Festivals

The supermarket is the first in the UK to convert its entire range of 25cl bottles to an environmentally friendly plastic

Small bottles of wine, often provided as an in-flight tipple, will this week become a shade greener. Marks & Spencer is the first UK retailer to convert its entire range of 25cl still wine bottles from glass to environmentally friendly plastic, meeting growing consumer demand for lighter and "unbreakable" containers.

M&S reports that sales of 25cl bottles (the equivalent of two standard glasses) have rocketed as the warm weather encouraged shoppers to buy them as a convenient drink for picnics. It typically sells around 100,000 mini bottles a week, and last week sales were up 26% year-on-year.

The new bottles are 88% lighter than glass bottles, less energy is required to manufacture a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle than a glass bottle and the lightweight bottle reduces distribution emissions. The company estimates that the switch will save it 525 tonnes of packaging a year.

Sainsbury's has already introduced PET for standard 75cl bottles but not yet for its small bottle range, which covers 32 wines. Waitrose is also launching a Shiraz and Chenin Blanc in a 75cl plastic bottle. The new PET plastic, screw-top wine bottles will launch at the end of the May at stores near key festivals and outdoor events.

The Waitrose wine buyer Nick Room said: "Wine-drinkers can be quite precious about compromising on taste and quality, which is something we have been very careful to ensure doesn't happen with the new plastic packaging. In fact, the bottles actually have an extended shelf-life guaranteed for 12 months and proven for 24 months, highlighting that the product is as good as glass for wine quality and 100% recyclable which is an added benefit to the environment."

The wine industry has been working to reduce packaging, in particular with the government's waste agency Wrap, through its Glassrite project. Last year, the UK imported over 1.7bn 75cl bottles of wine which equates to over 600,000 tonnes of packaging.

A spokesman for the Wine and Spirits Trade Association (WSTA) said: "There's clearly an appetite for buying wine in different quantities and we know from our own research that consumers are open to new forms of packaging. Many parts of the industry are looking at ways of reducing their environmental impact. Given that most wine sold in the UK is imported it also makes sound economic sense to look at lightweight glass or alternatives."

• Recycling
• Waste
• Landfill
• Carbon footprints
• Carbon emissions
• Ethical and green living
• Marks & Spencer
• Supermarkets
• Wine
• Consumer affairs

If the kiosks reduce landfill, great – but the environmental impact of building and running them may negate their savings

PepsiCo, the global food and drinks corporation, is currently making a lot of noise about its new Dream Machine. It's a recycling kiosk which offers incentives to customers (to date, only those in the US) for dropping off their empty cans and bottles. Rewards include branded baseball caps, discounted PepsiCo products and movie tickets. A donation is also made to a US charity which helps wounded veterans get back into work.

PepsiCo has gone to great lengths to launch its new innovation, particularly online where it is hoping it will "go viral" and appeal to the Pepsi-swilling generation. For example, it has called upon the services of Aisha Tyler, the US actor who has appeared in 24, Friends and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, to help promote the launch with a comedy video for the satirical website Cracked.com.

In addition to this video, the Dream Machine has the obligatory Facebook page, as well as a Youtube channel. It's here that we find possibly the most vomit-inducing corporate videos of recent years.

Having watched this video, you would be forgiven for thinking that PepsiCo has developed and built a fusion reactor out of discarded aluminium cans. Sadly, our dreams of a deuterium-fuelled future must continue without realisation. But if we view this machine at face-value, what conclusions should we draw?

The first thing to say is that anything that improves the woeful levels of recycling when it comes to drinks cans and plastic bottles should be welcomed. Yes, local authorities and retailers provide recycling drop-off points, but millions of these things still end up in landfill. If PepsiCo's Dream Machines can demonstrably improve recycling rates then great.

But then the questions begin. For example, how much energy does it take to build and run these huge machines? And does this negate the energy savings achieved by recycling the items which pass into their bellies?

PepsiCo has been reported as saying that these machine use as much power each year "as a home computer". No word, though, on how much energy and resources it takes to make the machines.

But perhaps a more pertinent question – if reducing the environmental impact of these otherwise disposable items is the goal – is whether you should be encouraging yet more consumption of these products via your reward schemes.

• Recycling
• Waste
• Landfill
• Ethical and green living

Loo roll is among our top five 'eco crimes'. But without a bidet or copies of the Guardian, is there a sustainable option?

I couldn't make it to ISSA Interclean, the "world's leading trade fair for the cleaning industry", in Amsterdam last week. It's a shame really, because, in the true spirit of gonzo journalism, I could have road-tested a new product called Satino Black, which claims to be the "most environmentally friendly toilet paper in the world". (I like to think it the kind of assignment Hunter S Thompson would have relished – but without the need for any psychedelic drugs.) Alas, we must trust the manufacturer's claims instead:

Satino Black is the only truly CO2-neutral toilet paper made with 100% recycled paper and an environmentally friendly production process, and yet it is just as soft and white as normal toilet paper.

"Many users do not know that for the largest part toilet paper is still made of trees which are chopped down for that specific reason. That is totally unnecessary. That's why we manufacture Satino Black from 100% recycled paper," says Henk van Houtum, director of Van Houtum. "In addition, we have developed a new production process during the last two-and-a-half years to replace all the harmful chemicals with biologically degradable raw materials and additives"

The water and energy consumption for the production of Satino Black are already the lowest in the world in the market segment. CO2 neutrality is guaranteed as a result of the utilisation of 100% green energy. Cradle to Cradle guarantees that chemicals for the production of Satino Black are converted to natural and biologically degradable auxiliary agents. It is harmless for humans as well as the environment.

I suppose it had to happen. With the use of toilet paper identified by New Scientist last December among our "top five eco crimes", someone was always going to try to steal a march on their competitors by producing the "greenest" toilet roll. With large sections of the western world not showing much interest in using a bidet, dock leaves or copies of the Guardian, there is probably a genuine need for such a product. And, as we must assume that Sheryl Crow's request in 2007 that we only use one sheet of toilet roll per visitation went largely unheeded, the sheer quantities of dead trees we now use to nettoyer nos derrières demands a new approach.

As Allen Hershkowitz, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defence Council, said last year: "Future generations are going to look at the way we make toilet paper as one of the greatest excesses of our age. Making toilet paper from virgin wood is a lot worse than driving Hummers in terms of global warming pollution."

I have a feeling that Van Houtum, the Dutch paper manufacturer responsible for Satino Black, might be slightly overplaying its hand, though:

It's so easy to go green. Making a different choice isn't easy – you need guts and perseverance. We can help you make that change right now. One simple action will bring your goal of sustainability even closer. Like so many others have, make the switch to Satino Black – the most eco-friendly toilet paper and hand towels ever. It's the ultimate proof that you dare to care.

No, I'd say this is the ultimate proof that you dare to care …

• Ethical and green living
• Recycling

As Grand Designs Live opens, TV presenter Kevin McCloud selects 10 products from recycled scourers to insulating blinds

• The Guardian's guide to greening your home
• Green your home playing cards by Julia King

There are lots of points to make about this fabric. But the main one is that it does everything a synthetic fabric can achieve (meeting fire ratings, "rub tests", resistance to fading and so on) while being made out of nettles and old wool, the two things you'll be almost guaranteed to find in a British field, together with barbed wire. There's nothing barbed about this fabric, however – it may be ethical but it doesn't sting or itch. Like linen, which is another natural fabric made from plant fibre, Sting is beautiful and glamorous.

When it comes to specifying sheet materials for a new kitchen or some cupboards, recycled plastics often get overlooked, usually because they look like frozen sick. Smile Plastics, however, have begun making sheet plastics made from single source plastics: recycled and chopped CDs for example, which give the material the iridescence of abalone or mother-of-pearl. This is upcycled plastic. I chose it for this list because I wanted designers and architects to see it and specify it, as well as consumers.

This product is almost too technical to describe. An egg-crate panel of little rotating eyes follow the sun all day long like a sunflower, collecting direct sunlight and distributing it through a building via a network of fibre-optic cables. This is ideal for introducing light into earth-sheltered or buried buildings or the thousands of London homes now retro-fitted with three underground storeys. It is brilliant. Literally.

Giles is a designer-maker of extraordinary pedigree who examines the value and the usefulness of everything he utilises. So he forces us to re-evaluate materials like corrugated cardboard as not only durable and utilitarian, but also beautiful. We already ran the Grand Designs Awards and these are judged by a panel of luminaries from the worlds of design and sustainability. But choosing this range of cardboard furniture and the other green products here was a much simpler exercise – and much more personal. These are products and inventions that I've chosen because I like them, I've used or tested them and I wanted them to get more exposure.

Hemcrete is a walling material that can be sprayed or cast like concrete, but it's made from lime and hemp. It performs both as an insulant and as a thermal-mass and it locks up carbon as it grows. The average hemp house can stow away about 20 tonnes of CO2 into its walls this way, about 40 kilogrammes for every square metre of wall in comparison with a traditional brick, block and cavity wall which is responsible for the production of about 100kg for every square metre. And hemp is the second-fastest growing crop on the planet after bamboo, so it can be slotted in between other crops during a growing season. It also requires almost no inputs and enriches the soil.

I remember clearly the day – as if it were yesterday – that someone told me that toilet roll wasn't made from recycled paper. What do you mean? Surely it's got to be, it only gets used once? The same goes for scourers and cleaners. You'd sort of expect throwaway bits of foam and gritty green plastic to be of the very cheapest grades of recycled plastic. But not a bit of it. They're all manufactured from virgin petrochemicals. I can understand that the acrylic used for making DVDs, that are read by lasers and spun at 200mph, needs to be perfect and crystal clear. But not my clothes pegs.

We all know about sheepswool insulation that comes from New Zealand or other far-flung outreaches of the world of sheep. It is highly breathable, natural, people-friendly and hygroscopic, regulating the moisture content in a cavity such as a wall. Very, very useful in timber framed buildings where condensation and moisture can dissolve the building into wet rot. And Black Mountain is British. Home-grown. Many of our sheep are bred to be shorn twice a year but only get fleeced once because the market for wool is so depressed. If we all bought sheepswool for our attics the flocks of Britain would be much more comfortable.

Since Becquerel used selenium to experiment with photovoltaics in 1836, and Horace de Saussure captured solar heat in his homemade "hotbox" in 1767, the two disciplines of using solar energy to produce either electricity or hot water have remained separate. Until a very short while ago when some brilliant German physicists decided to circulate the water from solar thermal panels around the electronics in solar photovoltaic panels providing – bingo – a faster-than-normal supply of hot water. The resulting panel also produces electricity more efficiency than a standard photovoltaic panel.

Heatsaver is an American firm that make insulated window blinds from the multilayer thin insulation sold for roofspaces which looks like the covering of a Nasa spaceship. Heatsaver uses a less complex structure in its product, which has the appearance of interlined cream linen Roman blinds and the thermal performance of several inches of plastic foam. Their secret, however, lies in a specially designed channel on the wall, in which the blind slides, forming an effective seal. There is no better way of keeping heat inside a building with large glazed walls or a listed building that is single-glazed.

We throw away 486,000 tonnes of tyres every year in Britain. Tirex carpet tiles are recycled — with a minimum of processing — by slicing old tyres and rubber machinery belts into long French fries and then bonding them together side-on. The durable fabric webbing that is inside the tyre wall is exposed as the top surface of the carpet and the resulting texture is a revelation. Interface Flor sell it as "entrance matting" but Tirex doesn't look anything like a tyre. Its colours are grey and brown. It is elegant and sophisticated and every office in the world and quite a few homes ought to be carpeted with it.

• Energy efficiency
• Energy
• Recycling
• Ethical and green living

We're used to recycling and saving energy at home, so why are we still so lax about it at the office? Green Office Week is the perfect time to change this, says Homa Khaleeli

On Saturdays I arm myself with my ever-growing stash of cloth bags and go to the market. Every night I switch off my electrical equipment at the wall instead of leaving it on standby and wash all my clothes at 30C. I have even given up my car, so while I'm hardly a green campaigner, I wouldn't say I'm a carbon-guzzling monster.

Yet come Monday morning, it's a different story. Fed up with staring at a screen, I often print out documents scores of pages long. I leave my computer on standby overnight and don't even notice the strip light over my desk is switched on at noon on a sunny day.

Depressingly, it seems my Jekyll and Hyde approach to green issues isn't unique. One in three office workers admits laziness stops them being green, according to a new survey commissioned to coincide with Green Office Week, which starts on Monday. Only 11% consciously choose green office supplies and just 34% chose to consume less energy in a bid to reduce their working carbon footprint.

So why are we all so lax the moment we step into work? Occupational psychologist Professor John Arnold of Loughborough University's business school thinks it's all to do with diffusion of responsibility – we are hoping someone else will take control.

"People in big organisations tend to think someone else will do it, particularly if there is a person whose job it is to reduce our energy," he says. Which might be why I am happy to sort my recycling into the three different bins provided, but hadn't even thought about making sure the lights above my desk were switched off.

Another stumbling block is that we don't just have to deal with excess energy waste at work – we are also guilty of producing it. "At home you are recycling things you are not responsible for producing; junk mail or excess packaging in shopping," says Arnold. "You don't make them, so you feel better by recycling. If you have a can at home it's as easy to put it in the recycling bin as the waste. But at work you are generating the stuff yourself, printing off documents all the time."

This in turn makes being careful a little more difficult, according to Arnold: "Do you print on both sides of the paper or even ask for a printer that works on both sides? It's a two-stage process – a production end and a discard end. It's more to think about and less easy – you have to take more trouble."

It seems that sidestepping responsibility like this can have a big impact when as many as two-thirds of office workers say they were not aware that their organisation had any environmental targets in place, and when one-third of all UK offices still do not have any recycling facilities.

Yet people who want to take action can also fear being branded an "eco-nag", according to Donnachadh McCarthy, who set up an environmental consultancy called 3 Acorns Eco-audits.

"I definitely think that people who are green at home sometimes feel they don't have the permission to be green at work," says McCarthy, who has London's first carbon-negative house. "This could be because of management or their colleagues."

This is something Jamie Fewings, an architect from Worthing, understands. He is careful to keep his carbon footprint down at home, buying organic fruit and vegetables from farmers' markets or small shops and taking the train to work instead of driving. But, he says, he is aware that not everyone in his office shares his outlook.

"I don't do as much in the office, because other people around you might be more cynical or not believe as strongly in that kind of thing," Fewings says. "I don't want to preach about my principles, but I try to do subtle things to make a change. Architects use a lot of paper and I recycle what I use, but if I see someone else has put paper in the waste bin I take it out and put it in the recycling."

This ties into another stumbling block that McCarthy has identified to being green at work – there are just so many more people to take into account. He says one of the quickest ways of lowering energy use is by reducing the office's temperature to the recommended 19C. Every degree higher, he says, adds 10% extra on the company's gas bill.

But, he admits: "In some ways it's more difficult to be green at work because we have to negotiate lighting and temperature with our colleagues, which means crossing lines which you would not have to do at home."

Which is why, Arnold says, individual eco-conscious people must be committed to making a difference in an organisation. "You have to make it public and keep doing it – put up with the teasing and people saying, 'there they go again'."

The good news is that most people are willing to put in extra effort, Arnold says; they are just waiting for someone to take the lead. "People say they would love to do more but there is no place to talk about it."

And McCarthy agrees that one person's actions can really make an impact. "Do it yourself and spread the message; you can make an enormous difference. I used to always have the light in my office off when I worked for a charity. At first people would say, 'It's so dark in here.' But then they would realise it wasn't dark – the other offices were just too brightly lit. In the end it spread through the office."

Jay Risbridger, who has been running the Green Stationery Company for 20 years, agrees. In the early years of his business, half the battle was explaining the issues behind recycling and buying products that would last to reduce waste. Now that is no longer a problem. But he says there are still just two types of businesses that put their money where their environmental principles are. The first are ideological small businesses, such as environmental charities or consultants. The second are companies whose individual stationery buyers happen to care about green issues. "They do it as a personal initiative. They tend to be administrators and they tend to be women; about 80% of our customers are women."

Of course the ideal solution to being green at work is for employers to tackle the problems. Arnold thinks the best thing offices can do is change the messages coming from bosses. "Work culture does matter; when things [green efforts] are measured and when rewards are linked to them, they become important and shape behaviour," he says. "It has to be modelled by senior management, which is true of any intervention. It should come from the top or people won't take it seriously."

That's something McCarthy agrees with: "We believe in measure, measure, measure. People pay attention to what you measure." When boards and bosses are given results and employees get feedback, they start thinking and caring more about green issues.

Thankfully, says Arnold, this doesn't have to be hi-tech or time-consuming. "When I was on sabbatical in Australia, if the cleaner found waste in your recycling bin, they would put a sad-face sticker on your desk and a smiley-face sticker if you were good. It really worked – I did not want a sad-face sticker!"

Green Office Week starts on Monday

1 Switch everything off. Turn off your PC, printers and lights before you go home. Donnachadh McCarthy says in some offices, cleaning staff who work late leave the lights on so office workers don't arrive to darkness; but this can waste hours of energy.

2 Reject plastic cups. Bring in your own mug and save waste.

3 Use green stationery. Persuade whoever buys your stocks to order Forest Stewardship Council approved/environmentally friendly products where possible. Reuse old envelopes and packaging by using labels to cover the old addresses.

4 Use recycling bins. Remove individual bins and replace with group recycling ones in strategic areas. Putting a recycling bin near the desk also works to remind you to reduce your waste.

5 Turn off mobile phone chargers at the socket when phones are charged.

6 Reduce the heat. If there is a debate about how warm your office should be, the recommended temperature is 19C.

7 Think before you print. See if you can go a whole day without printing documents – if you must, try to print on both sides of the paper.

8 Set up a green ideas scheme that encourages and rewards green thinking in your company.

• Work & careers
• Recycling
• Waste
• Carbon footprints

Reupholstery and a little TLC can transform a cheap chair into a statement piece of furniture. In this extract from Revive!, a new book on recycled interiors, Jacqueline Mulvaney shows you how

Try working with a piece of furniture that you find at an auction house or junk shop. When I talk about furniture picked up at auction, I'm not talking antiques. Consult your telephone directory to find a saleroom in a small town rather than one in a big city, which can be a lot pricier. Most sales have preview days, and it's worth having a browse and looking closely at any pieces that catch your eye.

Check for basic soundness: is it fit for purpose, is it riddled with woodworm, is it more trouble than it's worth?

I have found a wooden-framed chair with a back and seat that need replacing. The chair is a lovely shape and will work well with my other furniture. It's not an old piece, cost just £8, and as it only needs stripping and small areas of fabric replacing it's perfect in terms of time.

Obviously, if you are feeling brave and have the time you might well want to try something more ambitious. If you decide to use a chair, try to find a chair with a removable seat.

Old chair
Paint stripper
Mask
Rubber gloves
Furniture wax or limewax
Fabric
Tracing paper or pattern paper
Pencil
Scissors
Upholstery tacks
Ribbon
Sewing machine
Embroidery thread
Textile or craft adhesive
Pins
Staple gun (optional)

Before I strip and clean the chair I'm going to remove the pieces of fabric so I can use them as patterns. The chair has been coated with a thick, dark varnish and is generally a bit grubby. I'm using a product called Nitromors, which is a powerful paint stripper. If you are going to use a substance such as this you need to work outside or with very good ventilation. Wear a mask and rubber gloves, keep it away from pets and children and try not to splash it on your skin. Just follow the instructions and you'll be fine.

I'm going to wax my chair once I've finished removing the old varnish; this will bring out the grain and protect the wood. You can also limewax your piece; this will stain your furniture slightly and give it a chalky appearance. Limewax can be purchased from most good DIY stores or picture framers.

Try to use the existing upholstery as patterns for your new cover. Think about the type of fabric you are going to choose. I want this chair to be functional rather than merely decorative, so delicate fabrics won't work. As the areas to be recovered aren't huge I'm going to treat myself and buy some fabric. This is cheating, I know, but the website I'm going to use to source my fabric specialises in reclaimed fabrics. It's run by a lady called Donna Flower who is incredibly knowledgable, her website is a pleasure to use and she is constantly adding new fabrics. As I only need a metre of fabric and the chair was so cheap I think I can justify this little diversion.

Using tracing paper or pattern paper make yourself a pattern. Cut out your shapes from your selected fabric. I need to ensure that I cut sufficient material to allow me to pull it taut over the chair frame, but I don't need to hem the fabric because any uneven edges will be hidden by the trim.

My next step is to replace the seat cover and back of my chair. Starting with the chair back I am going to secure the fabric with upholstery tacks. As the tacks are visible I'm going to create a trim to cover this edge.

Taking a bundle of ribbon, I'm going to join a variety of lengths and widths to make enough to fit around the fabric on the back.

When you have the desired length of trim, set your sewing machine to embroidery mode. Using contrasting machine embroidery thread, stitch a trailing motif along the length of your ribbon. Don't feel you have to use an embroidery hoop for this; any distortion created through stitching will add rather than detract from your final trim. Using a good quality textile or craft adhesive, stick your finished trim in place. Allow the glue to dry thoroughly.

Fitting the seat cover requires the fabric to be stretched tightly across the pad making certain that the corners are neat. If the seat is removable, then take it out first. Pin the fabric in place as you work before tacking the fabric in place on the underside. The new seat can now be replaced. If you want to you can use a staple gun to secure the new fabric to the base. It's sometimes easier to get a tighter, more professional finish if you staple rather than tack. You should now have a unique piece of furniture which is both useful and lovely.

• Revive! Inspired Interiors from Recycled Materials is published on 10 May

• DIY
• Craft
• Homes
• Saving money
• Recycling

Supermarket chain withdraws 'eco-friendly' milk pouch and jug after poor sales led to high wastage

Waitrose has withdrawn an "eco-friendly" milk pouch and jug from all its stores after poor sales of the supposedly revolutionary product led to high wastage.

The retailer has phased out the pouches, claiming that initial strong sales had tailed off because shoppers preferred the convenience of conventional plastic bottles — even though they are marginally more expensive. A Waitrose spokeswoman said: "It was a hard decision to take, but we believe it's totally unacceptable for food to be wasted in this way. Instead we will continue our work to minimise packaging in other ways."

The new product was hailed as likely to revolutionise the sale of milk as a pouch typically contains 75% less plastic than the bottles in which at least two-thirds of the 180 million pints of milk consumed by Britons every week is sold. Less energy is used in making them and they take up far less space when disposed of. But many consumers have found them difficult to use, reporting leaks and spills.

Bottles have been the preferred milk container in Britain since 1880 when they were introduced – originally in glass – by the Express Dairy company. Glass and later plastic bottles have been dominant ever since, only losing some market share in the 1970s to Tetra Pak cardboard containers. However, bagged milk has been much more successful in other countries, with the jug and pouch (designed to fit neatly in a fridge door) the overwhelming choice for shoppers in Canada.

Waitrose launched the new product after initial trials three years ago showed strong demand. Despite the idea failing to take off in the 1970s, the supermarket chain had hoped that the milk pouches would prove more of a hit now with today's more environmentally conscious consumers. It declined to reveal sales figures for the product.

Waitrose's experience is in contrast to that of Sainsbury's, which last month rolled out its milk bags nationwide following a successful trial in 50 stores. It said sales of the bags have climbed to around 110,000 per week and now account for one in every 10 two-pint containers of semi-skimmed sold, twice as many as the supermarket originally predicted.

The bags have been introduced as part of Sainsbury's drive to reduce packaging by one-third by 2015, the company said. Switching to bags could save up to 1.4m kg of packaging every year, as well as reducing the oil and energy required to make conventional milk packaging. Tesco, Marks & Spencer and the Co-op do not pouch milk.

Emma Metcalf-King, Sainsbury's senior dairy buyer, said educating consumers had been key to success: "Sales have far exceeded our expectations. Before launch, we gave free jugs to our store colleagues to make sure they understood how to use them. As a result, our colleagues have proven to be the best ambassadors for the product, as they are able to explain it to customers using their own personal experience."

• Food
• Waste
• Recycling
• Energy
• Food & drink
• Food & drink industry
• Supermarkets
• Consumer affairs

The Conservatives depicted Britain as the dustbin of Europe when it comes to waste. The figures were correct, but the context misled

Flicking through the Conservative manifesto I came across a couple of graphs, which suggested the UK is the worst place in Europe to have cancer and the worst for recycling.

I don't specialise in health, but the recycling rate got my attention. 23%? Hadn't the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) recently said it was more than 35%? And if Britain was, as the Conservative's graph showed, seventh of the seven countries shown, how did it compare to the rest of the world?

Graphs like this irritate an inquiring mind, especially if the selection of data is not explained.

With help from @guardianeco Twitter follower @tkromm I found the original Eurostat document referenced in the manifesto.

The discrepancy between the Tory and Defra figures for recycling rates is because the Conservatives cite only recycling materials like paper, glass and plastics, and use Eurostat's 2008 report, which for the UK at least appears to cover 2007-08. Defra's figure (actually 37.6%) is for 2008-09, lumps together recycling and composting, and covers only England. Recycling trade news sites reveal that for 2008-09, the rates were 37% in Wales, 35% in Scotland, and 39.3% in Northern Ireland. Given how easy it is to access this data, all published by the end of last year, it seems unfair for the Tories to use the older statistics in their manfiesto. And as composting is a form of recycling garden waste and food, not including that seems petty.

As for the second question: how does the UK stand up to comparison with other countries? What the Eurostat figures show is, in that year, by recycling alone, the UK was 10th out of the EU's 27 countries. See this graph here:

Adding in composting, the UK ranks the same as Ireland, at 9th place. It is also worth noting that in both cases, in the three countries which do better or tie with the UK (Denmark, Luxembourg and Ireland) the average person sends more waste to landfill or incineration by weight because they generate more rubbish in total. Interestingly, the Conservative graph excludes two of those three.

It might be worth remembering, too, that the EU as a whole probably does better than any region in the world for recycling, though it will also generate more waste than most.

The Tory manifesto is therefore technically correct. But it is just deeply misleading, arguably to the point of dishonesty. Does this matter? The UK still does worse than many of the rich European nations it could be trying to emulate, after all.

I'll be honest and say that my first instinct is just to dislike such a cheap statistical trick: to try to be true, rather than just correct, the graph either needed to justify its selection, or to include a more representative sample of countries, for recycling and composting, and let voters decide for themselves whether we feel good about beating Spain, France and Greece, or whether we should be doing as well as Holland and Germany.

There is a wider concern too: for millions of people who try hard to separate their waste and recycle well, the idea that all that effort still leaves the UK at the bottom of the heap with a poor national rate could be deeply discouraging.

Finally there is a strong whiff of hypocrisy. Some Tories have lobbied hard against councils' attempts to improve recycling , despite which the percentage of waste averted from landfill has risen hugely since they last were in power. Who deserves the credit - politicians, industry, or people - is debatable.

The Conservative manifesto has some laudable points on the environment, especially the ambition to make the UK the "world's first low carbon economy"; but this graph wasn't one of them.

• Recycling
• Waste
• Conservatives
• General election 2010

Eastern Europe is plagued with potentially dangerous waste disposal problems as new figures reveal the region has Europe's lowest recycling rates. From IPS, part of the Guardian Environment Network

Environment groups have warned that Eastern Europe is plagued with serious and potentially dangerous waste disposal problems as new figures reveal the region has Europe's lowest recycling rates.

They say that poor legislation, insufficient infrastructure, lack of environmental awareness outside cities and a shortage of political will to tackle waste management problems has led to serious problems with illegal rubbish dumping. Together with non-existent recycling in some countries, this poses a threat to human health and the environment, they say.

"In rural areas illegal dumping is a serious problem," Lucian Ionescu, director of the Bucharest branch of the non-profit organisation the Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe (REC), told IPS. "People are not aware of recycling and waste management - something which dates back to communist times. Illegal dumping poses serious health and environmental risks, while burying certain types of waste in landfill sites has its risks too."

Figures released by the EU's statistical agency Eurostat this month showed that Eastern European EU member states lag far behind their Western counterparts on waste management.

While the average EU recycling rate in 2008 for municipal waste was 21 percent, Bulgaria did not recycle any waste at all, Romania just one per cent, the Czech Republic two percent and Lithuania and Slovakia only three percent. In Estonia the rate of recycling decreased by 10% on 2007, while landfill increased by 11%. In Latvia there was a 7% fall for recycling and a 7% rise in landfill use.

In comparison, in Austria 69% of municipal waste produced in the country was either recycled or made into compost - up 10% on the previous year - while Luxembourg also increased its recycling by 17%.

Meanwhile, the EU average for the share of waste that ends up in landfill sites was 40%. But in Bulgaria the rate was 100% and in Romania 99%.

Environmental groups say poorly equipped older sites pose land and groundwater contamination threats, and there are health and environment hazards connected to gas emissions from decaying organic waste at landfill sites.

In Bulgaria, residents near the controversial Suhodol landfill site in Sofia have previously picketed the site in a bid to get it closed down over safety fears. Apart from the smell which they said made it impossible to live close to the site, they claimed there was a serious risk from explosive methane gas - which is also a potent greenhouse gas - at the site as it was released from rotting waste.

The Bulgarian government has recently launched a tender for a new high- tech €117m waste disposal plant just outside Sofia to be completed by 2012. But environmental groups say that governments in the region are not doing anywhere near enough to facilitate and encourage proper waste management.

Ivo Kropacek, director at Friends of the Earth in the Czech Republic, told IPS: "Legislation in Eastern European countries on waste management is poor. For instance, there is a lack of legislation on producer responsibility. Producers of waste, such as firms, need to be forced by legislation to take steps to help manage their waste sustainably, such as using recyclable materials.

"One of the reasons for such low recycling rates in the Czech Republic is that there is little or no separation of bio-waste, that is, kitchen and garden organic waste from other municipal waste. In the West there is more separation and this is why the recycling rates are higher. The government must do more to ensure mandatory separation, and more campaigns are needed to encourage awareness of recycling and what can be done at a household level, such as home composting."

Facilities for waste collection and subsequent recycling are also hampered by a lack of finance in some parts of the region, particularly rural areas. Financing for recycling is also a problem for some municipalities.

The CEPTA civic association in Slovakia which promotes sustainable ecological practices claims that some municipalities are actually losing money on recycling collections and councils and residents have become "de-motivated and disgusted" about a service which CEPTA says costs more than four times as much as non-separated waste collection.

They add that central government subsidies must be introduced to encourage local authorities to continue and improve recycling schemes and waste separation.

National governments have introduced various environmental laws and, as EU members, Eastern European states are bound to meet standards set out by Brussels on waste management.

The European Commission is keen to increase recycling. But some states are a long way behind on meeting legal norms, such as EU-wide standards for landfill sites and waste management systems, and both Bulgaria and Slovakia are facing legal action from the European Commission over their failings.

"Eastern European governments argue that they must let economies grow and that they cannot just pass laws which might potentially slow that growth. But economies can be grown in a green way, without having to harm the environment. We need politicians to give us better laws," Kropacek told IPS.

• Waste
• Recycling
• Landfill

When considered over the lifetime of the packaging, paper and cardboard embody far more greenhouse gases than their plastic equivalents. From Carbon Commentary, part of the Guardian Environment Network

Riverford Organics, one of the largest vegetable box schemes in the UK, has suggested it may move away from cardboard packaging and towards plastic. In this week's note to customers, Guy Watson at Riverford says that plastic boxes could reduce the carbon footprint of the company's packaging by 70%. He strongly hints that the company wants to move to plastic immediately but is frightened of the reaction of customers.

This issue is an important one. Householders continue to see plastic as wicked and paper-based goods as benign. But when considered over the entire life of the packaging, paper and cardboard embody far more greenhouse gases than their plastic equivalents. Paper products take substantial amounts of energy to make. Crushing a tree down into small fibres, mixing the wood pulp into a slurry and then passing the wet mass through huge rollers cannot be done without use of enormous quantities of power. Making paper and cardboard is almost certainly the third largest industrial use of energy on the planet. By contrast, plastic is light, durable and its manufacture is generally not particularly energy intensive – at least by comparison to paper. A second concern is that many paper and cardboard products, probably including Riverford boxes, end up in local authority landfill, where they rot down anaerobically, creating the greenhouse gas methane in the process. Plastic, as is well known, doesn't rot and sequesters its carbon for ever.

Guy Watson's company delivers its products to homes in cardboard boxes that can be returned to the delivery driver the following week. Watson says that the boxes are designed to last for ten delivery cycles before being recycled. They typically only actually survive four outings before they are lost or made unusable. Because these boxes are 'free', the householder doesn't look after them properly. As a result, about 10% of the total carbon footprint of the business is derived from making and recycling the boxes. This is about the same figure as the carbon cost of shipping the Riverford vegetables to the local distribution hubs. If I have done the calculations correctly, the carbon cost of its boxes would be greater than plastic replacements even if they did actually last 10 cycles and were never used, as the company says, 'to let the dog give birth in'.

Riverford has done some of the best and most incisive work on carbon footprinting of any business in the UK. The company's view seems to be that that plastic – far more reusable than paper and cardboard – is a far better solution that its current packaging both for the outer boxes and for carrying the individual products. Its sense of frustration is palpable as it says

85% of our packaging footprint is made up of paper and cardboard yet our customers are very happy with this packaging; virtually all negative comments on packaging relate to plastic punnets and bags which contribute only 8% to the footprint.

It is the customer who is stopping Guy Watson and his colleagues using long-lasting plastic for any form of packaging, not economics or carbon accounting. Watson despairs of getting householders to understand the true environmental cost of paper goods and one can only sympathise as he demands government action to force suppliers to recognize and account for the full cost of packaging.

We all need to understand, far better than we do now, that anything that doesn't last – like paper for packaging – is almost certainly a far greater problem than an almost infinitely recyclable plastic crate. Yes, of course, plastic is an increasingly serious litter problem, in the UK and elsewhere. But it is not a significant cause of CO2 pollution compared to paper.

As a devoted customer, my suggestion to Guy Watson is that he pushes ahead with plastic – perhaps only with customers who agree in advance – and gives us a small price reduction but imposes heavy deposits on each plastic crate left on our doorstep each week. If we don't leave the box out next week, we get charged. Painful, but there is nothing like a punch in the wallet to get people to change behaviour. In the longer run, a 'closed loop' recycling system using plastic crates is infinitely more environmentally sustainable than one based on cardboard boxes.

More details on Riveford's carbon accounting at www.riverfordenvironment.co.uk.

• Carbon footprints
• Recycling
• Waste

Being seen to be green and social status influence our green living choices far more than doing them for ethical reasons

For most people, there is nothing quite as interesting as other people. We are incredibly well attuned to what others are doing and thinking – especially if they might be thinking about us. The choices we make speak volumes about our likes, our hates, our personalities and our social status. New research published yesterday suggests that our environmental choices are no different. Over and above the financial or environmental benefits of making low-carbon choices, we value the boost in social status this can provide – what's important is that we are seen to be going green.

Across three studies, Vladas Griskevicius and his colleagues at the University of Minnesota examined the conditions under which people selected the "green" option when provided with a choice between a regular and environmentally beneficial product. Some participants read a story about social status and "moving up in the world" before making their choice. Displaying a phenomenon known as "competitive altruism", these people opted to "self-sacrifice" and chose the environmentally friendly product, even though it was of inferior quality.

The authors of the study argued that what these participants lost in product functionality, they gained in social status. Voluntarily engaging in altruistic behaviour sends a powerful signal that you are caring and compassionate enough to take a hit for the team – and that you have the resources to act pro-socially. Previous research has shown that we take our cues for what is "normal" from those around us, and it seems that we're even prepared to "self-sacrifice" to boost our social standing. Combine these two findings and you have a powerful tool for promoting pro-environmental behaviour. As the long decarbonisation of the transport system begins, will people start competing over the efficiency rather than the acceleration of their cars?

Interestingly, participants in the study only displayed competitive altruism when they thought that others would be made aware of their choice – or when the green products were highly priced (signalling high status wealth). Coupled with the recent finding that individuals in an experiment who bought green goodies subsequently displayed more selfish behaviour, does this undermine the seemingly selfless nature of altruistic, pro-environmental behaviour?

The study certainly provides a window on the psychological basis of greenwash. When people make a consumer decision they buy into the idea of the product as much as the product itself. Unfortunately, the "idea" of sustainability can be a remarkably effective way of shifting patently unsustainable goods, and left to their own devices, people will compete to outdo each other on whatever criteria happen to be around. Flying to an eco-trek in Peru? I'll take two please.

Confronted with a problem like climate change, our consumption-based economy responds in the only way it knows how – by selling sustainability like it sells soap. But while a desire to be "seen to be green" clearly leaves us vulnerable to the dubious motives of commercial marketing campaigns (not to mention some ribbing down the pub), harnessing the primal urge for social status is critical for promoting pro-environmental behaviours that are more substance than spin. We may currently compete through demonstrations of conspicuous material consumption, but material goods are simply a marker for social status. It's the social status that's important – and the markers we use to signify it can easily change.

Griskevicius and his colleagues suggest that visible signs, tags and badges are an important aid for signalling to others that a particular behaviour is not just common, but desirable. Several studies in America have found that rates of recycling were boosted when householders were asked to make a public commitment to recycle, rather than just get on with it quietly.

But paying attention to the social aspects of how and why people take action to protect the environment goes far deeper than displaying a pro-recycling window sticker. Many environmental messages focus on what others should be doing, but time might be better spent setting a positive example and letting the social status that comes with altruistic behaviour do the hard work.

No one likes to be told what to do, but few of us can resist the temptation to get one over on the Joneses. And if what the Joneses are doing happens to be good for the environment, then being green to be seen might not be such a bad thing after all.

• Ethical and green living
• Consumer affairs
• Carbon footprints
• Recycling
• Social trends

Paper and card, food, garden waste and plastics on proposed list of items that would have to be recycled

Black bins for household waste could become a thing of the past under proposals to be published tomorrow to ban almost everything thrown away by households from being sent to landfill.

Paper and card, food, garden waste and plastics are all on a list of items that would have to be recycled, composted, or burned for energy. The move would represent a transformation in England and Wales, where about half of what people put in the bin at home or at work ends up in holes in the ground.

The announcement – to be put out for a 12-week consultation – is likely to raise fears about how difficult it will be for householders to manage their bins, and how councils might enforce the new rules, especially following claims that council officials have searched bags and fined people for mixing the wrong items.

Tonight, Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, said the ban would have both financial and environmental benefits. It would cut greenhouse gas emissions from landfill sites and from manufacturing new products such as cans and bottles from virgin materials.

It would also save councils money on the landfill tax charged for every tonne of waste, and allow them to make money from selling recycling materials. As existing landfill sites fill up, there is also a looming problem of finding new locations.

Recycling rates have increased dramatically over the last decade or so, from about 8% to more than one third, but the rate of growth has slowed in the last two years.

"We have made good progress, but we can go further," said Benn. "We're sending a lot of waste currently to landfill which really doesn't make sense, one because it's costing money because of the landfill levy, two because it produces emissions … and three, there are people out there prepared to pay you for materials."

Bans on most items could be introduced in five years, with food waste taking longer, perhaps 10 years, said Benn, who cited the success of similar policies in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria.

Councils appeared concerned about how a strict ban on items going to landfill could be met. While various methods are being developed to separate "dry" items such as glass or plastics, the question of who will pay and how to separate out food waste seems to be a particular worry.

"[The government] needs to think carefully about where the money to pay for a landfill ban will come from and how the ban will be policed," said Gary Porter, chairman of the Local Government Association environment board. "Councils do not want to be put in a position where they have to fine people for putting their leftovers in the wrong bin."

Under the proposal published tomorrow [THUR] , the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will propose a ban on sending a list of common items to landfill: paper and card; food; textiles; metals; wood; garden waste; glass; plastics; and electrical and electronic equipment. Together those items represent 84% of waste collected, said the government's waste advisers, Wrap.

Earlier this week,Wrap published its biggest-ever study of what should be done with waste, following claims that households were wasting their time separating their rubbish because many items were sent to landfill, exported, or were a waste of energy to recycle. It found that in more than 80% of cases recycling was the best option, followed by incineration, and composting and anaerobic digestion.

The Conservative party has pledged to "work towards zero waste", using policies including a voluntary arrangement with producers to cut back on the production of waste and improve its disposal, setting a minimum price "floor" under the landfill tax to give businesses long term certainty to invest in new forms of waste disposal, and encouraging councils to reward families that recycle.

• Waste
• Recycling
• Incineration

Supermarket chain could tap into government subsidies to provide domestic heating to customers by recycling its food waste

In the latest attempt by a supermarket to improve its environmental credentials, Sainsbury's has announced plans to to generate energy from its food and packaging waste to heat customers' homes.

The announcement comes as the UK government is in the final stages of developing a new payout scheme for renewable heat generation.

The Renewable Heat Incentive – the heat equivalent to the recently announced electricity feed in tariff – will come into operation next April and is due pay cash for heat generated from renewable sources, such as biomass, ground source heat pumps, and solar thermal technology.

Sainsbury's has agreed a partnership with Imperial College London, to commit to "researching and delivering innovative and practical solutions" to lower the supermarket's carbon footprint and develop new green technologies.

Sir Brian Hoskins, head of the climate change programme at Imperial College, told Guardian Sustainable Business that Sainsbury's stands to become the "low carbon centre of the community".

Speaking on the incentive to go green, the store's chief executive Justin King said at a conference today: "In the long-run, the most sustainable decisions are profit-enhancing."

"We spent a lot of time talking to our customers about what the sustainability issues were for them" said King. "We came up with the top 7 … packaging, waste, sourcing, Britishness, employees, animal welfare, suppliers. Our ambition is to lead on all of those."

Funding

Although Hoskins says it's still "early days", and Sainsbury's has not yet committed a large amount of funding to the partnership, engineers from Imperial will be looking at opportunities for Sainsbury's to make its own stores more energy efficient as well as distribute heat energy, generated from food and packaging waste, to the community.

Communal heating systems are not new. They last had their heyday in Britain after the second world war, when they were built to heat new housing estates. One of the United Kingdom's largest current district heating schemes, EnviroEnergy in Nottingham, was built 50 years ago by Boots to power its factories. It now heats 4,600 homes, and a wide variety of business premises.

The government's renewable heat incentive scheme could spark up new commercial interest in district heating, although a the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) spokesperson said it was too early to say whether the Sainsbury's scheme would be eligible for support from them.

"We have proposed supporting renewable heat at all scales – from household, communities, business and industry … Heat can and has to play a big role in achieving our renewable and carbon targets," the spokesperson said.

Sainsbury's are already experimenting with biomass boilers, with one up and running in Bolton. The supermarket also supplies food waste from over 100 of its stores to two anaerobic digestion plants, which create energy from waste.

Fareshare, a community organisation dedicated to alleviating food poverty, is concerned that supermarkets could be tempted to throw their food surplus into energy plants instead of using it in the most efficient way – to feed people.

Poor and homeless people

Fareshare currently receives 3,100 tonnes of food a year from small retailers and supermarkets to distribute to poor and homeless people in the UK but estimates that supermarkets waste around 100,000 tonnes of in-date edible food a year.

Tony Lowe, chief executive of Fareshare, has praised Sainsbury's commitment to help his organisation but claims that some supermarkets, like Waitrose and Morrisons, have yet to offer their waste food to community organisations.

Tristram Stuart, author of a book revealing the extent of waste in the food industry, agreed. He spoke at the recent sustainable business conference saying that "anaerobic digestion is only slightly better than landfill" when it comes to energy efficiency. He warned that feeding people should come out on top of the priority list when supermarkets are dealing with food waste.

• Waste
• Recycling

Report for UK government refutes persistent claims that recycling is a waste of time, calls for better facilities and an increase in incineration

Recycling is almost always the best way to get rid of waste, even when it is exported abroad, according to the biggest ever report on the industry for the UK government.

The report, which addresses persistent claims that householders are often wasting their time recycling, calls for better recycling facilities but also an increase in incineration of waste, an option that is opposed by many environment groups.

It also backed up last week's controversial report published by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs warning that biopolymer plastics made from crops should be recycled rather than put into compost, despite being widely marketed as "biodegradable".

Wrap, the government's waste and packaging agency, said it had analysed 200 reports covering seven different materials: paper and cardboard, plastics, biopolymers, food, garden cuttings, wood and textiles. The experts then looked at the evidence for seven methods of disposal, including recycling, composting, incineration and landfill, measured by four different criteria: energy use, water use, other resource use, and greenhouse gas emissions.

In more than four out of five cases, recycling was the clear winner, said Keith James, Wrap's environmental policy manager.

But there were "different messages" for different materials, said James.

"For biopolymers, I think the preferable option is recycling, which isn't what people have commonly thought," he said.

"For textiles, there's not very many statistics, but what there is shows reuse is clearly optimal, followed by recycling and then energy recovery [incineration].

"For food and garden waste, anaerobic digestion looks preferable; then composting and incineration with energy recovery come out very similar.

"For plastics, we have got strong evidence this time that recycling is the better option, because recycling has improved.

"For wood, recycling looks preferable.

"For paper and cardboard, what the statistics throw out is the importance of quality: the higher the quality [paper and cardboard], the better it is to recycle, but as you go down to the lower end, energy recovery [incineration] may be preferable."

The good showing for incineration – preferred for a small number of items and often the next best option after recycling – will be controversial with some environmental campaigners who worry about the pollution from recycling plants, and that incineration becomes an easy option that deters investment in proper recycling.

However, the option of incineration was only preferred when it was using the best technology and generating energy, preferably energy that was directly replacing fossil fuel use, which is blamed for the greenhouse gas emissions that help cause global warming, said James.

"Energy recovery has a role to play, and if we're trying to divert more waste from landfill, we need to increase recycling and increase some energy recovery. But we need to make sure we get the right technologies," he said.

As well as analysing recycling in the UK, the study also considered the impact of transporting waste to other countries – often China – for recycling. It found that overseas transport was still better than sending it to landfill.

"The important thing is, because we're in an international economy ... [that if] we're sending metal back to China for recycling, it's coming back around the circle again," said James.

According to Defra, in 2008-9 the total waste collected from the UK's 25m households dropped slightly to 24.3m tonnes, or 473kg per person. Of this, 9.1m tonnes – 178kg per person – was recycled, a bit more than a third. Almost all of the remainder went to landfill.

Defra has a policy of encouraging more incineration, but no formal targets, said a spokesman.

"We can't keep on sending waste to landfill," said the spokesman. "People are already reducing the amount of waste they produce, and are reusing and recycling more, and we are working hard to increase this. Some waste will always be produced, but it can be valuable in generating renewable energy through anaerobic digestion or incineration."

In 2006, Wrap published a preliminary analysis of a different set of materials. But it used a much smaller collection of evidence. And it did not examine the newer energy-from-waste options of gasification and pyrolysis, both of which involve not burning but heating materials until a chemical reaction changes them into gases and residue.

• Recycling
• Waste
• Incineration

Social innovation is booming, but not many organisations take it seriously – yet. What's needed is a way to bring it all together, says Geoff Mulgan

How should you go about finding new answers to the challenge of an ageing population, unemployment, mental illness or cutting carbon emissions? Social innovation has started showing up everywhere, with EU programmes, networks, funds and even an office in the White House. But how should it best be done? Once you leave the rhetoric and the sometimes self-serving case studies behind, what actually works in achieving change?

All over the world, social innovation is tackling some of the most pressing problems facing society today – from fair trade, distance learning, hospices, urban farming and waste reduction to restorative justice and zero-carbon housing. But most of these are growing despite, not because of, help from governments. One example, which grew out of the need to reduce waste and free landfills, is Freecycle. Freecycle groups match people who have things they want to get rid of with people who can use them. It now has 5 million members in 85 communities worldwide. Another example of a creative use of the internet is Pledgebank, an online platform that helps people come together to take collective action. One person signs a pledge to do a certain thing if a number of other people agree to take the same action, for example, "I will start recycling if 100 people in my town do the same". The creator of the pledge then publicises their pledge and encourages people to sign up. Pledgebank is now global, with users in 60 countries. And there are many more examples from all over the world, ranging from Forum Theatre in Brazil, complaints choirs in Finland and Pratham's grassroots education in India to mobile banking in Africa, social currencies in Japan and innovation labs within the government in Denmark.

At one level, social innovation is an extraordinarily creative field – and one that is having a global impact. But it's also a field that is only just taking shape and moving beyond anecdotes. There are thousands of experts in business, medical and technological innovation, but only a few scattered organisations are beginning to take social innovation seriously. The Open Book of Social Innovation and its website will aim to bring together the hundreds of methods in use around the world, and provide an evolving resource for practitioners, with pointers to what works best, whether in finance, design or scaling up.

The Open Book of Social Innovation launches on 8 March and is available from the Young Foundation.

• Social trends
• Recycling