[News] from [guardian.co.uk]
[Environment > Waste]
Britain bins £12bn of food and drink every year, report reveals
Liquid waste – milk, soup and soft drinks – included in figures for first time, taking total of discarded food to 5.3m tonnes a year
Rebecca Smithers
guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 November 2009 14.55 GMT Article history
More than £12bn worth of food and drink that could have been consumed is thrown out every year by householders, according to new figures today that reveal the scale of the UK's food waste mountain.
The new statistics from Wrap, the body set up to advise the government on reducing waste and packaging, are the first to include liquid waste – including vast amounts of milk, soup and soft drinks – which are being poured down the sink.
They are published in a new report – Household Food and Waste in the UK (pdf) – which shows that while the amount of food we waste has broadly stabilised, the addition of liquids has boosted the amount of avoidable food waste from 4.1m tonnes to 5.3m tonnes every year.
The cost of the avoidable food and drink waste is typically £480 per household per year – rising to around £680 a year for families with children – while the potential damage to the environment is huge. The greenhouse gas emissions associated with avoidable food and drink waste are the equivalent of approximately 20m tonnes of carbon dioxide per year – equivalent to 2.4% of greenhouse gas emissions associated with all consumption in the UK. Most discarded food reaches landfill sites, where it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. But more effective composting, as well as reduced waste, would slash this.
The two main reasons that we throw food out have not changed, the report says. We cook or prepare too much and we let food go off, either completely untouched, or opened and started but not finished.
Of the avoidable food and drink waste, 2.2m tonnes is left over after cooking, preparing or serving and 2.9m tonnes is not used in time.
Avoidable drink waste costs us £1.6bn annually, the report reveals. Britain discards around £250m of fizzy drinks and £190m of fruit juices and smoothies every year. We also chuck out around £110m of tea (most likely to be half-drunk cups), while we are also extraordinarily wasteful with dairy products. More than £280m worth of milk is thrown away per year – not just milk we throw away from the fridge but also that which is leftover from serving too much, such as milk from breakfast cereal. More than 90% of the milk that is thrown away is in amounts of 50g or more – the equivalent of at least a quarter of a glass each time.
Since its launch by Wrap in November 2007, the Love Food Hate Waste campaign led has helped around 2.1m homes to take steps to cut back on the amount of food they throw away, resulting in a reduction of 162,000 tonnes of food waste; an overall saving of £400m a year that has prevented the emission of 725,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases.
Wrap's objective is to reduce household food waste being sent to landfill by 250,000 tonnes by March 2011, with the saving 1.1m tonnes of CO2.
A Wrap spokesperson commented: "These new figures published today show that we throw away a staggering £12bn of food and drink that could have been consumed, either because we cook or prepare too much, or because we let it go off. Love Food Hate Waste has some great tips on simple planning, portioning and storing our food and drink that can help us save as much as £50 a month."
[Environment > Wind power]
Spain's windfarms set new national record for electricity generation
High winds over the weekend supplied 53% of Spain's electricity – equivalent to the power output of 11 nuclear plants
Giles Tremlett
guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 November 2009 16.27 GMT Article history
Wind energy provided more than half of Spain's total electricity needs for several hours over the weekend as the country set a new national record for wind-generated power.
With high winds gusting across much of the country, Spain's huge network of windfarms jointly poured the equivalent of 11 nuclear power stations' worth of electricity into the national grid.
At one stage on Sunday morning, the country's wind farms were able to cover 53% of total electricity demand – a new record in a country that boasts the world's third largest array of wind turbines, after the United States and Germany.
For more than five hours on Sunday morning output from wind power was providing more than half of the electricity being used. At their peak, wind farms were generating 11.5 gigawatts, or two-thirds of their theoretical maximum capacity of almost 18GW.
The new record, which beat a 44 % level set earlier last week, came as strong winds battered the Iberian peninsula.
The massive output of wind turbines meant the Spanish grid had more electricity than was needed over the weekend. In previous years similar weather has forced windfarms to turn turbines off but now the spare electricity is exported or used by hydroelectric plants to pump water back into their dams — effectively storing the electricity for future use.
José Donoso, head of the Spanish Wind Energy Association, recalled that just five years ago critics had claimed the grid could never cope with more than 14% of its supply from wind.
"We think that we can keep growing and go from the present 17GW megawatts to reach 40GW in 2020," he told El País newspaper.
Windfarms have this month outperformed other forms of electricity generation in Spain, beating gas into second place and producing 80% more than the country's nuclear plants.
Experts estimate that by the end of the year, Spain will have provided a quarter of its energy needs with renewables, with wind leading the way, followed by hydroelectric power and solar energy.
[Environment > Wildlife]
Why the red deer failed to rut
There has been no deer rut in the New Forest this autumn
David Adam
The Guardian, Tuesday 10 November 2009 Article history
For centuries, the autumnal red deer rut has been one of the stunning sights of the British countryside. The annual event sees giant stags chase rivals, bellow warnings and lock horns in a fight for supremacy. To the winners, the female spoils. To the losers, the consolation that they may appear in a nice photograph.
According to the website of the New Forest, which has some of the most established red deer herds in England, "Early on autumnal mornings, during the annual red deer rut, testosterone-charged stags with thickened manes make a fearsome sight as, muscles rippling, flanks caked in mud, breath billowing white against the dark heather, they roar their welcome to the dawn." Enough, you might think, to make anyone grab their digital SLR camera and head for the forest.
Unfortunately, the only flanks caked with mud at the New Forest rut this season have been those of the eager deer-spotters. For the first time that anyone can remember, this year there has been no deer rut.
Ian Young, a New Forest keeper, says there have been too many people hanging around with cameras. He blames well-meaning programmes such as the BBC's Autumnwatch and wildlife websites that alert the public to the arrival of a stag. "We had one stag who walked all the way here from Bournemouth and as soon as he got here he was surrounded by 29 people with cameras. There are so many people coming now that they disturb the animals." Local farmers who shoot stags when they wander on to private land are also to blame, he says.
One stag arrived last week. "The next day we had 50 or 60 people here. They came from Bristol, Devon and Cornwall after they read about him on a website." With no rival to fight, the stag wandered off again.
When the Guardian discovered the rut was in doubt several weeks ago, the Foresty Commission, which runs the site, was desperate to avoid extra publicity. "The last thing we need is a bunch of film crews coming down to make the situation worse," a spokesperson said at the time. The rut season is now effectively finished.
The failure of the rut does not threaten the herd, Young says. Deer will still breed, though it is more likely to be younger males, which do not rut. "There is too much public pressure on them, so they will do it at night."
[Environment > Waste]
Britain bins £12bn of food and drink every year, report reveals
Liquid waste – milk, soup and soft drinks – included in figures for first time, taking total of discarded food to 5.3m tonnes a year
Rebecca Smithers
guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 November 2009 14.55 GMT Article history
More than £12bn worth of food and drink that could have been consumed is thrown out every year by householders, according to new figures today that reveal the scale of the UK's food waste mountain.
The new statistics from Wrap, the body set up to advise the government on reducing waste and packaging, are the first to include liquid waste – including vast amounts of milk, soup and soft drinks – which are being poured down the sink.
They are published in a new report – Household Food and Waste in the UK (pdf) – which shows that while the amount of food we waste has broadly stabilised, the addition of liquids has boosted the amount of avoidable food waste from 4.1m tonnes to 5.3m tonnes every year.
The cost of the avoidable food and drink waste is typically £480 per household per year – rising to around £680 a year for families with children – while the potential damage to the environment is huge. The greenhouse gas emissions associated with avoidable food and drink waste are the equivalent of approximately 20m tonnes of carbon dioxide per year – equivalent to 2.4% of greenhouse gas emissions associated with all consumption in the UK. Most discarded food reaches landfill sites, where it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. But more effective composting, as well as reduced waste, would slash this.
The two main reasons that we throw food out have not changed, the report says. We cook or prepare too much and we let food go off, either completely untouched, or opened and started but not finished.
Of the avoidable food and drink waste, 2.2m tonnes is left over after cooking, preparing or serving and 2.9m tonnes is not used in time.
Avoidable drink waste costs us £1.6bn annually, the report reveals. Britain discards around £250m of fizzy drinks and £190m of fruit juices and smoothies every year. We also chuck out around £110m of tea (most likely to be half-drunk cups), while we are also extraordinarily wasteful with dairy products. More than £280m worth of milk is thrown away per year – not just milk we throw away from the fridge but also that which is leftover from serving too much, such as milk from breakfast cereal. More than 90% of the milk that is thrown away is in amounts of 50g or more – the equivalent of at least a quarter of a glass each time.
Since its launch by Wrap in November 2007, the Love Food Hate Waste campaign led has helped around 2.1m homes to take steps to cut back on the amount of food they throw away, resulting in a reduction of 162,000 tonnes of food waste; an overall saving of £400m a year that has prevented the emission of 725,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases.
Wrap's objective is to reduce household food waste being sent to landfill by 250,000 tonnes by March 2011, with the saving 1.1m tonnes of CO2.
A Wrap spokesperson commented: "These new figures published today show that we throw away a staggering £12bn of food and drink that could have been consumed, either because we cook or prepare too much, or because we let it go off. Love Food Hate Waste has some great tips on simple planning, portioning and storing our food and drink that can help us save as much as £50 a month."
[Environment > Wind power]
Spain's windfarms set new national record for electricity generation
High winds over the weekend supplied 53% of Spain's electricity – equivalent to the power output of 11 nuclear plants
Giles Tremlett
guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 November 2009 16.27 GMT Article history
Wind energy provided more than half of Spain's total electricity needs for several hours over the weekend as the country set a new national record for wind-generated power.
With high winds gusting across much of the country, Spain's huge network of windfarms jointly poured the equivalent of 11 nuclear power stations' worth of electricity into the national grid.
At one stage on Sunday morning, the country's wind farms were able to cover 53% of total electricity demand – a new record in a country that boasts the world's third largest array of wind turbines, after the United States and Germany.
For more than five hours on Sunday morning output from wind power was providing more than half of the electricity being used. At their peak, wind farms were generating 11.5 gigawatts, or two-thirds of their theoretical maximum capacity of almost 18GW.
The new record, which beat a 44 % level set earlier last week, came as strong winds battered the Iberian peninsula.
The massive output of wind turbines meant the Spanish grid had more electricity than was needed over the weekend. In previous years similar weather has forced windfarms to turn turbines off but now the spare electricity is exported or used by hydroelectric plants to pump water back into their dams — effectively storing the electricity for future use.
José Donoso, head of the Spanish Wind Energy Association, recalled that just five years ago critics had claimed the grid could never cope with more than 14% of its supply from wind.
"We think that we can keep growing and go from the present 17GW megawatts to reach 40GW in 2020," he told El País newspaper.
Windfarms have this month outperformed other forms of electricity generation in Spain, beating gas into second place and producing 80% more than the country's nuclear plants.
Experts estimate that by the end of the year, Spain will have provided a quarter of its energy needs with renewables, with wind leading the way, followed by hydroelectric power and solar energy.
[Environment > Wildlife]
Why the red deer failed to rut
There has been no deer rut in the New Forest this autumn
David Adam
The Guardian, Tuesday 10 November 2009 Article history
For centuries, the autumnal red deer rut has been one of the stunning sights of the British countryside. The annual event sees giant stags chase rivals, bellow warnings and lock horns in a fight for supremacy. To the winners, the female spoils. To the losers, the consolation that they may appear in a nice photograph.
According to the website of the New Forest, which has some of the most established red deer herds in England, "Early on autumnal mornings, during the annual red deer rut, testosterone-charged stags with thickened manes make a fearsome sight as, muscles rippling, flanks caked in mud, breath billowing white against the dark heather, they roar their welcome to the dawn." Enough, you might think, to make anyone grab their digital SLR camera and head for the forest.
Unfortunately, the only flanks caked with mud at the New Forest rut this season have been those of the eager deer-spotters. For the first time that anyone can remember, this year there has been no deer rut.
Ian Young, a New Forest keeper, says there have been too many people hanging around with cameras. He blames well-meaning programmes such as the BBC's Autumnwatch and wildlife websites that alert the public to the arrival of a stag. "We had one stag who walked all the way here from Bournemouth and as soon as he got here he was surrounded by 29 people with cameras. There are so many people coming now that they disturb the animals." Local farmers who shoot stags when they wander on to private land are also to blame, he says.
One stag arrived last week. "The next day we had 50 or 60 people here. They came from Bristol, Devon and Cornwall after they read about him on a website." With no rival to fight, the stag wandered off again.
When the Guardian discovered the rut was in doubt several weeks ago, the Foresty Commission, which runs the site, was desperate to avoid extra publicity. "The last thing we need is a bunch of film crews coming down to make the situation worse," a spokesperson said at the time. The rut season is now effectively finished.
The failure of the rut does not threaten the herd, Young says. Deer will still breed, though it is more likely to be younger males, which do not rut. "There is too much public pressure on them, so they will do it at night."
※コメント投稿者のブログIDはブログ作成者のみに通知されます