Economics, Food & Agriculture
Comments (1)

Environmental Photographer of the Year Award 2008, Natural World, runner up: ‘Green Steps’, Ly Hoang Long, Vietnam
A scary article in last Saturday’s Guardian outlines the extent to which rich nations are flexing their financial muscles around the globe to secure their food supplies. This week, Daewoo Logistics of South Korea has announced plans to acquire a 99-year lease on 1 million hectares of land in Madagascar. South Korea now owns 2.3 million hectares of land around the world, predominantly in Madagascar, Mongolia and Sudan. Against a background of fears over rising food prices, globalised greed and local corruption are riding roughshod over environmental concerns and the livelihoods of indigenous populations.
China is a close runner-up to South Korea in the land imperialism stakes, with over 2 million hectares worldwide in Australia, Laos, Phillipines, Russia, Cameroon, Uganda,Kazakhstan, Mexico and Cuba. While on the face of it China has plenty of land, desertification, soil erosion and water shortages are threatening its ability to feed its population thrugh domestic agriculture. According to a report from China’s bio-environment research team, erosion has cost the economy 200 billion yuan ($29 billion) since 2000. Each year 4.5 billion tonnes of topsoil are lost, at which rate harvests in China’s north-eastern breadbasket could fall by 40% in 50 years.
While here in the UK the idea of local food is gathering momentum, other nations think nothing of sourcing their food supplies from halfway round the world.
Sphere: Related Content Pete Smith @ November 23, 2008
Recycling
Comments (0)


Well, not quite all. The London Borough of Bromley’s (LBB) trial of weekly kitchen waste collections continues its lumbering progress. The Composting For All trial has been running since September 2007, with 4,500 participating households (or 5,000 depending on which piece of LBB propaganda you happen to read). Its original remit was to evaluate the practicalities of a weekly kitchen waste collection for “smelly and potentially contentious” non-compostible food scraps.
In September 2008, the scope of the trial was extended. The existing ‘plastic bottles only’ rule was suspended and LBB began to collect all plastic containers from households in the trial as part of the ‘green box’ recycling scheme. Eligible items include all types of washed plastic containers such as food trays, yoghurt pots, margarine and ice-cream containers, though not plastic film or bags, toys, polystyrene or electrical items. This is a welcome move, as it addresses the nonsensical situation where bottles made of all kinds of plastics were accepted for recycling, while other types of packaging like pots or tubs made from identical plastics were not.
LBB claims that , with more items than ever before being recycled, the contents of the typical household bin have been drastically reduced, to the extent that a fortnightly refuse collection is now being trialled. Kitchen waste collections have increased to 3 tonnes per day, ‘green box’ recycling (glass, plastic and cans) has doubled, while the amount of household refuse has halved.
It’s ironic that, as recycling is really starting to take off, global prices for waste materials have been badly hit by a recession-led slump in demand.
LBB ‘Composting For All’
Sphere: Related Content
Pete Smith @ November 21, 2008