Blog

11 June 2019
As the dust settles on the Government’s announcement to ban plastic drinking straws, cotton buds and drink stirrers and moves on to consider further market restrictions for plastic plates, cutlery and polystyrene containers, Principal Consultant, Bernie Thomas considers the journey that has led us here.

5 June 2019
As I emerged from my taxi into the bustling city of Hyderabad, I felt an immediate assault to the senses… As time progressed, I was forced to reflect on how the UK ‘does waste’ compared to India. While we obsess with technical solutions (waste to energy, recycling innovation), India excels at a behavioural and cultural level.

15 May 2019
At a time when non-biodegradable waste such as plastic is making headlines on a daily basis, the immense volume of food waste is often overlooked. In Bristol we’re active at a local level, chairing the Bristol Food Waste Action Group as part of the city’s bid to increase its accreditation as a Sustainable Food City.

9 May 2019
Emma Burlow, Head of Circular Economy at Resource Futures, accepts that there is (or was) a default consumer position towards convenience, but if you ask today’s consumer what they want, they appear to be saying, at great volume, “less plastic” and are challenging retailers more than ever on over-packaging.

20 March 2019
Bernie Thomas, principal consultant at Resource Futures, says “solutions aren’t perfect” when it comes to packaging recycling. He says in a knee-jerk quest to solve one problem, we risk developing practices which themselves have unintended consequences…

5 March 2019
Kate Chambers, Consultant at Resource Futures, shares her thoughts on why she feels proud of Scotland, and why the country is uniquely placed to challenge the issues of marine litter and climate change. Last week, attending Marine Scotland’s first International Marine Conference in Glasgow, there was a lot to feel proud of.

19 January 2019
Archana Pisharody, Consultant at Resource Futures shares her thoughts on a recent business breakfast in Bristol hosted by the Future Economy Network, where presentations provided a positive outlook on the way forward to many of the unresolved challenges in the waste industry.

16 January 2019
Phillip Ward considers how a circular economy needs goods which are designed to last longer and are capable of being fixed – and probably upgraded – when they go wrong or improvements become available. But as with recycling, it’s not enough to wish for the outcome without addressing the systems needed to make it achievable in practice – and those systems need to address the whole repair environment, including its economics, if they are going to work.

19 December 2018
Before parting with our hard-earned money, many of us think hard about the quality and price of the product or service we want to buy. But increasingly, we want to know who made it and where? What’s the supply chain story? What resources and materials were used? We want a guarantee that our purchase is not having a negative social and environmental impact. Kate Chambers, Consultant at Resource Futures, explains that this is where the B Corp movement, which recognises there is a better way to do business, comes in.

17 December 2018
Allan Sandilands, Principal Consultant at Resource Futures, shares his thoughts on how a growing network of Innovation Champions are helping the Construction industry in Scotland to reduce its environmental impact by tackling some of the challenges they face, head on.

14 December 2018
With Christmas fast approaching, and residual waste collections rearranged over the festive season, many parents are facing the challenge of how to deal with the waste produced by their children’s ‘disposable’ nappies. Kirstie Clarke, Real Nappy Outreach Worker in Gloucestershire, considers what options there are when there is no room at the bin.

15 November 2018
The Circular Economy Hotspot 2018 may have opened on a ‘dreich’ (Scots word for grey and wet weather!) Halloween morning in Glasgow, but the weather didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits. From a line-up of diverse and excellent speakers, we’ve selected a few highlights under the themes of leadership, collaboration and systems for people and planet.

25 October 2018
Our Head of Waste, Resources and Development,David Lerpiniere,  joins Dr. Veronica Di Bella from CDC Group’s Environmental and Social Responsibility team to explore current challenges, opportunities and best practice on plastic waste management from a private sector perspective. 

18 October 2018
Sarah Hargreaves, Communications Consultant at Resource Futures, says changes to services are often greeted with firm public resistance particularly where there is a lack of effective engagement to support and explain the changes. Here, she asks what’s the best way to encourage behaviour change across diverse communities?

21 September 2018
In a sector where it is often said that there is ‘bad data and worse data’, the release of the World Bank’s data digest on global waste management – What A Waste 2.0 – is a much-needed resource to help us understand what is happening around the world. David Lerpiniere reflects on this new report and its potential impact in the global waste sector.

7 August 2018
I’d like to think that my job is a bit like the job of a detective or CSI – collecting data (evidence) on resource efficiency. Robust evidence will help to build a case. In the current cash-strapped world, it’s all about building a good business case to justify making changes or investments. But how do you construct your investigation so that you get the information you need while not blowing the budget? And is the upfront investment even worth it?

19 July 2018
Imagine a world where the only resources we have to make new stuff are recycled materials. All the DVD players, toys, domestic appliances, cars and construction products would have to be made of so-called ‘secondary materials’, materials that have had a former life, as opposed to primary materials that come directly from mineral resource or fossil fuels. What effect would this have? David Lerpiniere, Principal Consultant at Resource Futures shared his thoughts with Greenhouse PR.

19 July 2018
The plastic waste challenge is complex. There are thousands of plastic polymers, numerous additives and almost limitless applications and formats. And the list of potential solutions is almost endless, running from outright bans – through scaling up recycling or replacing everything with bioplastics – to harvesting the troublesome material from the oceans. Confused? Me too.

19 April 2018
In the last few weeks it’s been great seeing more discussion on recycling in flats. Throughout my time in the waste management industry flats have been overlooked, as the primary focus has been on providing services to kerbside properties and increasing recycling from these types of households.

22 February 2018
My five-year-old asked me what I did for a job: “Mummy writes in a newspaper. Do you write about rubbish?” It takes the elevator pitch to a whole new level. Kids have an amazing ability to question objectively in trying to understand what is going on. Our sector is complicated, fact. We work with customers to enable positive management of materials resources. And one of our most complicated topics is plastics.

1 February 2018
The consumer society thrives on a huge range of cheap, versatile plastic products, many designed for single use and spanning a range of polymer types. But such a variety makes plastic recycling hugely confusing for householders. The nuances of which plastics can or cannot be recycled is a tricky message to communicate to the public, and is further confused by regional collection variations and the influx of ‘biodegradable’ and ‘compostable’ plastics.

13 December 2017
I’ve always loved working with retailers. The scale, pace and unshakeable commercial reality make this a real challenge for a practitioner like me. If I can change behaviours or material impacts here, I’ll retire happy!

7 November 2017
Jane Stephenson, Business Development Director at Resource Futures, explains why the company decided to join the B Corp movement and how others in the waste and resources industry could benefit too.

10 August 2017
Polyethylene terephthalate, or ‘PET’, is a recycling success story. It’s one of the most widely recycled plastics. It is easy to identify and therefore separate from post-consumer waste streams. 99% of UK local authorities now collect plastic bottles as part of their recycling collections, up from 80% in 2008. And it is a good example of closed-loop recycling, with an estimated third of plastic bottles collected in the UK recycled into new bottles[ii].

8 June 2017
If I had a pound for every circular economy vision piece and strategy report that I’ve read in the past five years, then……well, I’d be a rich man. Perhaps it is me or does it sometimes feel like the subject itself is circular? Recirculation of the same mantra, the definitions, the diagrams and case examples within blue-chip companies and the captains of industry. Does the circular economy warrant all this attention? Just why is it so highly prized? Well, where to start…

6 April 2017
When I started work on the Environmental Technology Best Practice Programme, or ETBPP in 1997, the clumsiness of the title said it all. The focus was heavily on compliance (at that time with the newly launched Packaging Regulations) and waste minimisation. There was little scope for supporting innovation. Eco-design was the vanguard of the brave and whilst these products hinted at an alternative future, they were exactly that, alternative and marginal.

7 March 2017
Will French, Senior Consultant at Resource Futures, says at a time of local authority budget constraints, work has become increasingly focussed on waste collection efficiency.

26 January 2017
Bethan Thomas, Head of Engagement and Communications at Resource Futures, says that if we want to evolve towards a circular economy, then we are all going to need to change our habits.