United Nations Debate

Well, we had a UN style debate last week. We got put into pairs and each pair represented a country. Me and Rachael had to represent Belize.


So what did I learn from this exercise? Well firstly, i'm ashamed to admit, I didn't know where Belize was! But fear not, I know now: it lies between Mexico and Guatemala on the Caribbean coast of Northern Central America. As for the sustainable developments put in place in the Country at the moment? Well, there really isn't much they are doing! Compared to other countries in used in the debate I can see why Belize didn't get the money. It's main source of income is tourism so the main connection with sustainable development is Eco-tourism. Not at the top of the UN list of things to do!I enjoyed listening to the debate, although my input was very limited. I know how difficult it was infront of a group of people i knew, I dread to think what must be going through the minds of our UN representatives at the UN debates! I liked learning about strategies put in place by countries I had never given thought to before (The Solomon Islands for example). It showed me that a lot of well developed countries are not being very sustainable, where as a lot of undeveloped countries are trying their best, and using what resources they have, to become as sustainable as possible. This is because developed countries, such as the USA, have so much money and power that they don't need to worry about using unrenewable materials such as oil. Whereas smaller, less developed countries, such as Ghana, haven't got as much money and so can not afford to use as much oil and unrenewable materials.

I also noticed how wide spread the topics talked about were. From the likes of the USA mentioning gun crime and drugs, and other countries mentioning pollutuion or nearly extinct anilmals. The subject of sustainability appears to have completley different meanings to different people.

Overall I feel the debate went well. I learned a lot about other countries and their strategies for sustainable development. If I was to do it again, I would try and research more in depth, I would try and contact the countries government and ask them personally what their strategies are, how they are developing, and try to understand a bit more from their point of view.

Recycling in Northampton

The Northamptonshire Government recently published a " Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy" The 2008 edition is an adopted version of the 2002 copy.

Since 2002 the percentatage increase of recycling happening in Northamptonshire has incresed from 14% to 34%. They want to increse this figure to 36% by 2010 and to 50% by 2020. This means that HALF the waste in a household will be recycling. Compare this to other authorities such as South Norfolk County Council who have a stategy but no target figures and it is a good target, however considering Northamptonshire almost doubled the amount of recycling in two years (from 18% to 28% from 2002-2004) the target of 50% seems less than satisfactory.

A number of questions appear, such as: Have the Northamptonshire Waste Partnership (NWP) thought about telling people to recycle, not only paper, plastics, and glass, but materials such as food and cotton which can be composted? Could the authorities pair up with other companies and recycle other household objects such as mobile phones or ink cartridges? Is there a reward system in place, such as getting paid in return for a certain percentage of recycling per household? There are many more recycling ideas all over the internet, why doesn't the NWP create a "best of" list, with ideas people would find most helpful, for those that haven't looked online.Northampton Borough Council currently collect two bins of recycling: a green one for paper and cardboard and a blue one for plastic, cans and foil. They also collect household waste in a black bin and have a brown bin at some houses for garden waste. Why do they not collect glass? Well they are just about to introduce it after a very succesful trial at the end of Sept 2008, which collected 100 tonnes of glass in five months.

Compared to many other authorities Northamptonshire is doing very well with targets, but this doesn't mean they can't improve. By collecting glass they could increase the amount collected for recycling dramatically. It is good that they have started to collect garden waste, but out of 660,000 homes only 60,000 have garden waste collected. That's less than under 10%! Glass, like the garden waste, is only being done to a small percentage of households (Just 86,000)

Recycling is a major part of British life at the moment, with supermarkets rewarding you for re-using your own shopping bags, charging you for using plastic bags, and some authorities giving out rewards for recycling correctly. If enough people sre given the motivation to start and continue, recycling figures could be dramatically changed for the better.

Further Reading:

Northamptonshire Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy

Reduce Reuse Recycle

A different way of reusing

Recycle.com