An ocean of plastic

An ocean of plastic. Source: www.takepart.com

According to the UK Recycling Guide, 275,000 tonnes of plastic are used each year in the UK. It is about 15 million bottles per day.

One recycled plastic bottle would save enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for 3 hours. However, most families throw away about 40 kg of plastic every year.

Consumption of this material, which can take up to 500 years to decompose, is increasingly growing in Western Europe and the impact on the environment is massive.

While the plastic packaging that fill up our cupboards and shelves do not seem to grow out of fashion, supermarkets all over the country recently confirmed the 5p levy introduced last October has reduced single-use plastic bag consumption by up to 80 per cent (data from Retail Week, February 2016).

This is great news if we look at the recently updated 2010 Government’s policy paper on waste and recycling which reads ‘In 2013 supermarkets gave out over 8 billion single-use carrier bags across the UK. That is nearly 130 bags per person and equates to about 57,000 tonnes of single-use carrier bags in total over the year’.

The effect of discarded plastic bags on the environment goes beyond littering and potential injury to marine wildlife and it comes as no surprise that they consume resources, including oil, in their creation.

The Government expects that this new targeted, proportionate charge will continue reducing the number of plastic bags used in England, increase their re-use and diminish littering. It also encourages businesses to donate the proceeds from the charge to good causes.

A positive attitude towards the protection of the environment comes from the world of fashion as well. Some adventurous designers have decided to add recycled material to their pieces of art, like London-based womenswear Jaeeun Shin, who conveyed a sustainable message introducing a collection of gowns made from supermarket carrier bags during a week of shows from UK fashion colleges held in June.

This is also good news for Greenpeace, an organisation actively involved in saving the environment, which published the New Year's plastic resolution at the beginning of 2016, suggesting five ways to effectively help the ocean: saying no to single use plastics, recycling and convincing other people to do so are all on the list.

These important initiatives may seem a lot. However, it is a drop in the ocean as the problem still remains: even when disposed of responsibly, plastic bags can last for long periods of time in landfill sites. 

Simply there is no ‘away’ to throw plastic to.

Chaos in the UK after the EU referendum has split up the country

UK vores for Brexit.  Picture:

multiple-sclerosis-research.blogspot.com

Today marks the start of a week like no other in Europe, as the UK is no longer an EU country. However, the formal and legal process of leaving the European Union only begins after the article 50 trigger is pulled and Britain’s divorce from the EU will certainly not be finalised overnight. On Thursday UK voted for Brexit after a very bitter campaign which has seen families split down in the middle, politicians vehemently attacking each other during debates and the tragic murder of Labour MP Joe Cox. She was shot outside a local constituency meeting near Leeds a week before people head to the polls, because of her strong pro-EU stance. Referendum day saw a 72.2 per cent turnout and a whopping 51.9 per cent of the nation voted to leave.  Results show a leave side dominance in England and Wales, while Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU. The northern country of the island of Great Britain will now have to reapply to the bloc for membership, if it wants to stay in the EU. According to the Commission, the whole procedure would likely take years and come with specific conditions; the adoption of the Euro currency is one of them. The English capital voted strongly to stay as well, and now many companies in the city are worried for their future. Emotions have been running quite high anywhere and particularly on social media, since the final results were announced at the central Town Hall in Manchester in the early hours of June 24. Within less than two days, more than three million people had signed an online petition calling for a second EU referendum, while a petition to newly elected mayor of London asking to declare the capital independent from the UK and apply to join the EU, has registered over 150 thousand signatures. The list goes on and over the weekend tens of thousands of people in central London protested against Brexit.   Unforgettable is the almost immediate Prime Minister’s speech of resignation, during which he explained how the country requires a fresh leadership to take it in the new direction, having British people made a very clear decision to go a different way. He added he will stay until the start of the Conservative party conference in October and will do everything he can as Prime Minister but it would not be right for him to be the captain that steers the country into its next destination. His aim is to guarantee a period of stability before his successor is installed to begin negotiations with the European Union. It is however hard to foresee any stability in such a chaotic scenario.  First of all, there is lot of anger and uncertainty all over the country: the impact on the pound and inflation has been immediate, as GBP went down double digits and FTSE down 7-8% within minutes from the polls closure. The financial market situation is not that dramatic right now; however, chancellor George Osborne hint at recession this morning, during his first post-Brexit speech. On the one hand, the country cannot ignore that there are 1.3 million Brits facing questions about their future living abroad within the EU.  As a consequence of the new setting, British expats may lose certain rights,  and start being charged for healthcare and higher taxes. On the other hand, there are over 2 million EU migrants working in Britain who according to HMRC data, made a net contribution to the economy of more than £2.5bn (tax year 2013-14). In the near future many of them may lose their right to stay or face significant restrictions. However, Brexit will probably lead an increase in migration in the short-term and hundreds of thousands of EU migrants are now likely to apply for British passports. Uncertainty is ruling the country and it comes as no surprise.  While surfing on the internet, it is possible to find many comments of  Brexiters who regretted their vote soon after UK was announced to be out of the EU. One leave voter even expressed his/her shock to the BBC by saying: “I'm shocked that we actually have voted to leave, I didn't think that was going to happen. My vote I didn't think was going to matter too much (…)". Are such worrying comments the consequence of a Leave campaign all focused on immigration and the subsequently withdrawn statement that UK sends £350 million a week to the EU, instead of funding the NHS? Is the outcome of what ultimately became a referendum on immigration, actually marking ‘independence day’ of the UK as UKIP leader Nigel Farage triumphantly said on Friday? How is this going to affect those fundamental human rights protected in the EU legal order now that Great Britain has decided to go its own way after 43 years? All we know right now is that Brexit will still be on the pages and front pages of many papers abroad for some time and the 24th June 2016 will be the day that changed the course of British history. The path is still very unclear.

Auntie BBC cannot relax yet

The British Broadcasting Corporation.  Picture: www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

Culture Secretary John Whittingdale has unveiled the White Paper, a document that sets out a new regime for the BBC in his plans for the next 11 years, while highlighting the importance of the broadcaster as a national asset that informs, educates and entertains the British public.

The authoritative report has arrived just a week ago, after a difficult time due to attacks from media groups and politicians opposed to the BBC’s size and structure.

The British Broadcasting Corporation has also faced a threat at the hands of the Government that wanted to cut the BBC down to size and challenging its scope, while forcing it to take on responsibility for a welfare benefit.

According to the NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet, despite the fantastic public response to the consultation on the future of the broadcaster, the game was lost before it had even begun by the BBC agreeing to a deal with George Osborne to fund the licence fees of the over-75s, which could diminish the scale of the BBC by 20 per cent.

In the light of these events, in 2015 the broadcaster declared its intention of making cuts of £150 million with the news budget facing a reduction of 5 million, not to mention a fall of £12 million on online services.

Being the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in strong disagreement with the announcement, it decided to support the BBC by launching the NUJ’s Love it or Lose it campaign and protesting against the broadcaster’s charter renewal.

The Union has been stressing since the beginning its plan to defend the British Broadcasting Corporation, which is both the largest single investor in TV news and the biggest commissioner of new music worldwide, as excellent value. In fact, it offers four TV channels, ten national radio stations and a network of local radio stations, not to mention BBC monitoring, BBC Parliament and its well-known website. The list goes on and the whole package only costs 40p a day.

Slimming Auntie BBC.  Image: www.economist.com

Will the recently published White Paper actually allow the BBC to be more open and creative than ever, while bearing the British values? 

Reports confirm that the BBC bosses are still concerned about the make-up of the proposed board, as the Government may interfere with the corporation’s running, therefore undermining its independence.

Lord Hall, the director-general of the oldest national broadcasting system in the world, is now expected to work hard to make sure Auntie BBC will not be turned into a state broadcaster.

Why should we BrExit?

The UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973
Picture: openeurope.org.uk

A 14-page pro-European Union booklet is about to be sent to every house in Britain.

The heading reads Why the Government believes that voting to remain in the European Union is the best decision for the UK.

The move has not been welcomed by anti-EU Conservative and Leave supporters who believe it is crazy to spend more than £ 9m of taxpayers’ money on campaign to stay in the EU. They also argued the leaflet should at least allow people to read about the other side of the case.  

Most party leaders think Britain’s future belongs in the EU: not only PM David Cameron is pro-EU, also Labour leader Jeremy Corbin-who opposed UK membership in 1975- and Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, are underlying the benefits of staying  in the European Union’s single market.

During a recent talk in London Mr Farron asked the public: “Is it in our interest for the United Kingdom to remain a member of the world’s biggest, most important market? (….) to remain in a union where currently 100 of the world’s top 250 companies have their base in this city?”.

In fact, around 3 million jobs in Britain depend on EU membership and even more jobs in the EU are up to exports to Britain.

It sounds overall detrimental for Britain not to do business with EU and vice versa. And for those who argue about the cost of staying in the EU, the answer is quite reassuring: just 1p for every £1 we spend goes to the European Union.

The highly criticised document each household in Britain is going to receive soon, also contains information on another key argument: immigration. Opting out the EU would not reduce the phenomenon, as the UK has to commit to some free movement anyway. 

Staying in the EU or leaving the EU? Picture: leaderchat.org  

On the other side, the Mayor of London Boris Johnson is strongly supporting the Leave campaign and during a talk that took place in Dartford a month ago, he energetically highlighted why Britain would be better off out the EU, whose economy is burdened with too much bureaucracy .

The whole speech could be summarised in one sentence:

“This country is big enough, great enough and strong enough to stand on our own”.

Will voters up and down the UK decide to remain in the EU or not?

Looking at the Polling movement since 2015 as reported by the Financial Times, following results from online and telephones polls, there is not significant gap between those who want to stay and voters who would like to leave the EU.  

Not by chance, results from this week’s poll show that a 43 per cent of the population is on the Leave zone, while a 42 per cent of voters are Pro-EU.

With less than 10 weeks to go until the referendum, it is still hard to say whether or not Britain will stay in the European Union.