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Britain to recycle diapers into roof tiles 9/15/2011 12:54:28 AM LONDON: British babies use around three billion disposable diapers every year. Now a new recycling plant has opened in the country where these nappies would be turned into roof tiles and construction tubes.
Over half million tonnes of waste from disposable diapers is generated in Britain every year.
An average British baby uses 6,000 before being trained to use the
potty. Each disposable diaper takes around 500 years to decompose, says
the Daily Mail.
A Canadian company -- Knowaste -- has stepped
forward to recycle around 36,000 tonnes of diapers at the first
recycling facility of its kind in Britain.
The plant opened in West Bromwich, around 165 km from London. The waste diapers will be collected from hospitals, nursing facilities and child care nurseries.
The company said the products would be sterilised and highly valuable plastic and fibre will be recovered. These can then be used for making new products like roof tiles or
plastic components and fibre-based construction and commercial tubes. Global investment in clean energy hits $243 bn 9/15/2011 12:56:17 AM UNITED NATIONS: Global investment in clean energy rose to a record $243 billion dollars last year with the vast majority concentrated in the world's top 20 economies, the United Nations said Wednesday.
Many countries are struggling with the breakneck increase in climate change financing, however, according to a new UN Development Program (UNDP) guide to one of the world's fastest growing industries.
Over the past two years more than 50 national public climate funds have
been created. There are 45 carbon markets and more than 6,000 private
equity funds providing billions of dollars for climate change action,
the guide said.
The European Union, Japan and the United States are already providing $30 billion a year to help poorer nations combat global warming and this Green Climate Fund will be channeling $100 billion a year by 2020.
Cassie Flynn, lead author of the UN guide, said that climate financing is now hitting "historic" levels.
"There is really only a small group of countries that are accessing the
funds as easily as we would hope and this is where national climate
funds come in," Flynn said, highlighting the concentration of clean
energy financing in the Group of 20 major economies.
Poorer
nations are predicted to bear the brunt of rising seas, drought and the
fierce storms that are being blamed on global warming.
Brazil and China have two of the most successful national climate funds, according to Flynn.
Brazil taxes its oil industry to pay for climate projects, and China
expects to have $1.5 billion a year from 2012 paid for from its own
business operations and international grants, according to the UN guide.
National funds help individual countries to access and use
the varied financing, said Flynn. Countries have to prepare for
initiatives such as the Green Climate Fund and the huge sums it will be
handling.
"How can they better put in place systems on their
side, domestically, to better access these funds, to get results out of
those funds," Flynn said.
"I think we will see many more
national climate funds in coming years. These are the best way to
attract and channel resources." |
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