Nicki
Contributor
Joined: 22 May 2007
Posts: 63
Location: London, specifically South
|
 Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 6:22 pm Post subject: Project Freesheet |
 |
|
Hi,
sorry this has taken so long to get to you. the next walkabout is in a couple of weeks (12th june). i've requested pics, which i'll send as soon as i get them, it's 650 words not including the links...
Project Freesheet
They’re stacked up in stations, littered across public transport and handed out to thousands of commuters each day, but readers of the UK’s free newspapers are unlikely to be fully aware of the environmental impact of the 42 million free newspapers that are printed across the world every day.
Unlike Justin Canning. Concerned about the volume of discarded newspapers – he cites an article that appeared in The Ecologist stating that it takes 12 established trees to make one tonne of newsprint as having spurred him into action – Canning’s awareness of the issue led him to create Project Freesheet, an organisation that is currently focusing its energies on the amount of newspapers discarded on London’s public transport network.
Canning – a previously self-confessed armchair environmentalist – created Project Freesheet with the aim of raising awareness about the amount of papers produced but not widely recycled across the country.
In an open letter to London’s mayoral candidates – including recently elected Mayor Boris Johnson – members of Project Freesheet pointed out that while over 1.5 million free newspapers are distributed in London each weekday, Transport for London can only cope with recycling around 25% of this amount. As no London borough currently recycles waste left in municipal bins, the vast majority of this ends up in landfill.
London’s new Mayor seems to have taken these facts onboard: one of Boris’s first acts was to axe The Londoner, the promotional Greater London Authority newspaper produced during predecessor Ken Livingstone’s tenure as Mayor. According to statements, the closure of The Londoner will save the city nearly three million pounds, a percentage of which is to be spent on planting 10,000 new street trees.
So Boris has made a start, but as Canning says, there’s still a long way to go. With three other free newspapers available – Metro, London Lite and thelondonpaper – London is still being buried in discarded newsprint, something Project Freesheet wants to stop by calling for the newspapers’ publishing houses to invest more time and money into recycling the waste they produce.
“These papers are produced in enormous and increasing quantities, but the corporations are not putting any funding into clean-up,” says Canning. “It’s wasteful, it’s neglectful, and they’re not particularly well-produced products – the public treat them as throwaway because they’re free, so there’s no sense of ownership as with a paid-for newspaper.”
In August 2007 Associated Newspapers and News International, publishers of London Lite and thelondonpaper respectively, reached an agreement with Westminster City Council to pay for 64 recycling bins around Central London. Both papers make much of their commitment to the recycling issue, with London Lite employing litter pickers and and thelondonpaper being printed on recyled paper. London Lite has even been granted carbon neutral status for its support of two projects abroad: clean technology in Jamaica and forestry in Scotland.
But this isn’t enough. Canning is particularly frustrated with thelondonpaper and London Lite’s method of using street vendors to distribute. He points out that Metro, London’s longest-running freesheet, is only available from dumbvendors, which gives commuters the choice as to whether or not they pick one up. Being physically handed a paper, however, means that commuters have less of a choice to make. Canning believes this is a defining factor. The project’s petition to Downing Street calls for a ban on this ‘aggressive’ distribution, and Canning believes that banning street vendors would reduce the circulation levels to more manageable levels.
“The recycling infrastructure just can’t deal with it,” Canning says. “They’d need at least 8,000 recycling bins just to deal with the afternoon newspapers.”
With this in mind, Project Freesheet regularly organises Walkabouts, where volunteers converge on London in order to help rid the city of a day’s worth of freesheets, collecting as many papers as possible to be recycled. 8,000 were collected during the last Walkabout – a number Canning hopes to beat on Thursday June 12th when the next meeting is scheduled.
Links
To volunteer to take part in the next Walkabout, or for more information go to: www.projectfreesheet.org
The Project Freesheet blog (last updated in February) can be found at www.projectfreesheet.blogspot.com
There are also Project Freesheet groups on Facebook and Flickr |
|
