United Nations debate: DENMARK

For this exercise myself and Sam were representatives of Denmark (whoop whoop), and i must admit that i was kind of relieved when i realised that they had got plenty of sustainable strategies in place, and actually were at the forefront of sustainability. We managed to get information about most of their strategies quite quickly, the harder thing would be to talk about everything in just 5 minutes, and what suggestions of improvements could we offer for a country who seem to be doing everything already!

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I didn't really know much about Denmark as a country, and absolutely zero about it's sustainable strategies prior to doing this exercise, and was pleasantly surprised about how much they had going on. I suppose I always thought that all countries within the EU would be doing the same sort of thing when it came to sustainability, and so always used England as my bench mark for whats good. This exercise has opened my eyes to that, and makes me wonder why we as a country don't adopt some of these strategies. Only 7% of waste being put in landfills, is definitely something to aspire to as a country! Hearing about the other countries sustainable ideas, also made me realise how much the economy influences how sustainable you are; whether it's not being able to input ideas because you can't afford it, or that you haven't got other options to how you manage things already.

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Overall I think our presentation went alright, but it could have been soooooooo much better if we had been stricter with our time, and kept to the point. One of the main elements of the exercise was to identify what you would do differently if you had the money, and we ran out of time to do justice to this. I felt that I was quite clear when speaking, tryed to make eye contact with the others at the table, and hopefully my nerves didn't show too much (because I was absolutely brickin it!). I think Sam and I worked together quite well, and as a team we complemented each other when presenting, we could have met up a few more times possibly to rehearse before hand though and to finalise details.

From this exercise I learnt alot about sustainability strategies in other countries (in particular Denmark). If I were to do the assignment again, I would be more strict about time keeping, and if their was the option to factor in a time for questions. When producing a handout I would also offer a bit more detail for people on the different aspects, instead of assuming the knowledge of the audience (for example I assumed everyone knew about the agenda 21, but they might not have). Overall I quite enjoyed this exercise, and will be alot less stressed if I had to do a debate again.

Northamptonshire Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy

For decades the main way of disposing household waste is through landfill sites, but these are quickly being filled up. Therefore many local authorities are now looking at ways to decrease the amount of household waste we produce, and how to deal with it more efficiently. This is where the Northamptonshire Waste Management Strategy comes in. This strategy has been developed jointly between the Northamptonshire Waste Partnership and Northamptonshire Districts, with the aim of producing 'a joint approach to managing the County's municipal solid waste in the period from 2007/08 to 2020/21'.

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Part of the strategy focus' upon the amount of household waste and collection services there are within each District. There has been a large improvement over the past 7 years, and positively there is stated that the councils may have already met their target for 2010/11 which was stated in the 2002 strategy. This has been mainly improved through the introduction of new waste collection services, and the overall recycling performance of the HWRC's being improved.

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There is variation between each District, as to the amount of household waste they have or their individual collection services. All Districts have noted significant improvement in the amount of household waste which is being recycled (in some cases as big as a 23% increase between 2001 and 2007), but why is this? I feel the main reason for this is the way in which the recycling is collected throughout the Districts. The recycling and organic waste collections shown in the table are not simple to interpret! I'm always forgeting which day to put our bin and recycling bag at home out, so having to remember that i can recycle paper on week 1, cardboard, plastic bottles, cans and textiles week 2, and glass every 4 weeks, well that would be beyond me! In some of the Districts there are much simpler collection systems, which seems to result in more people recycling. The majority of the population are pro recycling, but when it becomes over complicated and confusing people won't bother.

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Overall improvement has been made throughout the county, but more can still be achieved, and needs to be achieved. The simplification of collection services will help to increase further recycling within Northamptonshire. If instead of separate district collection policies there are clear ones set for the County as a whole, this would help to clear understanding of what and when certain collections take place. Free and easily accessible collections or drop offs for less frequent collections (e.g. bottle banks), will help people to 'get rid' of recycling more regularly, rather than letting certain items (which can't be recycled frequently) take up storage space at home. Educating the local people more about the process of recycling is also important in encouraging people to take a more active role with recycling.