Environment Editorials

The WWF's Paul King said: "This is a great breakthrough. For the first time Gordon Brown has shown he really backs green housing development," whereas Dr Jason Palmer of Cambridge University described the scheme as 'pie in the sky'.

Mike Hession cites the example of Denmark, where 32 per cent of household waste is recycled, providing heat for 360,000 households and electricity for 430,000 households, through combined heat and power facilities.

Aircraft should spend less time taxiing along runways, they should install motors in their wheels to avoid using jet engines to taxi; aircraft should fly at higher, less fuel thirsty, altitudes, should ascend more steeply and possible glide down to land (a rather frightening thought).

"A few years ago, the Europeans were focused on the Kyoto agreement, the US was not interested in alternative sources of energy and China was just looking for more traditional forms of energy," says Peter Kruse. "Now, for the first time in history, wind energy is working in all the major markets in the world."

The UK government will shortly bring out an Energy White Paper entitled 'the UK Biomass Strategy', which will recategorise 'digestate' (food waste) as a product rather than as waste. As in many areas of waste management, we can now begin to treat old prawn sandwiches as an asset rather than a liability.