"It's a job that's never started that takes the longest to finish."

— J.R.R. Tolkien

We are pulling together the strands for the initial phase of our green policy. On Saturday we are presenting a large private funfair for a corporate client in the North East. In readiness for this we have a number of different recycling bins and the first of our new recycling stations. The station is almost finished, it would have been ready, but in conjunction with our green initiative we have also decided to publicise the upcoming Keep Britain Tidy campaign which is focusing on reducing cigerettes that are thrown on the ground. To this end we have ordered some wall mounted cigerette bins which will be mounted on the front of the recycling stations along with posters advertising the campaign.

In keeping with our green policy we have managed to build the recycling stations out of around 80% recycled materials, mainly steel which has been recovered from side stalls that we no longer use.

The catering units operating at this launch event have been stocked up with biodegradable plates, cups, napkins and utensils. Our microbial waste digester hasn't been delivered yet but hopefully that will be here this week.

We have also begun implementation of DEFRA's voluntary code of practice for waste from mobile food units., and signed up with the Green Achiever scheme where we have committed to reducing our waste and energy requirements.




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Some of the venues we visit are absolutely stunning, (although it has to be admitted that some of them stun me for other reasons). Anyway I have just rolled in from another trip to the smoke. This time the venue was the Tower Hotel, nestled pretty much between Tower Bridge and the Tower Of London, this is the view from out of the window.



The same week Arthur and I had a trip through to one of our upcoming venues to meet with the safety planning group. I had to pick Arthur up from Conisborough where he was operating at an established event run by another company. I arrived to collect him just as he jumped out of a lorry cab and twisted his ankle. As he lay there looking at me imploringly trying to telepathically tell me he didn't want to come, I cheerfully told him to stop snivelling and get in the car. He spent the rest of the day giving any ladies we met puppy dog eyes and explaining how much pain he was in. I spent the rest of the day telling them what a drama queen he was and that he would be alright once he had spent some time in a public house.


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Whilst we await completion of our resource recovery units ready for the launch of our 'green' policy at the end of the month, I have been looking into other ways of reducing our carbon footprint. Whilst doing this the idea of carbon offsets came up. Basically for the uninformed, this is where we calculate the amount of co2 we are responsible for producing and then pay a third party who use the money to make improvements somewhere else in the world that reduces carbon emissions by the same amount as we are putting out.

There are a number of different companies that will do this for us, the thing that is annoying me is the fact that the british based companies charge between £6 and £20 per tonne for this service, yet a number of American based firms can provide the same service for around £2.50 per tonne. So once again, its rip off Britain time. Virtually everything you wish to price up in this country is at least double the cost of its equivalent in the States. A newspaper article once claimed that secret negotiations had taken place to make the U.K. the 51st state of America. Well the sooner the better!


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Although I strive to present a professional image (hard sometimes when Arthur is with me), there are occasions when my tact and diplomacy appears to come straight out of the German Gestapo's handbook. The Evening Gazette has just run a story about the launch of our Environmental policy, click here for details. During the conversation with the reporter I made a comic remark about being hit over the head by a compost bin, only to see the line appear in print. Oh well, won't be the first time my strange sense of humour rears its head.

I attended another of Leeds Mets networking events recently, Arthur was supposed to be there with me, unfortunately the day before he had been doing a bit of work on something and managed to get a bit of rust in his eye. He rang me about half way to Leeds to tell me he couldn't see out of one eye and was driving himself to the hospital. Why he couldn't drive to Leeds is beyond me, good job Admiral Nelson didn't have the same attitude or we would all be speaking French now.


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I've stated before that I always enjoy visits up North. Today we ended up at Middlesbrough, which is my hometown. This was in support of Middlesbrough Environment City, an organisation set up in the 90's to promote environmental sustainability. The event was promoting Middlesbrough councils support of Fairtrade fortnight, and we supplied one of our Victorian candy floss carts giving away free Fairtrade candy floss. This is one of 3 events involving North East local authorities that we are supplying candy floss to. One of the events will see us sending an espresso coffee cart along with Fairtrade tea and coffee.

Whilst in the Boro, I had a walk around the town, I hadn't realised just how much development was going in in the area. Captain Cook's Square where we were operating looked really fresh, and was busy all day long. Other parts of the area that I remember as run down last time I was there have suddenly been transformed into eyecatching new properties, so it's nice to see some money being spent in that part of the country.

Whilst we were there a photographer from a North East based newspaper turned up. I thought it was for the event, but it seems she had come especially to see me. The paper had picked up on our recent environmental initiative and will be running an article in print about it.




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