The A to Z of green IT

Landfill

Dumping waste into landfill is a big eco-no-no, particularly for businesses since the WEEE came into play earlier this year. And the government is looking at high tech methods of reducing use of landfill even further.

Green IT from A to Z

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A is for Abroad
B is for Blades
C is for Carbon footprint
D is for Data centres
E is for Energy sources
F is for Freecycle
G is for Government
H is for Homeworking
I is for Ice caps
J is for Jobs (Steve)
K is for Kilowatts
L is for Landfill
M is for Mercury
N is for Nanogeneration
O is for Offsetting
P is for Paperless office
Q is for Queen
R is for Recycling
S is for SmartPlanet.com
T is for Travel
U is for Upgrade
V is for Virtualisation
W is for WEEE
X is for Xmas
Y is for You
Z is for Zero emissions

Blighty is starting to avoid using landfills, with the amount of total municipal waste sent to landfill down by one million tonnes to a total of 16.9 million tonnes, according to figures supplied by local authorities in England to the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs for the years 2005/6 to 2006/7.

England has also seen its household recycling and composting rate increase from 27 per cent in 2005/6 to 31 per cent in 2006/7. The total municipal waste over the same timeframes increased by 1.4 per cent to 29.1 million tonnes.

According to government figures, landfill is responsible for three per cent of the UK's total CO2 emissions.

The government is also keen to promote incentives to bring down the amount of junk dumped in landfill as part of its greater commitment to reducing greenhouse gases and there is likely to be a high tech angle to that, too.

One such incentive includes the idea of charging households on the amount of rubbish they generate, which could see introduction of the so-called chip and bin scheme. This sees chips put in bins to collect data on their weight of household rubbish to encourage people to recycle more and throw away less.