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GUARDIAN Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:27:38 GMT
Restaurants, bars ands hotels have joined forces to try and reduce the routine and "unnecessary" use of plastic drinking straws
They disappear in thousands from fast food and takeway outlets every day and, discarded in similar numbers, have become a litter pickers' nightmare and a scourge of Britain's beaches. Now some of London's top restaurants, bars ands hotels have joined forces to try and reduce the routine and "unnecessary" use of plastic drinking straws, urging the entire hospitality and fast food sector to follow its initiative.
The restaurants behind the launch of the so-called "straw wars" campaign are to stop automatically handing out plastic straws to customers, and only hand them out when requested. Plastic straws can, theoretically, be recycled. But the campaign organisers argue that they rarely are recycled by individuals eating fast food "on the move" and that there is rarely any dedicated waste collection for restaurants, pubs and bars, which means they end up in landfill. Westminster City council, for example does not accept plastic straws for recycling from corporate users.
Another stumbling block is consumer behaviour. McDonalds provides straws in dispensers but people often take more than they need.
The initiative is the brainchild of leading bars, restaurants and hotels in Soho - one of the densest and busiest areas for eating out and drinking in the UK - and includes Randall & Aubin, Soho House, the Gay Hussar, Hix, Quo Vadis, Tapas Brindisa Soho, Barrafina, and Cafe Rosa's.
Jamie Poulton, campaign leader and owner of the historic restaurant and takewaway Randall & Aubin, said: "Straw Wars is a campaign to unite the Soho community in eliminating unnecessary single-use plastic. If we're able to raise awareness with Straw Wars and the work that Soho has done towards a cleaner environment, then the next step would be a move towards resolving the current waste collection and disposal issues in Soho. This is a very ambitious project, but will benefit local businesses, customers and the environment."
There are no figures for the proportion that plastic straws make up as a proportion of total plastic waste, though it is thought to be very small. But straws can travel down drains and end up in rivers and oceans, impacting on marine life.
Emma Snowden, litter campaigns officer with the Marine Conservation Society, said it welcomed the move. "We see so much single use plastic appear in the sea and on beaches in our surveys. In the case of straws that are given out routinely, the product may have been manufactured and then disposed of without even a single use - this represents a senseless waste of resource as well as a waste management issue."
She went on: "Many plastic straws on beaches are likely to come from street drains, often via rivers and sewers. Plastic is a huge problem for our marine wildlife and makes up over 60% of all the litter we find on UK beaches, particularly single use plastic such as bags. Plastic straws make up a small proportion of all this litter, but if everyone took responsibility to dispose of their litter correctly in the first place it would help massively."
A spokesman for the British Plastics Federation, the trade association for producers, convertors and reprocessors, said: "The use of plastic straws is not only the most durable and hygienic alternative, they are recyclable and can be used in energy from waste schemes. The BPF is a close supporter of the Keep Britain Tidy Love Where You Live campaign and has spoken out against the senseless disposal of consumer artefacts. It has called for more collection receptacles to be positioned on beaches to encourage both the garnering of potentially valuable resources and cleaner beaches."
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Waste
Recycling
Ethical and green living
Food & drink industry
Landfill
Rebecca Smithers
guardian.co.uk © 2012.....
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GUARDIAN Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:26:15 GMT
Unlike a knighthood, only an act of parliament that has received royal assent can permanently revoke a peerage
The honours forfeiture committee, which is empowered to recommend the revocation of knighthoods and lesser awards, cannot remove the titles of peers.
Only an act of parliament that has received royal assent can revoke a peerage permanently. The last time this punishment was enforced was during the first world war on the grounds of treason when two lords fought "for the king's enemies".
Peers are appointed for life and their summons to attend the House of Lords renewed by letters patent sent out by the monarch at the beginning of each new parliament.
At present, the House of Lords, therefore, only has the power to suspend members for a maximum period of up to five years – the length of any one parliament.
In opposition, David Cameron proposed bringing in legislation that would enable parliament to take away the title of any peer who breached a code of conduct.
A House of Lords reform draft bill – which would introduce a mainly elected upper chamber – is being considered by a select committee. It contains powers to simplify the procedure for separating errant peers from their honorific titles under the House's standing orders – mirroring the situation regulating MPs in the Commons.
Lord Archer, who served a four-year prison sentence for perjury and perverting the course of justice, has been identified as someone who might be at risk of losing his peerage under any change to the law.
Fred Goodwin
Banking
Royal Bank of Scotland
Owen Bowcott
guardian.co.uk © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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ECONOMIST Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:34:08 GMT
ARISE, Mr Goodwin. Britain’s honours forfeiture committee has ruled that Sir Fred, as he was once, should be stripped of his knighthood after his tenure as chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland ended ignominiously with a huge bank bail-out. Mr Goodwin joins a list of ex-Sirs whose members include Anthony Blunt, a Soviet spy, and Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe. If you think that is over the top, you’d be right. Galling as it is to imagine Mr Goodwin insisting on being called Sir Fred at his local corner shop, or offering his hand to be kissed at the bus stop, no power flowed from his title. Shame is an important sanction when very well-paid people screw up, but Mr Goodwin’s reputation was already in the gutter, following the bank’s failure and a nasty, public row over his pension entitlement. Knighthood or not, he was not about to walk back into public life. True, Mr Goodwin had an abrasive management style that made him the dominant figure at RBS when it decided to lead a consortium bidding to acquire ABN AMRO, a Dutch bank. But if he was really that out of control then why not go the whole hog and strip Sir Tom McKillop, the RBS chairman and Mr Goodwin’s boss at the time, of his knighthood, too? More pertinently, poor decision-making was hardly confined to RBS. The battle for ABN began when Barclays announced it would merge with the lender: if ABN had not ...
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