'Smart' homes to eat their rubbish

'Smart' homes to eat their rubbish

Chief scientist targets a zero-waste Britain to absorb the shock of global warming
Gaby Hinsliff, political editor
Sunday November 19, 2006

Observer
A new generation of 'smart' buildings, which can consume their own rubbish and power themselves, is needed to help Britain withstand the shock of global warming, the government's chief scientist will warn in a call for an end to a culture of waste.

British temperatures will rise for the next 30 years even if future greenhouse gas emissions are reduced, Sir David King will say in a speech tomorrow. As the damage wrought by existing pollution feeds slowly through the world's ecosystems, it is essential that the public adapts to change, he will argue.

His call comes as the Blairite think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research, publishes a report today calling for Britain to become a 'zero waste' country, where rubbish is recycled or reused instead of dumped in landfill sites. It says taxes should be applied to disposable products such as razors and cameras, encouraging people to buy more lasting products. The study argues consumers should learn to repair and reuse items rather than throwing them out, as well as recycling more.

The think-tank report wants manufacturers to be compelled to design durable products that can be reused rather than throwaway plastic that will need regular, and profitable, replacement.

More controversially, it recommends that councils should charge householders for taking away non-recyclable rubbish: Britons throw away more than 300 million tonnes of rubbish every year and recycle less than half of it.

'We have become an increasingly throwaway society, reliant on cheap, disposable and hard to recycle goods,' said Nick Pearce, the think-tank's director. 'Business needs to take greater responsibility for the whole life of a product.' Denmark, Sweden and Belgium all impose taxes on non-recyclable products, the report reveals.

King told The Observer that Britain should prepare for major changes to help it withstand hotter summers and wetter winters. These should include setting aside land around major cities as housing-free flood plains, which could regularly be flooded during flash downpours that will become more common. The greatest flood risk will be inland rather than along the coast.

King is also overseeing a project to design smarter buildings capable of withstanding a 'rather hot 21st century'. The building of the future would need to be wireless rather than cluttered with the electrical paraphernalia of a typical office or home, drawing 'whatever energy it can from its own environment' via geothermal, wind or solar energy.

Such buildings would be lit by natural daylight harnessed through 'light pipes' - channels up to the roof designed to let light flood through rooms. The buildings would have their own waste recycling on site, in a drastic change from what he called the 'Victorian environment' in which most Britons still live.

'Adaptation is as important as mitigation,' he added. 'I think it's arguable that the crisis in Darfur is a political crisis driven by the impacts of climate change: it's now demonstrable that the 32,000 fatalities in central Europe in 2003 [during the summer heatwave] are a climate change-driven natural disaster.

'We have little chance of avoiding dangerous climate change: it will take something like 30 years for the Earth's climate system to catch up with what we have done to it. The next 30 years of change is in the pipeline and we are going to have to adapt and prepare.'

Other technological advances, he said, included 'smart' transport systems allowing travellers to use their mobile phone to get instant information on how long a journey by public transport to any destination would take.

King added that he increasingly hoped that a new global deal on cutting greenhouse gas emissions, succeeding the Kyoto treaty, could be reached within two years. John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, which with America refused to ratify the Kyoto deal, recently signalled a willingness to discuss a new treaty. That, King said, was an optimistic sign: 'I think John Howard's position is unlikely to have moved without discussions with the White House.'

4 billion
Number of throwaway cartons we get through in a year. They are typically made of several materials which are difficult to recycle.

7 million
Number of tonnes of food dumped into landfill every year, even though it is easy to recycle at home, by making compost.

£424
The amount of money each Briton wastes on average per year on food that is bought but never eaten.