As tradition has it, autumn is the time to give thanks for bounty of the preceding year, and although here at Isonomia we like to encourage progressive thinking on waste matters, we aren’t ones to fly in the face of convention just for the sake of it. What’s more, this year really has been a bountiful one for Isonomia in terms of both the numbers of articles and viewers gracing our pages. So this November, before tucking into our creamed corn and candied yams, we took special pause to count our blessings and say thanks for the blog with which we have been blessed.
Although the crop fields may now be bare, not so the loamy lands of cyber space. Isonomia publications hit double digits in November, with ten articles covering a range of topics and spanning the globe. We were also visited by a greater number of waste pilgrims, and achieved more page views per day than ever before.
Top prize at the harvest festival went to Peter Jones, who presented the marrow of Covanta’s departure from the UK market in an insightful article touching on the state of UK residual waste treatment capacity and C&I waste arisings. Meanwhile, Chris Sherrington garnered the greatest overall return, by publishing two well read articles in the month. Chris certainly isn’t someone you need to light a fire under, and he started off the month with a debate provoking piece on the environmental and health dangers of backyard burning that set the Isonomia comments board alight. Following this, Chris rose again like a blog phoenix to consider the difficulties of measuring the effects of waste prevention.
Another return of note was that of Phillip Ward, who found new Waste and Resources Minister Dan Rogerson’s letter to industry stakeholders on the limited role envisioned for Defra reason to a pen a piece of his own. Continuing the theme of unlikely muses – and indeed themes addressed earlier in the month by Peter Jones – Dominic Hogg was moved by Ricardo-AEA’s recent report for CIWM on waste arising and treatment capacity to ask ‘is there really a capacity gap?’ Dom’s piece was a technical one, and we’re always happy to be able to serve our readers up a feast of expert analysis. A substantial meal of this kind was also offered by Ann Ballinger in her piece on the inherent flaws of the Environment Agency’s life cycle assessment tool for waste management systems, WRATE.
Occasion for a good old fashioned wassailing was provided by our fruitful relationship with Middle East and North African website EcoMENA. First up, Amir Dakkak took us to Jordan to show us how the country is facing severe water shortages due to over pumping of aquifers and mismanagement of waste; secondly, we travelled to Morocco in the company of Peace Corps volunteer Catherine Hansen, who told us how a lack of proper infrastructure in the country has led to a dangerous prevalence of uncontrolled waste burning. Journeying further afield, outer space and science fiction featured in Sam Taylor’s article dealing with the increasingly real challenges, and potential, resulting from 3-D printing technology.
So thanks to all those who joined us in our feast of blog, both in November and throughout the year; and thanks to all those who commented on our articles, the Isonomia equivalent of bringing a dish or bottle to the table – it’s something we and our authors really appreciate. Offering a platform for a variety of opinions and generating debate is what we’re all about, so if anything you read here has given you indigestion or sent to into a pleasing postprandial stupor, once your appetite has returned please do let us know through our comments section or even with an article of your own. We try to provide an informed but accessible viewpoint on a wide range of environment issues, so whether it’s collection vans or life cycles that are on your mind, please do get in touch.
It’s easy to shift from visitor to commentator to author, and we’re always glad to hear from you. Whether you’re from Dundalk or New York, Mhow or Slough, with your help we will create a space where thoughts on topics from across the environment sector can be expressed and explored, enabling communication and cross fertilisation of ideas.
The feathers from the Turkey may only have just settled on the kitchen floor, but we are already making preparations for the Christmas dinner of blog that we will be serving up in December. Adam Baddeley, chief author of Eunomia’s Residual Waste Infrastructure Review will be allowing us to give the latest instalment of the review a shake without having to unwrap the whole present, while newsprint–a thrifty source of wrapping paper–will be on the mind of James Fulford as he ponders what falling newspaper circulation might mean for the recycling industry.
If you are wondering what to have for your own Christmas dinner and how you might heat your home over the coming winter, new authors Sarah Ettlinger and Laurence Elliot will be debuting with pieces on food certification schemes and the role renewables might play in decentralising energy markets. Meanwhile, Steve Watson might just drop by for a snowball, and– if nothing’s on the box–tell us the tale of the man responsible for the Waste Hierarchy. And of course–the gift you’ll all be looking forward to opening most of all–we’ll have our annual Isonomia Christmas special.
As if a simple blog wasn’t enough, you can now follow us by subscribing to our Paper.Li site, where you can see Isonomia’s articles, and other interesting material, gathered together in a newspaper format. And now you can keep track of our articles via our Facebook page. We tweet about each new article, and of course at the top right of each page you can still subscribe to have each article e-mailed to you.
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