A series of whoops and gasps has been emitted from the admin desk over the course of May – almost sufficient to drown out the racket from the teepees of the pop-up restaurant across that set up across the square from us. The cause of all this editorial excitement? A profusion of excellent articles meant that a continual stream of Isonomia records tumbled during the month – so there’s plenty to update you on.
Isonomia had more visitors, visits, page views and pretty much everything else than it ever has done before. May’s leading author was also our newest – Hattie Parke leapt straight into the record books as her piece about the potential of food redistribution to tackle both waste and food poverty set single day and single month records for readership, and was tweeted and facebooked into our top ten all time articles in the blink of an eye. Food waste is a topic that the admin desk is keen to come back to – and clearly it’s one that our readers are hungry for.
The admins also swelled with pride to see a positive response to our culinary tribute to Eric Pickles. Our photo of his likeness in cake attracted was only pipped to the runner’s up spot by a new article by a late rush of readers of Chris Sherrington’s discussion of why ‘Pay As You Throw’ is a fairer and greener approach to waste than the unmetered system that the UK is used to. Like Hattie’s article it stimulated plenty of debate – so we also had more comments from a wider range of voices than ever before. It’s exciting for us – this is just the sort of debate we wanted Isonomia to trigger.
For a few months now, Chris has been hot on the heels of Phillip Ward for the title of most read man on Isonomia. Phillip hit back with an article of his own in May, in which he made the case for protecting WRAP’s funding from further cuts arising from its latest review. In a less exceptional month, its figures would have made it a big hit; but as it was, Chris just overhauled Phillip and is duly crowned our top blogger – for now, at least.
A prolific month was bookended with thoughtful articles from Mike Brown on the how the planning system gives local authorities problems when their planning responsibilities come into tension with their waste disposal needs, and from Dominic Hogg on the history and prospects of recycling policy – the latter also appearing in the ENDS report.
More material is in the works, with Thomas Vergunst making a welcome return to discuss every green parent’s quandary – disposable or reusable nappies? We’ll also be making a foray into matters aquatic with Alex Massie, and may have some new insights from Adam Baddeley into the residual waste infrastructure market.
We’re always glad when our articles provoke debate. Our aim is to provide a platform for a wide variety of views, and if you are annoyed or enthused by something we have published, we’d like to extend to you the opportunity to respond with an article of your own. We try to provide an informed but accessible viewpoint on a wide range of environment issues, whether it’s pollution or prosecution, composting or combusting – whatever’s on your mind, get in touch.
Whether as authors, commentators or just visitors, we’re always glad of your contribution. Whether you’re from Bogota or Birmingham, Taunton or Toledo, we’re striving to create a space where thoughts on topics from across the environment sector can be expressed and explored, enabling communication and cross fertilisation of ideas – and we’d be delighted if you joined in.
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