The admin desk was expecting a quiet month in July as the waste sector packs up and goes on its summer holiday, and hoping to get outside to enjoy the sunshine that has baked Bristol like much of the rest of the country in the last month. However, the reality was far from it, and instead we’ve had torrent of visitors nearly as impressively unseasonal as the massive downpour that fell on the city last week.
Leading the way with the most page views for the month was Chris Sherrington, whose article on the environmental perils of paving over front gardens took Isonomia into rather a new subject matter. It attracted some detailed comments on the site, and also sparked discussion on LinkedIn. With another success under his belt, Chris confirmed his place as the most read man on Isonomia, but still has to cede the title for the most popular article to Thomas Vergunst.
Chris’s contribution was backed up by three other excellent articles that underline the variety of subject matter we’re now covering.
- Steve Watson kicked off the month with a fascinating etymological and sociological examination of the meaning of waste and the effects of the language we use to discuss it;
- Peter Jones read the European Commission’s Resource Roadmap, and asked why UK waste infrastructure decisions don’t seem to be taking it on board; and
- Joe Papineschi rounded off the month with his thoughts on why Covanta’s legal action contesting the award of the Merseyside disposal contract to SITA is such a rare example of a procurement challenge in the waste sector – a version of this piece also appeared in MRW.
August’s harvest of articles is already looking quite well advanced, and continues the variety we’ve been striving for. We hope to welcome two new authors to the site: Adrian Gibbs will be telling us about waste management in Malta, while Paul Jones will look at how local authorities are constraining residual waste capacity in the UK. Peter Jones plans to return to report back with more on the Daily Mail’s claim that 12 million tonnes of household recycling is buried in foreign landfill, and we hope to hear again from Hattie Parke, who will be looking at why it is so difficult to take your bike on the train in the UK.
So… lots of interesting material to come, but what makes it worthwhile is if our readers continue to pitch in with their thoughts. 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, whether in our comments section, or with an article of your own. We try to provide an informed but accessible viewpoint on a wide range of environment issues, whether its water or waste, power or politics – whatever’s on your mind, get in touch.
It’s easy to shift from visitor to commentator to authors, and we’re always glad to hear from you. Whether you’re from Cardiff or Courtice, Manchester or Melbourne, you’re 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.
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. Keep enjoying the site!
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