Friday Fungus: Eating batteries and why bagpipes should be banned...

Some fungus going about its rotten business - loverly!

You'll have noticed just how good fungi are at rotting stuff. The mushrooms and their mouldy yeasty brethren are right at the heart of nature's processes for chewing up - recycling if you must - things that are lying around. Sometimes this is a problem - as people looking shocked at a dry rot growth on the house they left lying around discover. But sometimes - like with nappies - it's brilliant:

A team of scientists from the University of South Florida has found a natural way to recycle the tons of waste batteries. Lead researcher Jeffrey A. Cunningham and Valerie Harwood are using three strains of fungi – Aspergillus niger, Penicillium simplicissimum and Penicillium chrysogenum that are naturally occurring in decaying foods. They have presented their finding at the 252nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society that is held in Philadelphia until Thursday this week.

OK the researchers end up with an acidic soup filled with cobalt and lithium. And don't know how to get those lovely metals out. But it's still great and takes us a step closer to better battery disposal and recycling.

When it comes to rotting stuff, however, fungi aren't choosy. Lungs are good:

Playing the bagpipes could prove fatal, scientists have warned, after a man died from continually breathing in mould and fungus trapped in his instrument.

Doctors in Manchester have identified the condition “bagpipe lung” following the death of a 61-year-old man from chronic inflammatory lung condition hypersensitivity pneumonitis.

The condition is triggered by the immune system’s response to inhaling irritants. When the unnamed man was diagnosed in 2009 doctors were puzzled because his house contained no mould and he had never smoked.

Now I know you've always wanted a reason to ban bagpipes...

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Reducing landfill is a good thing to do - not some sort of EU green conspiracy

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There's a common line from those who dislike either or both of climate change policies and the EU that the encouragement of recycling and strategies to reduce the use of landfill are just another of those idiotic greeny-greeny nonsenses. We've read this from Christopher Booker, on the EU Referendum blog and now from James Delingpole in the Daily Mail:

Every year Britain produces about 70 million cubic metres of municipal waste, while it has more than 819 million cubic metres available for landfill — a figure that increases by 114 million cubic metres a year as more quarries and gravel pits are dug.

By far the most attractive and safe option would be to have these gaping holes filled with rubbish and covered over or reclaimed, so the landscape looks almost as it did before.

This would have knock-on benefits for the aggregates industry, which could offset its costs — as it did in the old days — with waste disposal.

It would release local councils from layer upon layer of regulatory bureaucracy. No longer would we have to waste time pointlessly sifting our rubbish. And it would, of course, bring an almost immediate end to fly-tipping.

This, after all, was the system that worked perfectly well for us before our politicians and the EU stuck their oars in. If only we had the will and the courage of our convictions, it could work just as well for us now.

My instant reaction (one that most Cullingworth residents would share) is 'there speaks a man who doesn't have two landfill sites in his village' but to explain the problem let's describe landfill and consider what we mean by 'municipal waste'.

Modern landfill can be described as finding a big enough hole in the ground, putting a very big plastic bag (a sophisticated, highly-engineered plastic bag to be sure but still a plastic bag) into the hole rather like you do with the bin in your kitchen, filling it up with rubbish until you can't get any more in and then covering it over. And then we wait thirty to fifty years with out fingers crossed hoping that big plastic bag doesn't split.

Then there's the stuff we put in the landfill. 'Domestic' waste they call it and it's all that stuff you put in your general waste bin. So there's fairly benign stuff like food scraps, paper and plastic. And a cocktail of nasty unpleasant chemicals - the bits of bleach you don't rinse out from the bottle, the heavy metals in the spent AA batteries, the residual contents of aerosols, shampoos and a bewildering variety of pharmaceuticals. Domestic waste is truly filthy stuff - poisonous, corrosive and polluting. As it rots is produces a very dangerous leachate - the big plastic bag is all that stops this leachate from polluting water supplies and contaminating land. Do you really think the best way to deal with this waste is to but it in a big plastic bag on the hill above Cullingworth?

Now Delingpole is right to criticise the EU's waste licensing regimes, to question how the ramping up of landfill charges contributes to illegal dumping and to condemn the nonsensical manner in which recyclers are prevented from exporting recovered goods or materials. But this doesn't change the fact that landfill isn't the best way to deal with hazardous waste. Nearly all of that 70 million cubic metres of trash local councils collect is pretty dangerous stuff. Simply dumping it into holes in the ground without pre-treatment or the reduction of pollution risk is a recipe for blighting communities. And the best way to reduce those risks is to promote recycling.

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Permission to dump, Sir? Some rubbish bureaucracy from Bradford Council

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In this year's budget Bradford's Labour leadership - supported as they are by the watermelons from Shipley - forced through a decision to introduce a permit for residents wanting to make use of 'household waste recycling sites' (or 'tips' as most folk call them). Officers have been trying to introduce this tidy little scheme for some long while but it's only this year that they've found - in Labour Cllr Andrew Thornton - someone stupid enough to agree to the idea.

We're told - without any evidence other than the opinion of officers - that Bradford is a net importer of waste. People from Leeds, Kirklees, Halifax and Skipton are driving into Bradford to deposit their broken furniture, bags of coat hangers and knackered white goods. Oddly enough, all those other councils believe the same and are introducing similar schemes - presumably the extra rubbish is freighted in from Maastricht or perhaps even deposited by visiting Martians.

So far, so bad. A problem that isn't a problem is identified and a solution - introducing a permit - is proposed and accepted by an idiot politician (Cllr Thornton in this case who was told that it would save loads of money). But it gets worse.

To introduce the scheme the Council has sent every resident a form that they are asked to take to their nearest tip along with their Council Tax bill and their driving licence. Information - address, driving license number and the tip the resident uses - is collected. The instructions say that the operatives at the tip will issue the license and off we go.

Sadly, the Council had forgotten to tell the folk at the tip - who didn't know about the forms and didn't have any permits to issue. So the forms were gathered, placed in a box and, one assumes, the Council will post out the permits. Asked about why all this personal information is needed, the Strategic Director in charge said this:

It is not, all we need is proof of adress (sic) that is the same as the Council tax bill. More often than not people show their driving license (sic) for this purpose but any other appropriate formal document traditionally accepted will do

The intention is for proof to be shown and the permit can be issued. There was no need for a form, no need to collect the data and no need to gather thousands of pieces of paper containing sensitive personal information (address and driving licence number - what could Mr Huhne have done with that, I wonder?).

Truth is that there's no need for the scheme at all - the bureaucracy alone negates much of the saving. And that's before all the aggro from people who lose their licence, leave it on the side in the kitchen or generally do what we all do from time to time. And what about the bloke from Pudsey who takes some stuff from his elderly mum's house to the tip? I guess he'll have to go to Leeds?

So we have here a typical council initiative - not really necessary, disorganised, unclear and unsafe. All in the name of some savings that they'll never be able to prove came about because of the scheme!

Well done Cllr Thornton. You win Numpty of the Month for March!

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NEF talking rubbish about rubbish...

View from the top of the restored Manywells landfill, Cullingworth

A consultant to the New Economics Foundation writes about Biffa's problems. And manages to entirely miss the point - or demonstrate having done any research into the company.

Biffa, the waste disposal company that carries out much local authority work, is profitable, admired by the unions that represent much of its 6,000-strong workforce, praised by local authorities like south Oxfordshire district council as innovative and efficient, and responsible over the years for developing a lot of the improvements that have spruced up UK rubbish collection and recycling.

Lets get some things clear about Biffa. For sure it does a lot of local authority work - outsourced contracts of one sort or another up and down the land. But this isn't where it has made its money - it makes that from filling up holes in the ground with rubbish not from collecting said rubbish from your doorstep. And while I applaud left-wing (so-called) economists when they enthuse about outsourcing, they really should check the facts first.

The cause of the problem? Here's a clue from a Telegraph report:

Biffa is more exposed to industrial waste, which makes up 80pc of its business, than municipal waste. The shift away from landfill and towards recycling has compounded its problems.

Trading has been made more difficult, too, thanks to a Government tax hike on companies still reliant on landfill, and the trend for big companies, such as Tesco, to deal with their own waste.

Last week HMRC closed a Landfill Tax loophole, which is expected to add extra strain on the company. 

Far from the company's problems being a consequence of evil capitalists, they are largely down to the ongoing landfill tax escalator - a rising charge on landfill intended to shift disposal away from holes in the ground and promote recycling. I'm sure NEF approves!

The NEF consultant wants "us" (I guess she means the government using taxpayers' money) to protect Biffa from these awful capitalists. We should have a plan (quite what it is the writer is unclear about). And we should learn:

The Biffa case study shouldn't be wasted. It is an object lesson in how we have let the market run our real economy – rather than, as it should be, the other way round.

Read this sentence a few times. It is a straightforward argument for "us" (the state, I guess) organising the "market". It is utter rubbish - Biffa's problems are a consequence of bad management (borrowing too much against future earnings) and government policy (making it uneconomic to stick rubbish in holes rather than burning it or recycling it). Nothing at all to do with "the market". Nothing.

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Somehow I think Tesco will do a better job...

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...of recycling than most councils so we should welcome this:

Supermarket giant, Tesco, has told councils to remove all their recycling facilities from store car parks, as the firm prepares to launch its own national scheme.

The company wrote to local authorities last week, ordering them to remove bottle banks and recycling bins as soon as possible.

A Tesco spokesman said the firm would shortly be releasing details of its own scheme, which will be managed by contractor DS Smith. 

Even when - shock, horror...

‘I cannot believe Tesco is doing this out of the goodness of its heart,’ said Cllr Bloxham. ‘It will make the company money.’ 

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"Rubbing two sticks together" - the Green Party's energy policy

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Britain's Green Party - led by that nannying fussbucket, Caroline Lucas - have an energy policy.

1. Investment in renewable sources – sun, wind, water power and biogas – must be hugely increased. Use of fossil fuels should be massively reduced, and phased out altogether where possible.

2. An end to nuclear power. It is expensive and dangerous, risking catastrophic accidents that could damage our health, environment, and economy for generations.

3. More efficient energy use, better conservation and insulation measures, and a massive increase in recycling – with stronger incentives to switch to renewable energy and use energy more efficiently.

4. Energy should be generated, stored and distributed more locally.

5 Action to end 'fuel poverty' subsidising insulation and conservation measures to make fuel bills affordable for all.

So we have a policy that focuses on expensive, inefficient means of generating electricity - a combination of unreliable wind power, the destruction of habitats to allow wave power and Dave installing a windmill on his roof. At the same time the Greens want to end fuel poverty - presumably through some sort of rationing system since the rest of their policy can only result in higher energy costs. Assuming, of course, the we're actually able to generate all the electricity we need from windmills and compost heaps.

This policy is stupid and irresponsible, will make energy more expensive and is likely to lead to brownouts and even power cuts while we try to make generation match demand (all those electric cars you like so much, Caroline). Yet we give this idiot airtime to expound her lunacy without challenge - even to the point of conflating the deaths in Japan's terrible earthquake with the nuclear power plants at Fukushima:

"1351 is the estimated death toll so far, but there are perhaps tens of thousands people missing in Miyagi alone. Four million people have been left without electricity amid the destruction in Tokyo.

"Clearly, the nuclear incidents at Fukushima, and elsewhere in Japan since the earthquake, are collectively one of the worst in the 50-year history of the international nuclear industry."

Well certainly the incidents are serious - indeed, Ms Lucas seems more concerned about these that with the unfolding humanitarian disasters - but so far no-one has been killed, injured or made ill by the situation at Fukishima. As environmentalist James Lovelock put it in the Guardian:

"There is a monstrous myth about nuclear power. I would make a strong guess that of the tens of thousands of people killed in Japan, none of them will be from nuclear power."

He said that people were "prejudiced" against nuclear power unreasonably. "It is very safe," he said. Chernobyl, for instance, was "an idiotic mess-up that could only have occurred in the Soviet Union", and according to UN estimates had killed only about 56 people. More people are routinely killed in oil refineries and coal mines, he pointed out.

But this doesn't stop Caroline's line of "nuclear, scary, scary":

The Green MP Caroline Lucas said the Japanese accident strengthened the case against new nuclear construction. "You will never be able to completely design out human error, design failure or natural disaster," said Lucas, whose party backs energy efficiency and more renewable energy to meet Britain's energy and climate change goals.

So no fossil fuels - have to stop that "runaway global warming" - and no nuclear. It really does look like Ms Lucas and her Green Party want us to live in rude huts and rub sticks together for our energy needs!

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Friday Fungus:The Great Mushroom Clean-Up! How fungi are helping clear up our mess!

Fungi have many uses – not only are they great food and essential to the production of bread and beer but they have applications in the “bioremediation” of oil spills.

The problem with oil spills is that the detergents used to clean up the shoreline and shallows following these disasters can be as damaging as the oil itself. Indeed there is some evidence that the recovery of untreated shoreline is as rapid as the recovery of treated shoreline. This is where mushrooms – with a little help from matted hair – come into play:

“In the aftermath of the Cosco Busan oil spill in San Francisco Bay last November, woven mats of human hair were used to absorb the oil from the beaches. Oyster mushrooms were layered between the oil-soaked mats and allowed to work their magic.

In just 12 weeks, the mushrooms consumed the oil and the hair, turning the whole mess into soil. When you think about the fact that the hair waste from salons usually goes into landfill and that oil from oil spills is generally incinerated after it’s cleaned up, this is an improvement on a massive scale”

Pretty impressive stuff – both as an example of recycling and also as a use for mushrooms. The search for applications for this mycological marvel continued and in Fort Bragg, California an experiment got under way to see if mushrooms could be used to remove dioxins and other contaminants from the soil. The project is led by Paul E. Stamets (pictured above), author of “Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World.” The mushrooms used were local and applied naturally:

“Quick to caution against easy remedies — “I am not a panacea for all their problems” — he said he had hope for cleaning up dioxin and other hazardous substances on the site. “The less recalcitrant toxins could be broken down within 10 years.”
At least two dioxin-degrading species of mushroom indigenous to the Northern California coast could work, he said: turkey tail and oyster mushrooms. Turkey tails have ruffled edges and are made into medicinal tea. Oyster mushrooms have domed tops and are frequently found in Asian food.”

Now there are some problems – this mushroom-based bioremediation is slow and many of the possible benefits remain unproven. However, given the amount of contaminated land and the environmental cost of current remediation methods (chiefly the removal of contaminated soil from the site and its dumping elsewhere), this mycological bioremediation represents real progress.

And Paul Stamets continues to make the case for the importance of fungi to the planet from his Fungi Perfecti business:

“Covering most all landmasses on the planet are huge masses of fine filaments of living cells from a kingdom barely explored. More than 8 miles of these cells, called mycelia, can permeate a cubic inch of soil. Fungal mats are now known as the largest biological entities on the planet, with some individuals covering more than 20,000 acres. Growing outwards at one quarter to two inches per day, the momentum of mycelial mass from a single mushroom species staggers the imagination. These silent mycelial tsunamis affect all biological systems upon which they are dependent. As they mature and die back, panoply of other fungi quickly come into play. Every ounce of soil does not host just one species, but literally thousands of species of fungi. Of the estimated 1–2 million species of fungi—about 150,000 species being mushrooms—we have catalogued only about 50,000, of which 14,000 have been identified with a species name. The genetic diversity of fungi is vast by design, and apparently crucial for life to continue.”

Put simply mushrooms are essential to the creation and maintenance of soil – we should cherish and encourage fungi. Without them the world would be a barren – and less tasty – place.

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