Stolen art watch

Drouot, Paris France

A DROUOT auctioneer and eight commission agents were given preliminary charges, including organized theft, with three others released with no charges, in Paris police raids on Drouot, its warehouses and homes of employees. A stolen Courbet painting was found at the home of one of the commission agents. Other pieces seized in the sweep included artworks, frames and furniture.


art hostage

Salvage yard fined for asbestos cement roof sheets

Ipswich, Suffolk UK

Following reports that Edward Thomas Webster had been storing waste illegally at his yard in Thorington, Suffolk two agency officers inspected his premises. They found pallets with materials such as cleaned bricks, roof tiles, wood and old beams, however in one field they saw a large pile of asbestos roofing sheets. Mr Webster, who trades as Preservation in Action, has pleaded guilty at Ipswich Magistrates Court to dumping chrysotile asbestos and not having the right papers for dealing with potentially fatal material.


edie

Reuse is the new recycling - government can and should create a new reuse agenda

Sustainable construction experts have published new research showing that the amount of building material being reclaimed has declined and that reclamation is in fact becoming more difficult in the UK. Ironically, over the past two decades, the Government's own policy has been hindering reuse, although they now claim that reclamation and reuse is higher on the agenda.

Pushing Reuse commissioned by BioRegional, and written by Thornton Kay of Salvo Llp, looks directly at this problem.

Jonathan Essex said, "Pushing Reuse clearly shows the benefits that reuse brings over recycling. For example, if we reclaimed 50 percent of reusable construction iron and steel the carbon savings would be equivalent to taking 29,000 cars off the road - and that's for just one material. Yes, reclamation is currently more labour intensive than recycling which makes it more expensive, but it creates green jobs and products that often have a higher value than recycled - for instance reclaimed bricks are worth much more than bricks recycled by being crushed to form recycled aggregate".

The full text of Pushing Reuse

Also see the Webinar on Pushing Reuse on 3 Feburary 2010

Monument demolition kills two in Georgia

Kutaisi, Georgia - A mother and child have been killed by flying debris from the demolition of a 150ft high Soviet World War II memorial. The monument has been removed to make way for new Parliamentary buildings.

BBC News

Granville County, USA - Habitat for Humanity's Restore in Granville County offer this message

Habitat for Humanity

Christmas Cards - don't bin them!

We all know there must be loads of things you can do with Christmas cards after they have spent a few weeks making us feel christmassy and getting dusty on the shelf. Obviously the best thing is to cut them up a bit and use for next years cards, but if you are feeling a bit more creative there's a load more ideas on the web, including this star...

Squidoo - Ways to reuse a christmas card

Time for the government to listen to reuse

Steve Tomlin discusses the outcome of his meeting at the House of Commons on his blog (see link below). Unfortunately after his meeting at Whitehall which held so much promise, sadly there was no mention in any literature, posters or speeches about Reuse and Reclamation.

Steve asks if the authorities will wake up to Reuse and Reclamation? He calls for the reclamation trade to "lobby to convince politicians that they are directed into a policy cul-de-sac that solves nothing. We need to remove subsidy to the demolishers and recyclate industry and redirect priorities away from incineration as a central plinth of our campaigns for Environmental Sustainability. There will be a case for crushing and burning, but only on the margins if we are to recover the full carbon value of scarce materials," said Steve.


Masco