Local suppliers of food for East Ayrshire schools.

Evaluation of a Pilot Scheme to Encourage Local Suppliers to Supply Food to Schools (August 2006).

An important pilot scheme that shows the procurement approach adopted by East Ayrshire Council does encourage local suppliers and has been achieved within EU procurement rules (i.e. cannot discriminate on distance food will travel). By splitting the contracts into smaller parcels, economies of scale and distance are removed.

The overall cost of ingredients rose from 59p to 71.9p, due in part to organic sourcing. However parents in East Ayrshire feel that the local foods in primary schools scheme is a good use of their Council’s money; a clear majority think that this is the case. The cost per meal in the pilot is comparable with that in other local authorities.

Question is: has this pilot been rolled out?

recycled wood waste

From the EU Science for Environment Policy website, an article titled Improved sorting strategies needed in recycled wood waste (RWW) . The researchers believe that achieving a high rate of recycling of this material with the aim of protecting finite resources can lead to unwanted pollution problems if material is improperly sorted. They recommend that a pollution perspective is a necessary complement to the focus on recycling. In the absence of this, market forces encourage consumers of RWW, such as district heating schemes, to apply separation and quality requirements less than rigorously.

I guess that I am looking to be one of those consumers of RWW. I’m also acting under market forces, but probably not in the way that the researchers think. Looks like I have to find the Waste Management journal. Something like that will surely be online :)

The wood works, works

Another sunny day, and I took the daughter into town in the buggy. After doing the messages, she was looking sleepy so I decided to walk down to The wood works. Two minutes after setting off, she’s asleep.

Wood works is great: North of the Water of Leith and nearer ferry road than bonnington road.