It is a very sad thing that during the reign of our greenest government ever (what is the symbol for tongue-in-cheek, and eyes crossed with exasperation?) we see, this week, an announcement of the impending demise of the UK’s oldest environmental charity. Even sadder that it coincides with the launch of a film they’ve produced to highlight a serious, but frequently invisible, problem. Environmental Protection UK started in 1898 as the Coal Smoke Abatement Society. By the time I joined it was called the National Society for Clean Air and it changed to its current name a few years ago. It was responsible for the Clean Air Act in 1956, getting rid of those old pea-soupers that used to blanket London - I used to hear terrible tales of them from my parents. It achieved great things, and has also been a valuable reference source, publishing research reports as well as the Pollution Control Handbook, now renamed Essential Environment - old copies make a great doorstop. We don't see those smogs any more, but we still have a serious air pollution problem - some of the worst air pollution in Europe - in London particularly, where we're breaching EU limits (along with a number of other parts of the UK) and asthma is commonplace. I can hike up Ilkley Moor at quite a lick, but walking up my not very steep road in Hackney to the bus stop in the rush hour can make me sound like an ancient steam engine.  Their new film is highlighting this as part of their Healthy Air Campaign, which will fortunately keep going. I wish them every success. You can watch the film on the Healthy Air Campaign website: www.healthyair.org.uk.

This seems to be picking up a fair amount of news coverage at the moment, so there are a couple more stories you might find interesting - although a couple of weeks old now. Where does the time go?

One is an item on edie (http://bit.ly/o8Kr0G), reporting that in a straw poll of 100 IT managers and directors, when asked if their IT was being landfilled (which is illegal), "only 65% of respondents were 'confident' or 'very confident' that of all their unwanted IT equipment was not being disposed of in this way". The sample was very small, but it's still quite scary.

There were some promising numbers on recycling - but reuse is the best option and very few were following that route. Greenbiz picked up the same story under the heading "Many Companies Don't Know If They're Illegally Disposing E-Waste" (http://bit.ly/nMIfwn). The survey was carried out by Computer Aid (www.computeraid.org), a charity that refurbishes computers for reuse.

And talking about reusing, recycling and disposing, WRAP have launched their waste hierarchy tool to help businesses with just that, at http://bit.ly/qJfD74. Just enter whether you're a micro, small to medium or large business and the sector you're in, say what materials you're interested in and away you go. Enter WEEE and you get a neat little report all about the waste hierarchy, the disposal options for WEEE, a case study and some sources of further information.

Having been reading a lot over the past few weeks about the red tape challenge, and how good it is for everyone, I thought it would be interesting to explore environmental legislation. This is included in the challenge, and admittedly much of it is over-complicated and so really does make life tough for businesses. But unnecessary? Think again - it serves a valuable purpose. It could certainly do with being simplified, but with the purpose preserved - and it's the purpose behind some of it I want to talk about. First off - the group of regulations that are usually referred to collectively as Duty of Care. Specifically what you have to abide by when getting rid of your old computers, light tubes and other such electrical equipment. There are paper trails to be followed here. If your old computer (I'll stick with computers for now) is still working, everything's fairly straight forward. But if it's broken, you need to get evidence that whoever you are giving it to is authorised with an exemption from the Environment Agency. Why add complications, when they are doing good work, collecting old computers to mend and give to schools, pensioners, charities? Because you need to know that they're really doing what they say. Computers have valuable metals inside them. Dismantling a computer to get at the saleable bits costs money in the UK - the people who do it can expect to be paid, to work in safe conditions. Ship them overseas and there are countries where there is far less protection for workers, making it cheaper. But young kids end up hurt. Panorama went undercover with the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA a while ago and one of the results was a very good programme that's still available to watch on the Panorama website: Track my Trash (http://bbc.in/mFBr4k). Well worth seeing if you're feeling fed up with the hassle of waste documentation - it makes you realise you're doing something worthwhile.

Well, that was some news to gladden my heart - a new bring-your-own bottle shop for wine has opened up near me (a little while ago, in fact, but I've only just found out about it). We already have shops to bring your own washing up liquid bottle - or most other cleaning fluids - but previously none for those important things that help you recover from the day. Good wine as much lower prices. This does reduce the environmental cost of the wine considerably (as well as the damage to my purse). Packaging provides considerable value to society, keeping foods fresh and fine to eat, preventing goods from being damaged in transit, containing things we really don't want spreading themselves around the countryside, but it does come at a price, like anything. Resource use, carbon emissions, waste - to name but a few. Changes to design, materials and construction of packaging can make a substantial saving to the environmental cost while still keeping packaging printers in business; sadly refillable bottles is likely to be bad news for label printers if it takes off widely. Unless of course there is a market for providing labels to stick on yourself so you don't forget what's in the bottle, and can read all about where the wine comes from and look at the little maps. Labels are such interesting things as well as useful. Various proposals have been made in the past to re-introduce returnable bottles and have just faded away, but now there seems to be a slow groundswell starting of its own volition of taking bottles to refill instead of simply returning them. Forget the refillable wine bottle - just give me the barrel and a straw…

Print is an inherently sustainable industry, but there is always work to do to make the most of this potential. So it was great to see two newcomers to Northprint who look after the recycling part of the process. It is an area which has in the past been poorly represented at UK print exhibitions.

Technotrans have been exhibiting for as long as I can remember, with their clever equipment that helps reduce the amounts of fount and blanket wash used and disposed of - but their presence is mainly within the printing process; those suppliers who work at the other end still tend to keep themselves hidden away.

The last Ipex did see stands from J&G Environmental, and Indicut (who de-nib and shred ink cartridges to reduce their bulk and so save carting truckloads of air around) - which I would have celebrated online at the time if I had had a blog then. The newbies to Northprint whose stands I found during my visit were Viridor, a recycler, and United Services, who launder printers' wipers and have recently rebranded as United Ecoservices.

Perhaps if more of the companies that manage, reduce and recycle waste from the printing industry were to shout about what they do, more of those who buy and use print might realise just how much is being done in the industry. I do hope so. And it will make is easier for printers to find out just how much support is out there for helping them to work within the three Rs of reduce, re-use and recycle.

As new waste legislation bites later in the year, requiring them to demonstrate they have followed the waste hierarchy, this support will be important.

This is my first ever blog, so a new experience and one in which I'm learning about a new (for me) way to communicate.  I'm not planning to use this to introduce the latest environmental news for printers - PrintWeek are already doing that for you - but to talk about things that interest me and that I hope will interest you.

With the debate about nuclear power plants gaining new momentum, there seems to be renewed focus than previously on energy and future supplies. And some interesting debates on the radio and articles in the press. China have declared that they are suspending approvals on new nuclear power plants while they make further safety checks. Germany's industry body for renewables say that they could supply 47% of requirements by 2020, avoiding the need for new nuclear. Amongst the debaters in the media, there are too many different viewpoints to even keep track of as to the right mix to achieve what we need.

But now we all can play around with the various scenarios ourselves, and see what the outcome might be for the UK in 2050. Can we achieve what we need just by improving energy efficiency? Can we kick out coal, gas and oil and rely just on wind? What about clean coal? or solar, marine and hydro?

DECC - the Department of Energy and Climate Change - have set up a website at http://my2050.decc.gov.uk for anyone to use to check this out. The sliders for changing scenarios are a bit clunky (at least on my Mac), but it's nicely visual. Increase use of public transport and watch the cars disappearing off the roads; add wind power and watch the turbines appear in the countryside; insulate homes and watch the double-glazed windows appear in the little house. And see how the numbers add up… the most important bit. Sadly, they don't include costs yet, but those are due in the next version. Meanwhile, it gives a pretty good idea of the kinds of choices that need to be made. Well worth a look.