Biopac, of Ridgeway Cross, Cradley, Malvern, Worcs, WR13 5 JN, make environment-friendly drinking cups from laminated carton board, material which can be composted after use and breaks down in weeks.

No, I’m not on commission, just irritated by the number of plastic cups I see around.

OK, it is in Ireland, but it is a very interesting model.

It looks like they have got a lot of excellent environmental stuff:

The programme of government agreed between the parties involves slashing domestic electricity use, expanding renewable energy sources and reopening railway lines to discourage car usage. Specific commitments given to the Greens by Mr Ahern include a climate change commission, reducing Irish greenhouse gas emissions by 3% a year, generating a third of electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and installing “smart electronic meters” in every home to reduce consumption.

And the leader of the Greens, Trevor Sargent, is standing down, since he pledged before the election not to form such a coalition. But he still said: “It is the proudest day in my life.”

An interesting model of Green leadership – politicians who live up to their promises.

When I was studying agricultural science 20-odd years ago, much intellectual effort was being spent on how to reduce mountains – butter mountains, beef mountains, and wine lakes (just for variety).

What’s slipped by almost unnoticed is that the butter mountain has now officially gone – not melted, but eaten. And the price of wholesale milk has doubled worldwide.

The continuing drought in Australia, which has crippled the country’s dairy output, has raised the wholesale price of skimmed milk powder by 60 per cent in six months. Over the past year, the cost of skimmed milk powder, used widely by the food processing industry, has soared from $2,000 per tonne to $4,800 per tonne. Butter is also becoming much dearer, rising from $1,800 per tonne to $2,550 per tonne, according to figures from the Milk Development Council.

Putting this together with the weather news from America – long-term catastrophic drought – and you wonder just what are the levels of the world food supplies? And what are the prices likely to be like if, say, Europe were to have a really bad summer?

A salutary piece in the Sunday Times this morning. Logic suggests that a lot can go wrong with the “mixed bag” recycling schemes, in which glass, paper, plastic etc is all collected in one lot and supposedly sorted later, and it seems in this case logic is right.

Chris White, its commercial manager, said the widespread practice of councils collecting material for recycling in mixed bags meant his plant was routinely sent batches of paper “contaminated” with bottles, plastic, cans and even food residue. “It’s impossible to deal with plastics and other materials here,” he said. “They go into a bin, are compacted and then it goes off to landfill.”