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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Costing the Earth

Factual: Science & Nature: Nature & Environment

Fresh ideas from the sharpest minds working toward a cleaner, greener planet

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Costing the Earth: Keep on Trucking

Keep on Trucking

08/02/2010

BBC Radio 4 - Costing the Earth, Keep on Trucking

Our goods need to be delivered, but at what cost? Tom Heap goes trucking to find out.

Tom Heap finds out how much pollution is being generated around the world by the transport of freight by road and ship.

While aviation is often seen as the climate change villain, the transport of freight by road and ship is often ignored. Shipping is a far bigger polluter and seems unlikely to benefit from the investment in technology which airlines have planned. Could there be a way to cut down emissions from freight transport? Tom Heap finds out just how much pollution is being shifted needlessly around the place by hitching a lift with a 25-year-old Londoner, who was named the UK's Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2009. His business, Shiply.com, is a bit like eBay, but for shipping your stuff. The business has been going for just over a year and has already saved over 1.6 million kg of CO2 by making use of spare capacities.

On a larger scale Eddie Stobart's is Britain's best known haulier. The company recently made moves into rail freight but questions remain on how many of our deliveries can be made by rail and if the freight industry as a whole is really facing up to the question of how to decarbonise transport.

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