Zero Waste – a Way to a Low Carbon Future
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Zero Waste- a Way to a Low Carbon Future
You’ll have to forgive me for sounding a bit like a bulletin board at the moment. Last week I told you about 4 events taking place, thanks to Sue at GlosVAIN and now I’m sharing news about Gloucestershire Friends of the Earth who are running a Conference Network Day to stimulate discussion and action around waste.
The aim is to give Gloucestershire the opportunity to take the lead in piloting a new approach to empowering local communities in dealing with their waste and lowering carbon footprint.
Local community
Gloucestershire Friends of the Earth believes there needs to be a fundamental change in dealing with waste to enable the responsibility of decision making and action to be within small local communities.
Waste as a resource
Parish and Town Councils, Co-operatives, the Voluntary and Community Sector and small and medium enterprises all have a role to play in turning local waste into a local resource, reducing the carbon footprint and stimulating local businesses in the recycling and recyclates industry.
Conference network event
The Conference takes place Saturday 9th October at Bethesda Church, Great Norwood st. Cheltenham Spa GL502AP.
Entrance is free with an optional lunch for £5 which you can book on the Gloucestershire Friends of the earth website.
Itinerary
10.15 am Coffee
11.00 am Adam Kennerley; Chief Executive of the Cwm Harry Land Trust presents “Slow Waste” a Zero Waste pilot project for the Welsh Assembly
12.00 am Michael Pickering; Social Responsibility Manager for the MidCounties Co-operative presents “Co-operatives, Communities in Action”
1.00 Lunch
2.00 pm Michael Warhurst; Senior Resource Use Campaigner for EU and UK Friends of the Earth presents “Zero Waste- a way to a low carbon future.”
3.00 pm Panel from main political parties for question and answer session.
4.00 pm Close and tea
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I was a little disappointed with this event. I was expecting lots of very fired up people, but it seemed to pass with a damp fizz rather than a sparkling bang! I couldn’t get there until the afternoon, so maybe I missed the waves of enthusiasm that I’d expected.
I did enjoy the opportunity to meet up (albeit briefly in some cases!) with people that I know are working roughly toward the same goals and the literature in particular reaffirmed what I want to achieve.
Talking about the prospect of co-mingled waste collections with DH later in the day, (one of the morning sessions that I missed) he said “This is where we are and this is what we have to deal with.” My response was “if you set off to drive to London, but the car breaks down in Bristol, would you stay there or try to find another way to continue your journey?”
Apparently Rob Bell, the Council officer who was talking about it, says we’re several years away from co-mingled in Cheltenham, so I hope that either the whole co-mingled thinking changes before we get there. Barbara Farmer from SWARD, is in a co-mingled area and she says it breaks her heart to hear the glass bottles smashing when the bins are tipped on collection day. What a waste!
Hi poppy, I know what you mean about a damp fizz! I think there were a lot of very passionate people there, but sadly many feel at a loss for what to do. I think many feel a bit powerless right now. Co mingled is a double edged sword; it seems to increase recycling rates, but of course decreases the value of it… Was great to meet you there 🙂
I don’t think the big bins help at all. There is no incentive to reduce the amount of waste and recycling you make. It will be interesting to see how Torbay get on changing from large wheelie bins to boxes.
My neighbour has placed his ordinary sized bin on a small platform with wheels that he can push to the edge of his property. It would be good to see how any innovative people have found a way of keeping their boxes so that they don’t need to carry them around and stack them. I have heard of people having their food waste boxes built into their new kitchen arrangements.
@Jane: Jane, I can see a time in the near future when kitchens are built with recycling areas in mind – that would be wonderful as we always say that you have to set up a system where it is easier to recycle than throw things away …