Gloucestershire becomes the first 10:10 county!
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The Greens at the Gloucesteshire 10:10 Awards ceremony
Yesterday, we joined some amazing people at our local Shire hall for the presentation of Gloucestershire’s 10:10 Awards
It came as a complete shock a couple of weeks ago to discover one of our readers had nominated us for ‘Most Green Household‘ which we were humbled and thrilled to hear about.
From hundreds of nominations for each of the eight categories, the finalists met to network and attend the award ceremony:
- Best Recycling Project
- Most Green Household
- Green Community of the Year
- Green Business of the Year
- Green Primary School of the Year
- Green Secondary School of the Year
- Young Green Champion of the Year
- Green Champion of the Year
Best Recycling Project went to Stroud District Youth council who have undertaken a litter recycling project. They introduced recycling bins around Stroud, concentrating on routes most commonly used by young people such as the paths to and from school.
Green Community of the year went to Bisley. The entire village won and is made up of successful green businesses and a pioneering composting scheme.
Green Business of the year was awarded to AGD Systems who have reduced their on site landfill by 60%, have motion sensor lighting and have installed a ground source heat pump.
Green Primary School was Dunalley where ‘recycling is second nature to the students’. They have two eco warriors in each class to keep all the pupils on board.
Green Secondary School was Tewkesbury who have a student energy monitoring team. The students also produce an annual waste survey.
Young Green Champion of the year was Ashley Tonks; he cleared land around the caretakers bungalow by his school to turn into a school allotment. He also instigated school recycling.
Green Champion of the year was Carlo Monesanti who has recently won £50,000 of People’s Millions cash to turn Gloucester into the world’s first Bee Guardian City. Carlo is also equipping people around the county with skills to live off grid.
Harriet Bell, campaigner for 10:10 uk
But that’s not all. We were very excited to see Harriet Bell, the Campaign Co-ordinator for 10:10 UK, would be making a presentation. After her speech which highlighted the importance of staying positive, being ambitious and working together to tackle climate change Harriet awarded Cllr mark Hawthorne, leader of Gloucestershire County Council, an award for being the UK’s first 10:10 county!
Little Miss and Mrs Green with Peter Attwood and his wife – the other ‘greenest household’ finalists
One of the highlights of the awards, however, was a presentation by Martin Kiszko, composer and poet who writes his hilarious poems about saving the planet on old fish and chip wrappers, plastic bags or even skateboards. He had the children rolling about with his talks of poo power and the adults rolling their eyes with his poem about his daughter’s need for the latest mobile phone when she had a perfectly good one already; all taken from his latest book “Green poems for a blue planet.”
And who won the award for Most Green Household?
Well, yes, we’re excited to say we won!
But you know what? We wouldn’t have done it without you.
Getting your daily comments and emails keeps us accountable, passionate and puts a happy glow into our hearts. Without you taking part yourselves in your small corner of the world, without you taking part in National Zero Waste Week, without you coming to the site to read my latest posts and take part in discussions, there would be no my zero waste website.
The phrase we heard over and over by various speakers at the awards was ‘You’re ALL winners’, and you are – everyone of you who thinks before you buy something in the shop, who chooses something with less packaging, who recycles all you can, who makes a meal out of leftovers… Every one of you is a winner and that thought went through my mind when we collected the award.
So thank YOU for being here and taking part yourselves and to our special Christmas Elf who nominated us for the award 😉
Cllr mark Hawthorne receiving the first 10:10 county award from Harriet Bell
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Congratulations that’s brilliant news!! You’re an inspiration to many that now think before we buy and how we carry out our lives. Thanks!
Congratulations Rae. You deserve it. Your household puts me to shame.
Fantastic news. Well done to you all. ;0) xxxxx
Congratulations to you all! You earned it.
Congratulations!!! I am so very happy for you and your family. Kathy
Thank-you for your kind words and encouragement. Behind every award there is nearly always a support team that ‘makes it happen!’ WE are so grateful to all our readers, for your feedback, insights and contribution to the Zero Waste effort.
We don’t make it public on this website, because this is not relevant to Zero Waste, but we do have some other credentials that make our home eco-friendly as well as zero waste.
We use LED lighting throughout most of the home. The lights are home built by ‘yours truly’ and are powered by PV solar panels.
We heat with an efficient wood burner and collect most of the wood ourselves from local sources, including untreated timber from demolished buildings.
We grow some of our own food, especially salad, herbs and fruit in the summer time.
Our policy is to repair or re-purpose items that wear out or break down. We also share and exchange these skills with like minded friends and neighbours.
We use power saving devices throughout the home and monitor electricity usage daily.
We have endevoured to maximise home insulation in all areas to reduce heat loss. Another good use of packaging and polystyrene, providings it’s marked fire resistant!
We minimise all our vehicle travel and do not take air flights at all.
Our carbon footprint is well below the national average and we intend to continue reducing this through further energy saving and innovative use of materials.
well done the greens. you inspire us all, we may not all be as good as you but we do try. congratulations and well done
xx
Congratulations, Greens.
Linda, from the US
I’ve been very out of touch what with mega internet problems this last few weeks, but am so delighted to come back to see you win an award!
It’s truly well deserved 🙂 Hearty congratulations!
We still quote Mr Green’s wise words that we heard on the radio many moons ago “there is no away” – it applies to just so very much …
Thanks for your continued inspiration xxx
Congratulations! That’s wonderful!
Is it me or has the re-cycleing big gone missing from Tesco?
@Mark Stapleton: Is Tesco scaling down the recycling bins it provides? I remember them having all sorts of flashy bins but I also heard that they had fewer recycling bins than before.
@Mark Stapleton: Hello Mark, I was expecting a call back yesterday but it was not forthcoming. I am onto it and should have an answer by next week. I have no idea what is happening at the moment.
Congratulations! Big woot! to you and your family for a well deserved honor. You are an inspiration to us all.
@Kathryn Grace: Lovely to see you again Kathryn, thank you for your comment and I hope you are well? What have you been up to recently?