Tag Archives: Home Composting

And the award goes to…

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Earlier this year, I attended an award ceremony in Brussels, where the most inspiring and original events during the 2009 European Week for Waste Reduction were honoured. The winning events included a ten hour ‘fashion design marathon’ where Spanish design professionals, students and beginners alike took 4 tonne of pre-loved donated clothes and turned them into the latest in fashion. Another winner was the Swedish catering firm who ran a food waste campaign in 25 of their restaurants, resulting in a 25% reduction in food waste as well as financial and carbon emission savings for the organisation.

'Enrenou de Roba', winners of the award for best action by a community group during European Week for Waste Reduction 2009

What about this year’s awards? Well, now is the time to start planning your action for the European Week for Waste Reduction 2010, taking place between the 20th and 28th November. The week is a pan-European initiative of member states and regions coming together to raise awareness of the need for us all to reduce our waste, and change our behaviour, in order to ensure a more sustainable future.

Why not organise an action at your office, school, in your community or local authority? If it is raising awareness and encouraging people to reduce their waste, it is a perfect action for the week! How about a paper campaign to reduce paper consumption in your office, a ‘best waste free packed lunch’ competition’, a swap or second hand sale? If you are a local authority, you could team up with a local reuse organisation to divert reusable items from your local recycling centre, or use the week to raise awareness of a campaign, such as Love Food Hate Waste or Composting at Home.

Visit our website to find out more or to register your event.  Or email me if you have any questions. We’d love to hear from you! Who knows, it may be you on that stage next year, receiving that award…

Could be yours...

It’s Friday and it SWAP SHOP!

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Last Friday broadcaster John Seivwright ask me along to talk about the national home composting scheme on his live radio programme, which is aired every Friday evening on Keith Community Radio. However, I wasn’t prepared for the experience, as it was unlike any other radio show I have been involved with, as it took me back to the good old days of SWAP SHOPS! The week before my visit listeners had been encouraged to phone in with any unwanted items that they had at home and request an item that they wanted it swapped for.

The project which is being led by REAP and KSRP based in Keith, runs to February 2011 and aims, with the recruitment of volunteers and Keith Community Radio, to swap items of household furniture and goods and set up links between businesses and charities to make it easier to reuse items. They also hope to work with schools and groups to encourage them to run their own Swap Shop events.

In line with the old saying “one mans waste is another mans treasure”, during my interview someone was looking for two old wooden pallets for the garden and was willing to swap them for excess plums from his plum tree. Within minutes of this being broadcast, a phone call had been received by the radio station from someone with the palettes, willing to swap them for plums! Contact details were exchanged off air to arrange the SWAP and I was amazed at how quick and easy this was.

If there were more projects like this, I am sure there would be less useful items being sent to landfill. It is too easy for us to throw items in the bin and sometimes we all need a mechanism to encourage us to reuse. In Keith, REAP have made this happen and if you live in this area and would like to host an event, become a volunteer, have a good waste-saving story or good ideas for promotions, then they want to hear from you.

The contact for the project is Ann Davidson at REAP on 01542 888070 or e-mail info@reapscotland or call into the REAP office at 177, Mid Street Monday to Thursday.

Welcome to Scotland’s Housing Expo!- Fàilte gu Expo Taigheadais na h-Alba!

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The event showcases 52 fantastic houses of the latest ideas on design and sustainability to promote eco-friendly lifestyles.

It’s well worth a visit to the Highland Council house, The Shed House, which boasts a low cost, low energy family house, offering a comfortable and enjoyable place to live with a west facing living room and kitchen opening out into the gardens. Not only is the build of this house environmentally friendly but the contents are also, as the Waste Aware team in Highland Council have kitted out the entire house with reused and sustainable products.

There are some lovely examples of furniture, electrical appliances and household goods donated by Blythswood and ILM Highland to showcase the quality of reused goods now available to new home owners without costing the earth. The Highland Real Nappy Project have an extensive display of real cloth nappies and experienced volunteers have been on hand to give visitors to the event advice and support on the different nappy styles available and information on the trial kits available for loan to get new parents started.

Not sure how to reduce your households waste then why not visit the house and get expert advice from the Waste Aware team at Highland Council, where they have a display of space saving recycling bins, subsidised Scottish Government home composting bins from as little as £8 and a range of goods made from recycled materials?

With a full programme of workshops and events there’s lots to do apart from just looking at the houses but don’t delay as the Scottish Housing Expo finishes on the 31st August.

Keep going…

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A report out last week by our partner Remade Scotland provides a genuinely useful insight to household recycling from 2007-08. Not only does it show that local authorities achieved recycling and composting rates of 32% against a target of 30% (which is a tremendous achievement for both the councils and households concerned) but it also offers some guidance on what methods saw the highest rates of recycling among residents.

What Goes Into Your Recycling Bin?
What Goes Into Your Recycling Bin?

Example facts from the report by Remade show that:

  1. Schemes integrated with fortnightly residual collections recover 58% more dry recyclate than weekly collections and appear to reduce residual waste in kerbside bins.
  2. Multi material schemes collecting 4 or more materials produced an average yield 83% more than single stream collections.
  3. Weekly capacity of more than 100 litres produced 69% higher yields than those of less than 50 litres.
  4. Schemes that collect more than once a fortnight produce a 47% higher recovery rates than fortnightly schemes, 115% higher than those that collect every 4 weeks.

To read the report yourself (in PDF) please click here. Something everyone seems to agree on is that we cannot stop here. We have to keep going, which recalls a famous Scottish song by Sir Harry Lauder.

If you are thinking about composting your own food waste, why not take a look at our website on the subject. As for recycling, please fully utilise the methods provided by your local authority.

Rubbish in landfill isa bad idea for a number of reasons:

  • Methane is released by decomposing organic waste and contributes to global warming far more than carbon dioxide (in fact it is 20 times worse).
  • It is a waste of perfectly good materials which could have been recycled.
  • It increases demand for virgin materials, many of which are non-renewable so will eventually run out.

Anything you can do to avoid rubbish in landfill will benefit all our children’s futures. Keep it up!

Bridging the work-home divide…

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It is a truth, almost universally acknowledged, that a business in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a sustainable environmental management system.

And, what’s more, it is also very possibly a truth that an employee, in possession of a good job, must be in want of a sustainable environmental management system within their place of work.

Going even further, it could well be a truth that a member of the public, in possession of a rubbish bin, might be in want of a kerbside collection system from their home for recyclable materials.

One re-write of a famous quote too far? Perhaps but at least you get the idea. Anyway, moving swiftly on, how can we (i.e. those with influence acting on behalf of those with power) combine all these wants to provide both businesses and the wider public with what they need?

I was at an event on Friday which considered this very issue. The Scottish Qualifications Authority‘s offices in Glasgow (which span seven very swanky floors) were host to a variety of environmentally minded organisations as part of their Environmental Awareness Day.

The Reception at SQA

The Reception at SQA

The event was very well organised with a lot of activities for staff to take part in, including the increasingly popular swishing (surprisingly enough this is not something your least favourite Uncle would do on a Friday night) plus the inimitable Energy Saving Trust‘s driving simulator.

- Side note, I tried the EST driving simulator at an event in May and would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how to drive more efficiently. However I would not recommend driving faster than 90 kph round the bend with the bridge on it, just past the field with all the Fresian cows. Fortunately the simulator stopped short of replicating the full upside-down and head-on smash into said bovine and simply reset, at which point I calmly stepped out and let someone else have a go.

Back to the point, the SQA represent a growing number of organisations and businesses trying to ensure their staff are fully aware not just of the efforts being made to tackle excess energy, waste and water in the place of work but also what staff can do at home to reduce their own waste and energy issues. For staff working in the SQA offices who live in Glasgow this includes recycling which is now available throughout the local authority, including tenement properties where Glasgow has introduced the much lauded back court recycling scheme.

Back Court Blue Bins - Excellent Progress in Recycling in Cities

Back Court Blue Bins - Excellent Progress in Recycling in Cities

I made four presentations on the day to staff who wanted to hear more about some of our campaigns including Stop The Drop (about unwanted mail), Love Food Hate Waste and Home Composting. I also discussed waste at work, which is something staff really have to get involved in if recycling schemes are to work properly. Time after time the sticking point for businesses heading towards minimal waste is staff engagement (which is not always the fault of the staff).

It was a fantastic opportunity to talk around some of the issues and offer people direct guidance about waste. I thought the reaction to the presentation was very positive and I was pleasantly surprised by the proportion of people already composting at home.

It seems that we are at a great point in Scotland where being concerned about environmental issues that will affect all our children’s futures is no longer the preserve of the few. It’s now more normal to make an effort than not to, which is brilliant to see.

Discounted Compost Bins Still Available (as at July 2009)

Discounted Compost Bins Still Available (as at July 2009)