April’s Waste Thoughts – 2024

Full notes below, quick summary – follow links for the detail:

  • Waste:
    • NYC are integrating and restructuring waste and recycling services
  • Clothes:
    • Do you want to help with a local clothes swap? Get in touch.
  • Recycle / Reuse / Circularity:
    • Do you know about local / national sustainable suppliers that others should know about? Whether it is local growers of seasonal vegetables or its products manufactured sustainably like Fairphone – please tell us for our list.
    • Repair not only makes products last longer, but also saves you money – do you know of repair businesses we can add to our repairer list?
    • The Repair Cafe sewing team is helping Explorer Scouts/Guides turn dead tents into aprons and duffle bags.
    • Boots is expanding its blister pack recycling nationally, linked to their points system and purchases.
    • What’s in your electronics drawer of doom? How many old remotes? Take them to your local WEEE recycling point to get the precious materials reused.
  • Food:
    • Tonnes of food is left rotting on fields, so gleaning is coming back in Cornwall to stop this food waste.
    • Are you no longer using your green bin? Well in RCBC area you can turn it into a compost bin instead.
  • Repair Cafes:
    • March’s Swainby Repair Cafe saw over 60 items, including the wonderful Coat of Hopes
    • Come along to April’s Stokesley Repair Cafe on Saturday 13th and get your things repaired
    • Middlesbrough’s first repair cafe is scheduled for 11th May, come to the Friends Meeting House on 18th April at 7pm to find out all about it and volunteer to get invovled.
  • CASaV Wide
    • CASaV and the Repair Cafe have new sustainable pop-up banners come and see them at our events
    • Stronger Shores gave a great talk on protecting our coasts to Guisbrough Eco-group
    • What events can we encourage for Great Big Green Week (8-16 June)?
    • Let us know how you learn about things, which social media should we use to get in touch with people in Stokesley and Villages?
    • Climate Action Middlesbrough runs a great monthly Green Forum.

Actions:

  • All – let Simon know about other suppliers who we should add to sustainable suppliers list
  • All – let Simon know about repairers for everything from clocks to wedding dresses, it help us push repair beyond what we can do at our repair cafes.
  • Simon – highlight need for people to empty their electronics drawers of doom at Repair Cafes, so that the materials trapped in old remotes, etc. are made available for manufacture of new electronic items.
  • Joanna / Sarah / +++ planning for clothes swap event during Great Big Green Week

Background – Our Monthly Waste Discussions

If you have just signed up to the Waste Group, then welcome, I hope these notes of our discussion make sense.

We meet once a month to talk about topics connected to waste and plan / report progress on our ongoing activities such as the Repair Cafes, Foodshare, Refill scheme and events such as the Bilsdale Show.  If you visit the “Thoughts on Waste” page on the CASaV website you can find all our past discussions – https://climateactionstokesleyandvillages.org/waste/thoughts-on-waste/

Please get in touch if you have any questions.

Notes form 9th April 2024 CASaV Waste Group

Updates

Tracey

North Yorkshire Council is going through its waste consultation as part of the restructuring from County Council and District Councils into a single council – some great resources of how to recycle are available on NYC Bins, Recycling and Waste Page.

NYC has plans for a public consultation on waste as part of the Let’s Talk process, sometime in the next 2 months.

Expect to be moving to communications focus around recycling and waste, rather than climate change but will keep strong link to climate change team.

Jenny

We have added more sustainable organisations to our Local and National Sustainable Suppliers List: Acorn Diaries – supplies organic milk from Darlington to Yorkshire; Quorn – mycoprotein from Teesside making food in Stokesley.

Action: All – let Simon know about other suppliers who we should add to sustainable suppliers list

There is a kids group hoping to start up to provide food on a Tuesday in Stokesley. Will need to look into whether the group needs to be signed up to Cooperative’s food share initiative.

Pete

One thing that was better in 1975 in Middlesbrough was reclaimed wood. Cleveland Timber run by Buckler brothers as part of their demolition business. Now a lot of the wood seems to go to energy from waste / biomass, so little reclaimed wood is available.

There is a small amount available in Guisborough, but unlike Buckler who used to store the scrap wood in dry conditions, this is no longer the case. However, other building materials are recycled – bricks, concrete etc. and Prosser’s scrapyard do get large quantities of wood intermittently, but they don’t treat wood well.

Wendy

A decade ago I got the wood from old community care bungalows around the manor house and am still using it as pathways around my allotment.

Having had solar thermal heating for 30-40 years, most recently via a direct system. However the pump had failed and no one seemed to be able to repair. Dave Moore (runs Upper Eskdale Repair Cafe) from Castleton has helped get it fixed, having found a replacement pump £300, then found somebody who would repair the pump only £25.

Action: All – let Simon know about repairers for everything from clocks to wedding dresses, it help us push repair beyond what we can do at our repair cafes.

Great story from the Guardian explains how recycling in the 7th century led to quantiative easing, as has been discovered from Sutton Hoo. It turns out that the market was flooded with Byzantine silver which had been turned into Anglo Saxon coins.

Kate

Working with the Stokesley Explorers (Scouts/Guides) on 15th April turning damaged / old canvas tents into aprons, we are providing sewing machine support. The Explorers are raising money for expeditions, so will sell aprons and duffle bags. What else can you make from old canvas? – hammocks, pannier bags, head balanced suitcases. A few Explorers are coming to Repair Cafe on Saturday to fund raise.

Perhaps we could also engage with the Beavers providing them with support for their climate change badge.

ebay will now list secondhand clothes free – press release.

Boots blister packs recycling scheme is going national (press release), however in order to use it you have to have a Boots reward card and spend £10 in order to get 150 points – “Customers near participating stores can now drop off their used blister packs for recycling in dedicated collection bins and get rewarded for it. Boots Advantage Card holders will receive 150 Boots Advantage Card points when they recycle 15 empty blister packs and spend £10 or more in store.“

Big Issue explained how gleaning(recovering crops that have been missed by the harvesting process) is making a come back in Cornwall now part of what farmers get paid for and is preventing millions of tonnes of usable food going to waste – (Gleaning Cornwall Network)

Big Issue has recipe for potato peel soup.

Been collecting scrap blankets / woolen fabrics for making into rag rugs.

At Saturday’s Repair Cafe there will be a Birthday Party, as the Repair Cafe is just 2 years old, so candles on the cakes.

Tadcrafters who make bags for people in hospital etc. are very keen to get decent lengths of fabric.

Sarah

Day job is working for Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council manage council committees including climate and environment committees, hence met Simon at the Joint Council Crustacean Die-off Committee.

Previously been involved in upcycling clothes / recycling.

Fred

Guisbrough Eco-Group had a great presentation form Stronger Shores showed how growing kelp, oysters, sea grass, are effective natural ways to protect the coast line – reduces wave erosion. A way to combat the rising sea levels causing erosion of the coast.

Guisborough Eco Group Blog has an item on 2 compost bins and what to do with unwanted green wheelie bins can they become compost bins – as charging has just come in Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council area for green waste. Great method to convert a green bin into a compost bin – Instructables. RCBC is also looking into community composting.

Simon

Rubbish is a 2006 comedy currently on Radio 4 Extra – https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b0087dtq – very loosely related to waste. On a more serious tone is the 2014 programme “Rubbish: the great waste crisis” https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b03zy4hn shows that sadly little has changed in the last 10 years, with the government still pointing out the same strategies which have been delayed on multiple occassions and more and more incineration of waste with little reduction seen or expected.

Barbara Beveridge as well selling really nice seasonal leaves at the Stokesley Markets has a son, Garam, who was involved in compiling the recently released UN Report on eWaste (WEEE). You can read summaries on CNN and Fast. BBC has highlighted our drawers of doom, where all our old remotes and other electronic gadgets never get recycled.

Barbara said “People are well aware of plastic waste, but most people are unaware of the rising problem of e-waste. Is there anything the group can do? Perhaps raise awareness at repair cafes?”

We are doing a little with our Blue Recycle for Charity bag, but could do more.

Action: Simon – highlight need for people to empty their electronics drawers of doom at Repair Cafes, so that the materials trapped in old remotes, etc. are made available for manufacture of new electronic items.

RCBC have drop off off points in towns for small electrical items, not just at recycling centres.

CASaV and the Repair Cafe have just got sustainable pop-up banners from Eco-banners part of a company called MSPC Ltd based in Hertford. The printer banner is made from recycled polyester rather than PVC, so the banner can be recycled with PET bottles. The frame is made of soft wood, so is both easily recycled and use minimal materials to manufacture.

NYC wants to know what do with incorrectly branded old PVC pop-banners? Possibly ground sheets for homeless – Nitelight CIC, South Bank near Asda, tents for scouts, a competition for ideas?

Could the repair cafe mend the aluminium mechanisms? The main problem is the banner holder where the pole go into the base are distorted, so the repair would be metal bashing, as aluminium welding wouldn’t be possible – a challenge.

Matters Arising

16th March – Swainby Repair Cafe

Over 60 items were brought to the Repair Cafe which was a great success, as Joy summarised “We have certainly seen some extraordinary and quirky items at some of our Repair Cafes. Remember the zebra? The 100 years old record player? The life size wooden mannequin requiring knee replacements? Well at our Repair Cafe in Swainby Village Hall on Saturday 16th March there was the spectacular Coat of Hopes which needed attention after its many miles of travel along dusty roads. The sewing gang was very keen to get involved. There was also our first compost heap repair! And I heard the immortal words from an electrics mender ‘I don’t give up that easily, you know!’ This heroic attitude was also evident in our porcelain repairer who took on a badly mended sugar bowl lid which will no doubt look pristine when he’s finished with it. And I found out what a ring tree is. Who knew?”

13th April – Stokesley Repair Cafe

The Globe has been rearranged, so the computers are now located where the sofas were, the sofas are by the library entrance, so the plan is to place the electrical around the pillar where the computers used to be.

Our new pop-up banners have been placed at the library entrance to attract people to the Repair Cafe and the whole group meeting next Tuesday.

Other Repair Cafes

Saltburn Repair Cafe – held their second successful repair cafe on 6th April, next will be in July.

Guisborough Eco Group – kept 2 sewers very busy at their last cafe, date for next still to be fixed, but will include DIY toiletries manufacture, as part of reducing single use plastics.

Help needed – Middlesbrough Repair Cafe – has a volunteer event on 18th April at Friends Meeting House at 7pm to which all are welcome, to help get the first cafe going on the 11th May. How to get more volunteers – IPC, Instagram, Social Media.

Northallerton Repair Cafe – still an interest but it has not crystalised into a definite plan, just need a date, a way of getting insurance and a date 2-3 months in the future – advertise the date and then get repairers / helpers on board. Northallerton needs a lead person for the buck to stop at.

Great Big Green Week – 8th – 16th June

A few events have been scheduled – 8th June Repair Cafe and stall on Great Ayton Fair.

Displays at the libraries – Dark Skies, Plastics Swaps, other ones?

Videos that just keep running in the libraries – simple informational animation videos. Lessplastic has a fantastic set of infographics.

Can we get local businesses to run events – Quorn, Labman, Station Coffee & Kitchen – evening event some kind of attraction.

Clothes swap event – bring 10 items / take some away – talk to Sarah / Joanna. What ever is left is put on eBay / Vinted / Depop. Could we run this as a twin school event between Prior Pursglove and Stokesley?

Action: Joanna / Sarah / +++ planning for clothes swap event during Great Big Green Week

FabBrick – bricks from recycled fabric waste, suggested uses are things such a making furniture – Design Wanted magazine article on the use of the FabBrick

Hempcrete – Farmer used hemp to build his house. Locally there is work underway to set up a complete hemp supply chain as part of Yorkshire’s circular economy – Yorkshire hemp supply chain.

Communications

Our Facebook presence is very effective thanks to Kate and others posting and sharing posts.

Instagram is a more effective at getting at a younger audience – Kate is arranging to get training to use this more effectively.

While CASaV has a Twitter it does no really have a local audience so is used primarily to support national / global climate campaigns.

Would snips from our Repair Cafes make good TikTok videos to connect with the an even younger audience?

Meetings

Climate Action Middlesbrough (a project of Middlesbrough Environment City) hold monthly Green Forums on 2nd Wednesday of each month 10am – 12pm at Acklam Green Centre. CAM supports / carries out green projects across Middlesbrough, so the meetings are meant as a networking event for people across Middlesbrough, but they welcome people from outside Middlesbrough. They normally have a speaker covering everything from repair cafes to community gardens. Email David Scriven if you would like go on his circulation list for events and agenda for the monthly Green Forums.

AOB

The Middlesbrough based asylum support organisation Investing in People and Culture (IPC) are planning to apply for a large lottery grant around using food waste locally in Middlesbrough – Jenny and Simon are in contact and will update when more details are known.

Next Meeting – 14th May