Leftover Food:
Jenny Earle took the first leftover food from Great Ayton Coop and Swainby Village Store to IPC in Middlesbrough on Sunday (15/11) evening to Investing in People and Culture (https://i-p-c.org/) and on Monday (23/11) from Great Ayton Coop to Stokesley School for distribution – thanks Jenny. Once the Coop paperwork is
IPC (https://i-p-c.org/) support assylum seekers, refugees and minority communities. Specifically they connect people to services that exist and those who have fallen through the gaps of the support other services and charities supply.IPC delivered the leftover food to 3 families who have just arrived and as yet have no financial support.
IPC (and Everything Else)
People arrive with nothing and will at some stage move from furnished to unfurnished flat, so if you have extra anything from scissors, notebooks, cooking equipment to furnitue, cookers, fridge – get in touch directly or through me to get things to people in need. Off the topic of waste, people’s needs aren’t just material, so IPC works with HostNation (https://www.hostnation.org.uk/) through whom you can befriend refugees. Teesside has lots of organisations that work to support not just refugees but all in need. Also the Methodist Asylum Project can take food, clothes, furniture, etc.. All this is part of minimising waste.What do you do with a broken down washing machine? IPC would be interested, we may need to think about electrical (PAT) testing.
Waste Minimisation Tips
The Energy Group has sent out a great list of tips for saving energy, it would be great to do something similar for waste – all suggestions welcome (please email).
Reducing water use – Run water into a jug in the kitchen or bucket under the shower when waiting for the water to warm up – using this water for cold hand washing clothers, watering plants, even flushing the loo, as it saves the water and the energy used to purify and heat the water.
Liquid from feta and mozarella is normally a mixture of brine and whey – so make your rice and pasta a little more creamy, then use this liquid with water when cooking – https://skillet.lifehacker.com/use-mozzarella-whey-and-feta-brine-to-make-an-extra-tas-1819858470
Bath water siphoned out to be used during drought (when water butt empty).
Milk carton cut down as mini greeenhouse, or filled with water and put in greenhouse during winter to absorb daytime warmth and emit during night.
Fruit squash bottles; remove bottom, invert at some depth near water thirsty plants (eg courgettes) so water goes to roots not leaves or earth surface where it will evaporate. (Avoid watering during middle of day.)
Old tights as ties to attach trees to stakes (much less damage to bark as elastic).
Most seeds from packets will last a few years but gradually lose viability so perhaps sow one third first year and rest next. But need fresh parsnip seeds every year. Better still, save your own seed. That way you know variety does well in your soil.
Kitchen:Do heat excess water in kettle and keep in thermos for next few drinks.
Use a blender to make soup out of any left over food.
If using pulses (beans etc) a lot consider a pressure cooker (Boyes sell them). Can reduce cooking time for eg pre-soaked chickpeas from 2 hours to 15 mins.
Use a steamer set, that way potatoes and 2 other veg all cooked using one ring.
If using food from freezer, remove night before and place in fridge, saving that from needing to turn on. Then remove in morning so cooking from room temperature.
Wash veg (especially if muddy from garden) into a bowl, then put water and precious soil into compost bucket.
Aim to wash and scrub root vegetables rather than peel.
Most nutritious part of cabbage, cauliflower, calabrese/broccoli is stem. Try it raw.
Repairing
A great way to reduce waste is extend the life of anything, particularly electrical white goods – washing machine started washing cold, typically all that has failed is the heating element – local repair shops will repair items for you or supply you with a element for example (obviously only repair yourself if you know it is safe to do so).This site lists 3 local shops (do you have any experience of them):
https://threebestrated.co.uk/electrical-repairs-in-middlesbrough
I was a regular customer of Rollo’s Electrical when they were based in Borough Road, and Anne Mannix had a good experience recently – they have now moved to Cannon Park.
Online I have used ESpares https://www.espares.co.uk regularly – the spares are delivered rapidly and if you go on the site they often link to how to instructions – for example if you had a Bosch washing machine that was grinding then the bearings have gone then you buy new bearing here and see how to replace them – https://www.espares.co.uk/product/es174409/washing-machine-drum-bearing-set . Lots of other sites exist and YouTube has many videos of people showing you what to do, I normally watch several and then decide which has the best instructions.
How do you get things repaired? Do you know local repairers? … (Do you know a good local clock repairer? I have a wind-up Smiths clock in need of tlc.)
Devices with Internal Rechargeable Batteries
Lots of devices from toothbrushes to robot vacuum cleaners have fixed rechargeable batteries, if the device stops running for so long, runs more slowly or just stops after having been getting slower, then the chances are that it just need the internal rechargeable battery replacing. First check the warranty – if under warranty use this to repair. Replacing an internal battery can be very easy (Roomba vacuum cleaner) or fairly difficult (iPhone), just look for instructions on YouTube or one of the repair sites (for example https://www.ifixit.com/) – a new robot vacuum cleaner costs >£500 the replacement battery £50 plus 5 minutes to install no chance of damaging it, a new iPhone costs >£600 a replacement battery £13 (vs >£50 for professional replacement) plus 1 hour to replace but it difficult and possible to do more damage.
Hambleton Waste Management – Cllr David Houghill
Hambleton and food waste appears to be on hold while the future of the local council structure is in question. However, the government has mandated that all food waste must be collected by 2023, once this happens how do we stop people just throwing it into their normal bins.Hambleton’s Waste Management 2016-2025 is here – http://hambleton.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/1273/hambleton_waste_management_strategy_2016-2025.pdf
How does hot bin, compare to council composting, to anaerobic digestion? I guess Mike Berners-Lee knows, but I don’t.
Group Name – Waste or Zero Waste?Probably stick to Waste its short – but while people understand it, it emphasises the negative, not the positive that these are finite resources just in the wrong place by poor product / process design.
Snow Centre in MiddlesbroughThere are plans for the Sub Zero Centre at St Hilda’s strongly supported by the local MP Andy MacDonald – it will have snow, ice climbing, skiing – all about creating jobs but what about the environment? Will it be so energy efficient that it will reduce people flying? http://www.subzerocentre.co.uk/SubZero_Brochure.pdf
Leven Radio
Clip from Leven Radio about CASaV’s September Climate Event – https://levenonlinecouk.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/climate-event-build-back-better-audio-64kbs.mp3 and the film to of the interview – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pFEKkyPoLM
Terracycle.com
Making the unrecyclable recylcable – is something to understand better, as with local collection points it may be a way of improving recycling.
Pete and Joy mentioned who Mark Carney‘s 2020 Reith Lectures gave a very progressive view of future economics covering how links to a new economy needs to embrace Doughnut economics (https://doughnuteconomics.org/) and prosperity without growth (https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Tim-University-of-Surrey-UK-Jackson/Prosperity-without-Growth–Foundations-for-the-Economy-of-Tomorrow/18791612), while eliminating government waste of money – http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0000py8t
Jenny updated us on the importance of language – terms such as developed nations / 3rd world countries should really be replaced by heavy polluters, medium polluters and light polluters with responsibility to meet the challenges of climate change apportioned appropriately.
David asked about Freecycle – The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 5,336 groups with 9,055,947 members around the world, and next door to you. It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (and getting) stuff for free in their own towns and neighborhoods. It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by local volunteers (them’s good people). Membership is free.” – https://freecycle.org/
Louise – mentioned how Investors in People and Culture in Middlesbrough (https://i-p-c.org/) could use many things such as old furniture to avoid it going to waste, but need to transport to Middlesbrough. This is complementary to other organisations such as Frade (https://frade.co.uk/) in Middlesbrough, Stockton, Darlington and Northallerton – “We collect your donated furniture, small appliances, garden furniture and bric-a-brac free of charge.” or the Olio app to share food (https://olioex.com/).
Anne had seen in the Times how Britons are baffled by the range of recycling symbols (https://www.recyclenow.com/recycling-knowledge/packaging-symbols-explained). Perhaps we could have a game at a stall when things open up.Leftover FoodWe have been taking food to IPC informally, our food business registration should be complete 14/12/20, still awaiting response from Coop Food Share.
Things we can do:
Reducing waste at Christmas – Oxfam gifts / plant a treeThe Grinch who stole Christmas – Green version – Grinch who rewrote Christmas – Look at what really matters.
The waste minimisation useful resources list – recycling locations on CASaV has been updated, could do with other suggestions such as scraps into carpets – rag rugs etc..
Feedback from recent webinars – Circular Yorkshire:Waste Minimisation, Greener Pocklington, ……
Luxemburg is introducing free bus transport to reduce use of cars.
The Climate and Ecological Emergency bill will be debated in parliament in the new year – https://www.ceebill.uk – good film which explains aims of CEE bill.
Crisp manufacturer investing in CO2 capture from beer to make fertilisers for potatoes for crisp.
Continue to write to Rishi Sunak about the climate, we need to keep this at the top of the agenda and let Mr Sunak know that his constituents care and want all government actions to be environmentally positive.How about a Stall at Farmer’s market or at the Recycling Centre (Dump) – thoughts welcome on what to do / how to engage people to tackle waste more effectively.
Climate Action Stokesley and Villages 