January’s Waste Thoughts – 2024

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

• Waste:
  • NYC’s waste is complicated with different approaches across the county, but all black bins go to Allerton Waste Recovery Park (upcoming visit – 31st January),
  • our recycling goes to North Wales,
  • most supermarkets now accept soft plastics, kerbside recycling benefits from cleanliness,
  • NYC’s strategy waste will be guided by the government’s requirements for waste consistency and a study underway by WRAP to find the best approach,
  • moving up the waste hierarchy means resuse is key, as milk has done forever and glass reused for your own jams / juices is great and even a give or take glass exchange in Guisborough helps. It also keeps you away from nanoplastics in bottled water.
  • in terms of food waste, then marmalade is the ultimate example of wasting nothing.
• Clothes:
  • stopping clothes going to waste can be as simple as removing the bobbles,
  • many clothes stores have introduced schemes to incentivise a circular economy of clothes, of course eBay and Vinted are great ways too.
• Upcycling:
  • James Owen Thomas has made upcycling his career, turning used materials into artworks,
  • what is the next upcycling workshop that CASaV should be running? Rag rugs?
• Christmas tress:
  • ours didn’t win the competition although much admired and commented on,
  • now is the time to put yours out to be shredded and composted just don’t burn it,
  • next year how about just using branches from your garden,
  • or plant a tree in a pot ready to bring in December.
• Repair Cafes:
  • North Yorkshire discussions are planned at the North Yorkshire First Reuse Network,
  • 2024 first is on 20th January in Swainby and then on 9th February in Stokesley, please get in touch if you would like to help or have any questions.

Actions:

• None from this meeting

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 January 2023 CASaV Waste Group

Updates

Lorna

18 people for the Joint Churches eco-group organised by Geoff Jacques have visited Allerton Waste Recovery Park (WikiWaste, NYC, Thalia) – CASaV have a visit arranged for 2pm 31st January – contact Bridget Holmstrom if you would like to go. The virtual tour gives you an idea but nothing like seeing and smelling it in person:

Allerton Waste Recovery Park takes all North Yorkshire’s black bin waste, the majority of it is incinerated but as much material as possible is recovered and as much organic material as possible is anaerobically digested. Energy is generated from the incineration and from the methane generated by the digester. Despite the material recovery at Allerton Park, it is far better to ensure that all recyclable material is put in your recycling bin, as the quality of the material recovered at Allerton Park will have been degraded through contamination by the other waste in the black bin stream.

While facilities such as Allerton Park are often described as energy from waste plants, green energy or even part of the circular economy. So described as very much better than land fill, reality is that we need to concentrate on reducing waste considerably rather than burning waste with consequent CO2 emissions even thought there is energy generation.

Soft plastics are not well recycled generally, while you are helping if you take your soft plastics to the recently introduced supermarket soft plastics recycling bins, as Greenpeace described in 2021 article, reduction rather than recycling has to be the long term answer – What really happens to your plastic recycling?

So do use the soft plastic recycling to which you can include even bubble wrap and cling film – Coop Soft Plastic Packaging – soft plastic can and can’t recycle list. WRAP carried out a trial in Morrisons in Skipton in 2018 to evaluate plastic-free/loose fresh produce, such an approach stops soft plastic waste at source. The conclusions are not very proactive seeing as many problems as solutions, but the trial was extended to 60 more stores in 2019.

The quality of the material sent for recycling helps improve its chances of being recycled, so clean is better don’t leave food residue in cans / jars, don’t leave liquids in bottles (just makes it smell and creates potential health issues), don’t include greasy cardboard / paper. But don’t worry about taking small amounts of tape off cardboard or soaking labels off cans or lids off jars (these will all be removed and separated during recycling). Check out the local guidance here – https://www.northyorks.gov.uk/bins-recycling-and-waste/what-goes-your-bin or a 2022 Hambleton guide here – https://blog.themodernmilkman.co.uk/hambleton-local-recycling-rules/

Jumpers can start to feel very old once they bobble up, you can make them feel all new again with a clothes shaver – there are many models available, even Argos has a £10 bobble remover.  Good Housekeeping has suggestions on jumper maintenance to stop bobbles forming and points out that you need to be careful not to damage good fibres and that too much shaving will leave you with little jumper.

Tracey

Disappointingly nothing new to report on blister packs – Aldi / Terracycle mail in scheme is still on hold, Supadrug with pharmacies (locally Bridlington, Chester-le-Street, Harrogate) will only accept personal quantities.

Since the government’s 2018 “document “Our waste, our resources: a strategy for England” there has been a promise of national waste collection consistency across the UK there are 100s of different approaches, even across North Yorkshire all the previous district councils had slightly different approaches. Like many other improvements to the UK’s waste handling the drive for consistency has advanced little since 2018. However, the government has statee it wants to make it easier for people partly driven by the publicity around the invented 6 bin approach. North Yorkshire Council is trying to standardise as much as possible the approach to waste across the different areas, however this is dependent on existing contracts and the need to contain costs, so no point supplying new bins to everybody just to standardise. The Hambleton area is going out for short term contracts to bring its contract dates into line with other NYC councils as soon as possible, however, it is likely be 4 years before all NYC identical service.

WRAP are currently doing a study for NYC on best approach for waste handling across North Yorkshire, this will be used to help design any new approaches.

Locally, glass is manual handling issue currently, as the operators have to pick up the blue boxes which when loaded with glass can cause injury over time.

Wendy

Sadly, the CASaV Christmas tree did not win the Stokesley Parish Church Christmas Tree competition, but an article in the Darlington and Stockton Times described the Excelby alternative tree contest – with Christmas tress made from lego / ladders / pallets. Could this be some ideas for next year?

James Owen Thomas who held an exhibition at the Station in Richmond, where he had turned waste tickets into picture, he is a professional upcycler or at least as he describes it he makes environmental art from recycled materials.

Cows milk in glass bottles – dairy recently stated it had saved 22 million plastic containers from entering oceans or landfills. A BBC article from 2018 “Glass milk bottle make a comeback“, quoted WRAP as saying a glass bottle needs to make 20 trips to have a lower carbon footprint, however as we now realise even if the bottle doesn’t make 20 trips it has still stopped lots of plastic ending up in landfills. being burnt or in our oceans.

Now is the season for making marmalade which uses all of an orange with even the pips providing pectin with the marmalade of course being put into reused jam jars. Save your jars for reuse. The World marmalade championships to being in Cumbria not sure whether they have an eco category or not though.

Rag rugs are a fantastic way to stop textiles going to waste, currently using a coffee sack from Rountons and some very bare blankets to make a gorgeous rug. If you have never made a rag rug then lots of people are ready to give you advice and there are lots of websites such as Bags of Love which have instructions.

Kate

Citizens Advice has teamed up with the Energy Saving Trust to promote National Energy Saving Week – 16th – 21st January. National Energy Saving Week will be highlighted at the Swainby Repair Cafe on 20th January, plus as we have lots of fabric we could make more draught excluders.

Should we be running more workshops in 2024, little ones around mending / upcycling / reuse – perhaps at our Repair Cafes or themed ones around Easter crafts? Please let us know your ideas or what you could help with.

Don’t forget to save jars / bottles for jams and juices. Amazing how much apple juice we got using the CASaV apple press, just didn’t have enough bottles.

Jim

NAOFF – Nothallerton Over Fifties Forum meets on 1st Thursday every month basically a coffee morning with speaker / demonstrator on a topic of interest, recently had speakers on seated fitness and the Hambleton Strollers.

In March the theme is going to be social participation so may be a good opportunity to highlight repair cafes with the Northallerton Group who are hoping to start one in Northallerton.

Jenny

Need to get rid of your Christmas tree in the most sustainable manner, well find some alpacas. It turns out that Alpacs can eat a whole Christmas tree – Alpacas dine out on donated Christmas tree feast. In fact best thing is probably to either take your tree to your local NYC household waste recycling centre or put it out for the special tree collection green bin collection, make sure you cut it up so your bin can close. Don’t burn it on your fire, unless you leave it for 2 or 3 years first, young fir trees are full of resins, when burnt the resin from fresh wood is carried up into and deposited on your chimney, where it is likely to be the cause of a chimney fire.

In December, we were cutting back a Cornus bush which had lovely red stems, so we used these to make a spectacular Christmas tree.

nitelight are powering ahead with making emergency blankets, so want load of crisp packets which haven’t been ripped. There is are collection points in the Globe in Stokesley and in the Discovery Centre in Great Ayton. If you don’t have crisp packets then nitelight have a great pay it forward donation scheme where you can donate for meals, snacks, coffees, etc. for people in need.

A company called Re_skinned has brand partnerships with a number of clothes stores to take back clothing supplied by them – “Reskinned makes it easy for brands and their customers to participate in a fully circular clothing economy.” Finnisterre / Seasalt / Sweaty Betty / Hush / Kickers / River Island / and many others. Re_skinned takes clothing from brand partners, giving you discount vouchers for the partner, reselling all items possible, with items that aren’t fit for resale then either being upcycled or fully recycled with nothing going to waste.

Clothing brands also offer other way to make their products last longer, for example Finnisterre has a lived and loved page which also offers repairs.

RemillFibre work to turn used textiles into new fibres which are used to make new textiles. These are used by many eco-organisation to make their t-shirts among other things.

National Institutes of Health and Care Research (NIHR) has a newsletter for reduced waste / saving money within health settings – all their articles around improving health sector practise is here.

NYC recycling goes to North Wales – UPM collect material from transfer station – sell cans and glass and plastic, but card and paper is used at the same location – keeps everything within UK and if not in EU. The recycling contract is up for renewal at the end of March. Our refuse vehicles go to Thirsk or Scorton transfer stations – bulked up and then shipped to North Wales.

Anne

The Bellringer’s won the Christmas Tree competition with their bells and bats tree.

If Refill wasn’t a good enough scheme already by reducing the number of plastic bottles that end up in our oceans, it turns out nano plastics are also in bottled water – Researchers find a massive number of nano-plastic particles in bottle water.

Fred

I have been told that the greenest Christmas trees are raised in pots, how do I do this? The Tree Council has superb booklet on how to grow trees – https://treecouncil.org.uk/guidance-resources/tree-growers-guide/ – they are really keen on people setting up local community tree nurseries, as the most appropriate tree to plant is one from a local seed, as it will be best suited to the location. Perhaps GEG should set up a tree nursery.

GEG – Guisborough Eco Group is looking into becoming an unregistered community group and the need to change the name to be more inclusive for a larger geographic area.

Reuse of glass is far better than recycling, so great the 40 Westgate Guisborough is acting as a place for people to give and take jars / bottles, hopefully ensuring lots more reuse.

While milk can be more expensive in milk bottles, the farmer is paid more more and no plastic goes to waste. If you have a local milk vending machines then this is a great way to go, with you seeing your own bottle being reused all the time.

Simon

Community First North Yorkshire is an organisation that helps voluntary, community and social enterprise group to flourish. They have set up a “Reuse Network” where they will discussing the advantages and disadvantages of running repair cafes. I will let you know what is discussed.

Actions from previous meetings

• Simon to contact Tracey Flint to ask what NYC thinks is best to do with compostable bags.
  You probably don’t want to put them in your own compost bin, since they likely won’t decompose well. At-home composting systems, including tumblers, in-ground composters, and worm towers, typically don’t generate enough heat to fully break the bags down. So they will be there for a long long time.
  Shouldn’t go in green bin as no way for operatives to tell if compostable or not, so danger bin will be left at kerbside, or contents will be burnt.
  So put them in black bins.
  Sadly, dog walkers leave dog waste in compostable bags on trees etc. thinking they will degrade and disappear, so people leave more dog poo bags lying around. North York Moors would prefer if people are not going to properly dispose of dog poo that the poo was kicked off any paths into the undergrowth, but not just onto verges where children may play and other walk.
• Annette contact her GP to see whether they would consider accepting blister packs for recycling.
• Simon contact Northallerton Climate Action / North Yorkshire Climate Coalition to lobby Tesco’s Northallerton / across North Yorkshire to put in blister pack recycling.
• Simon find out where Bryony Hamel’s petition on getting pharma companies to pay for recycling blister packs got.
  Awaiting response.

Matter Arising

Stall

The December stall resulted in CASaV talking to lots of people and so it may be appropriate to run more in future.

Wendy is running a small seed stall on 1st March at the Farmers Market, probably more appropriate rather than expanding this to hire a stall at a Friday market in the spring.

Repair Cafes

9th Dec Stokesley – repair cafe was very busy with over 80 repairs.

The first of 2024 is on 20th January in Swainby which will also highlight energy saving as part of energy saving week and the second is on 10th February in the Globe.

Upcoming Events

Bridget Holmstrom has arranged with the Peat Restoration Trust a visit to the restored peak areas on Blakey Ridge – 16th January 11am please contact Bridget Holmstrom if you would like to come along. Will be muddy, the plan it visit to 1 bog then have some packed lunch and visit a second.

CASaV‘s next meeting is on Tuesday 16th January 7.30pm in the Globe, all welcome.

If you would like to visit Allerton Waste Recovery Park on 31st January 2pm please let Bridget Holmstrom know.

Meetings

AOB

Marine Environment

The Joint Councils Crustacean Working Party has put out a draft interim report (12th January agenda plus report). The fishers are seeing very strange things at sea, no shellfish, large numbers of seals attacking fishing nets – both signs that the marine environment is heavily depleted.

On 16th January in the Arc the Stockton Cafe Scientifique will be Henry James talking about Revitalising our estuaries: Tales from the River Tees and will describe the ongoing work to bring oysters and seagrass back to the Tees.

Incinerators

Landfills have a bad name for obvious reasons, but are incinerators (energy from waste plants) really better. Well run landfills may in fact be better for the environment.

We are currently seeing a growth in the number of incinerators being built as the UK is creating more and more waste. On Teesside alone currently 5 plants are in different stages of planning permission. There is considerable local opposition as waste will be shipped to Teesside from all across the UK, and this will continue for decades as all the plants are financially viable based on long term contracts with councils to supply waste.

Incinerators have always been seen as a clean way of getting rid of waste and often had energy recovery installed mainly for local heating or industrial heating, nowadays the heat is used to generate energy, so incinerators have been rebranded as energy from waste plants.

Landfills are seen as dirty and smelly, some of this is unavoidable, but a well run landfill can be a good neighbour with gases generated in the waste captured and used to generate energy. The landfill is monitored to ensure that surface water is not contaminated and capped at the end of use to often provide amenity space close to centres of population.

While the area around an incinerator can be clean, the reality is that all the carbon dioxide and more embedded in the waste is being released into the atmosphere along with particulates and toxic chemicals. Uses also have to be found for the residual ash, some is used for construction and some has to be landfilled.

If you want to learn more then the UK without Incinerators group has lots of useful information - https://ukwin.org.uk/

Perversely, the presence of landfill is a big incentive for waste reduction, whereas an incinerator which has to have waste in order to generate energy could be an incentive to increase waste and certainly reduce the pressure for waste reduction.

Window Sill Food

Eden Greens Urban Foods make microgrow kits giving you everything you need to ensure you get nutrious sprouted food, alternatively for a more DIY approach CASaV’s food leaflet links to Kew Garden’s “Best vegtables to grow on your windowsill” article.