July’s Waste Thoughts – 2024

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

  • Waste:
  • Clothes:
    • Denim without the chemical waste through a new approach
  • Recycle / Reuse / Circularity:
    • Let’s Talk Rubbish survey is asking for our views on changes to recycling and how to improve recycling
    • Sadly in some areas recycling rates are decreasing rather than increasing
    • Planning to hold a number of repurposing workshops to get people involved in sustainable craft
    • Planning to highlight water, energy, repair and recycling on our Bilsdale Show stall – come along to help
  • Solar:
    • Stop wasting the sun and install solar panels
    • Transparent solar panels allow energy to be generated even on polytunnels growing tomatoes
    • Solar panels installed on farm land shouldn’t be the first choice but compared to other land used they don’t threaten world food supply
    • Even in NYMNP it is possible to improve your farm house energy efficiency, just need to convince the planners
  • Food:
    • There is relief in sight for the little plastic labels you find when digging in your food compost, as hopefully plastic labels on fruit are on the way out to be replaced with laser marking instead
  • Repair Cafes:
  • CASaV Wide
    • Will our MP champion our green concerns with the new government?
    • Nature Weekend in East Rounton Village Hall was a great to see nature through a wide range of crafts
    • Make sure you tell people how much you love your green tech was highlighted as a powerful personal action at Carbon Breif webinar on making sure the UK achieves its climate priorities

Actions:

  • All complete NYC’s “Let’s Talk Rubbish” survey to shape future recycling schemes.
  • All please contact Kate if you would like to help run different repurposing workshops.
  • Simon contact SAS – John Reave – to see if Surfers Against Sewage would be interested in coming to the Bilsdale Show.
  • Simon contact North Yorkshire Rotters / Open North Yorkshire / Adult Learning
  • All – please let Simon know if you able to volunteer to spend some time helping on our Bilsdale Show stall.

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 July 2024 CASaV Waste Group

Updates

Tracey

Moving to a new job in North Yorkshire Council as Waste Service Improvement Officer, focus will be consolidating services previously delivered by the local councils across North Yorkshire to a single model across the whole of North Yorkshire and providing the best possible service to homes across North Yorkshire.

“Let’s Talk Rubbish” the latest NYC survey is seeking residents views on how to make the recycling collection across North Yorkshire consistent and improve overall recycling rates. The suggested way forward is to give everybody 2 recycling wheelie bins, one for paper & cardboard and one for all the rest (glass, plastics, etc.), there will be fortnightly recycling collections of alternate bins (each collected once a month). The previous government favoured simple as possible i.e. single bin for all recycling which was in contrast to the 2018 England Waste strategy which championed more segregation. One bin leads to greater contamination which technology isn’t able to overcome, so need to keep paper and card out as increases value of recycling.

The survey was launched yesterday with the highest number of any of the Let’s Talk surveys so far. Limited change for Hambleton, just replace glass box with big bin.

However, wheelie bins take up lots of space, in villages like Osmotherley, towns like Stokesley, Harrogate, please don’t have the space to have even more wheelie bins. Why not a blue bag or smaller containers (do we really need 2 big wheelie bins) or shared containers instead.

Bags – difficult to manage tend to blow around the street. How about weighted bags.

Smaller containers – collections only month – 4 week rota – “residual – paper – residual – glass” – so they may be fuller than you expect.

Shared bins – practically in UK we have huge problems with communal bins – increased contamination – vandalism, but can’t find the person to educate who caused the issues. Couldn’t they encourage neighbourliness?

Most people will be required to have 3 bins plus green waste.

Should you compact contents of your bin – not great as it can make it hard to empty the bins and make it difficult to separate in material recovery facility (MRF). Practically using hands to squash down ok, but standing would be too much.

Flattening plastic bottles is good, but don’t flatten cans as will slip into wrong place.

Carbon footprint of vehicles is considered as part of choice of scheme, there is little difference, no more vehicles and no more vehicle movements.

Let’s Talk Rubbish is now open for a 10 week consultation both via the survey and there will also be opportunities to discuss at events – probably a stall on Stokesley Friday market.

Action: All complete NYC’s “Let’s Talk Rubbish” survey to shape future recycling schemes.

Pete

It is eye opening having just installed 40m2 of solar panels we are now generating 34kWh per day, May to October. Makes you think about the waste of sun and wind where these aren’t installed. Everybody and every business should have solar panels and where possible wind turbines.

Wind turbines on land are now back in the renewable energy mix, being the cheapest form of renewable energy.

Rob

Just moved from Bilsdale (but will be helping at the Bilsdale show), managed to take my 300 year old farm house with solid walls from EPC rating of F to C, despite North Yorks Moors National Park Planning Authority making things difficult. It took 20 years to get double glazing, no solar panels allowed, but installed ground source heat pump with underfloor heating.

Moved to outskirts of Stockton on Tees – not quite the same as farm. Stockton District Council have weekly general waste collection (bin normally only 1/8th full) with fortnightly collection of recycling – separate glass and a segregated container for paper & card/plastics. Recycling container is a bag – which blows down the street on windy days – not great. However, often all consolidated in vehicle, card and paper always mixed with plastics. Green waste with recycling fortnightly. No food waste provision currently. Sadly the result is that often the streets are a mess after the waste has been collected.

Sticky labels on hard plastic food packaging do these have to go into residual waste. NYC would be happy with these going in with the plastic waste.

Jackie

Amazing levels of rain with an incredible thunderstorm above Over Silton at the moment really makes you think about climate change.

My artworks using natural dyes / colours were at the Roots Nature Exhibition. Over lockdown I experimented making dyes and paints from different vegtable matter and household waste, including tea bags. I now uses these to create special artworks. I also make clippy mats from scrap fabrics.

Wendy

Blue denim – actual indigo needs lots of chemicals, but indican is colourless but when combined with an enzyme and exposed to light it converts to blue. This may make blue denim green – Nature Communications.

Knit and knatter group – spare wool to knit squares for the homeless – Recreate – 30% wool, 30% acrylic, 30% polyester.

Clippy mat has been made from leftover scraps for granddaughter and the remaining fabric scraps are planned for draught excluders in the autumn.

BBC Radio 4’s Farming Today(04:54) show visited a soft fruit farm in Kent which was part of a trial to generate electricity by Polysolar‘s draping lightweight, flexible solar panels over some polytunnels.  Hear more from Theo Whyte from the BBC, our CEO and founder Hamish Watson, Marion Regan of Hugh Lowe farms and Dr Elanor Thompson from the University of Greenwich.

We revisited the gate in Wensleydale which has hinges made from old shoe soles, still working well.

David

New Scientist – 3d printing of reconsituted wood – paste which is 3D printed to make wooden furniture perhaps even buildings in future. Perhaps we could use the 3D printers at Labman or the Globe.

New Scientist – using solar panels on top of agriculture/horticulture – lots of land that could be used to grow food, estimates that currently the land taken would be capable of feeding 4.3million. While solar may take up farmland, the world’s population is 8billion, 4.3million is only 0.054% of global population, so certainly is currently not having a big effect on food production. Golf courses have a far bigger impact, and compared to a golf course solar is far more temporary. Sheep do better on pasture with solar, however of course the best way to produce more food is to stop eating meet. If the population of Edinburgh went vegan, then farm land would be freed up equivalent to the area of the Lake District.

Jenny

M&S has partnered with SOJO to launch a clothing repair scheme.

The Japanese plan to build a 310mile conveyor belt from Tokyo to Osaka it will be in a tunnel under the highway, it will take over 25,000 trucks of the highway per day. It will contribute to big reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.

In South Korea solar panels have been placed over the cycleway in the centre of 20miles highways – Solar Bike Highway.

Fred

More holly trees for Pete.

Will the Richmond and Northallerton MP change his mind now he is not at the centre of government? Will he channel our pressure to the new government to make sure that we get the green results we need. Sadly Mr Sunak did not attend any of the green hustings / meetings over the election period, so we don’t know his current views.

What does Middlesbrough and South East Cleveland’s new MP, Luke Myer, think about green things? Luke attended hustings in MSEC, including meeting Fergal Sharkey and Surfers Against Sewage, so is certainly keen to clean our water.

Redcar and Cleveland’s recycling rate is currently only 30.2%, the latest drop could be due to people opting out of green waste after charging was recently introduced – down from 36%, but this is drop from 45% in 2019 – TeessideLive.

When Hambleton introduced charging license numbers went down, but volume stayed roughly the same with people trying to get value for money, later people rejoined and quality went up.

Bridget

Roots’ Nature Weekend was superb a fantastic fusion between all sorts of craft and nature, really made one appreciate how precious the natural world around us is.

There was also a hedgehog expert and we have asked her to talk to us in October

We need to be telling other people how fantastic our green tech is. This was one of the things brought up during Carbon Brief Webinar: What are the key climate priorities for the new UK government?. The main focus was on what the government needs to do, but we can be a big part of helping change people’s views.

Kate

Tesco’s are introducing laser branding/bar coding of avocados as it removes the need for little plastic labels which don’t compost, whereas a slight burning of the surface of the avocado is totally biodegradable. Other supermarkets are looking at using it for other fruits.

The Happy Hookers’ winter crochet display at Roots Nature Weekend was all based on scrap / spare / reused wool, with backing from old sacks / curtains / even Globe props.

Simply Repair South Lakes is an inspiring collective of 6 different villages running multiple repair cafes and also running workshops around repurposing – moving up the waste triangle. Last year CASaV ran Christmas decorations workshops and we have run a number of draught excluder workshops. It would be great to build up separate workshops, perhaps evenings/ afternoon repurposing workshops – clippy rugs: Wendy, natural dyes: Jackie, transformation clothing challenge: Lorna / Joanna, …..

Action: All please contact Kate if you would like to help run different repurposing workshops.

We could also learn from the Tadcrafters, a group in Tadcaster, who do a range of different activities such as making scraps/spare fabric into resources for hospices / hospitals, there are a a range of patterns available on line for different items.

Locally Blue Light Babies was started by paramedics to create items to wrap stillborn babies when they are called out, they have moved on to creating things such as knitted hats for premature babies coloured coded to denote the level of care the baby requires.

Matter Arising

Bilsdale Show 31st August

Still time to volunteer for a shift on our stall sometimes between 8am and 6pm, helping set up, looking after the stall, helping with recycling and helping tidy up.

Jo Yates, part of the organising committee, is keen on CASaV being present, they are finalising arrangements and organising of stalls.

Jo has arranged for NYC to supply slightly more recycling bins, in the past we have had some useful discussions with people at the recycling bins. Should we plan to decorate the bins with information about CASaV?

This year we are also wondering about doing “Mend in public” as part of our highlighting of the Repair Cafe work.

One area we could engage people on is water. Surfers Against Sewage, Save Our Swale and Stop Ure Pollution have all been very successful at having useful engagements with a wide range of people.
Action: Simon contact SAS – John Reave – to see if Surfers Against Sewage would be interested in coming to the Bilsdale Show.

Connections with North Yorkshire Council and North York Moors National Park – North Yorkshire, Rotters, Open North Yorkshire, Adult Learning, decarbonisation.
Action: Simon contact North Yorskhire Rotters / Open North Yorkshire / Adult Learning

Another area would be energy – wind turbines / solar – highlight our own successful renewable technologies, plus engage people on the wider issues, build on government’s new approach to renewable. Could we also look at encouraging community energy?

The show are encouraging use of Moorsbus and car sharing.

Repair Cafes: 8th June Stokesley & 20th July Swainby

3rd-4th August Osmotherley Show
ECO Stall

Actions from Last Meeting

Jackie send rubbish talk notes to Simon Thanks

Simon put rubbish talks up on site – 240603ECO – Rubbish Talk.

Simon incorporate repair cafe dashboard data on the web page – Stokesley and Villages Repair Cafe.

Anne – send Refill stickers to Fred

All – please let Simon know if you able to volunteer to spend some time helping on our Bilsdale Show stall.

Meetings

4th International Repair Café Conference – 12 July 2024 03:00 PM London

During this two-hour online event, you will hear more about the Repair Café movement in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. We will also focus on data collection at Repair Cafés: why is this important, and how are the data being used? Speakers from several countries will share their views.

Martine Postma of Repair Café International will, among other things, update participants on Repair Café’s 15th anniversary in October. She will also show a selection of the anniversary bunting flags that Repair Cafés from around the world have already sent to Amsterdam.

Martin Charter will talk about Repair Café research at the Centre for Sustainable Design.

More details – Repair Cafe International

CASaV AGM – 16th July

Our next whole group meeting is our Annual General Meeting (and shared light supper) on Tuesday 16th July, at the beautiful outdoor (indoor if inclement weather) location of Howard Court, East Angrove, Stokesley Road, Great Ayton TS9 6RL 7:30 – 9:00 pm – post.

Next Waste Group Zoom Meeting – 13th August