November’s Waste Thoughts – 2022

Full notes below, quick summary:

  • Livestock emissions equivalent to transport emissions – neither are fully addressed at CoPs
  • Stokesley Toy Bank – get any toys to Stokesley Town Hall – Friday 18th
  • Lots of local activities planned to capture carbon – from Net Zero Teesside to sea grass planting in the Tees
  • Fixing Shops – Climate Emergency Centres
  • Climate Action Middlesbrough
  • Letter writing to get our politicians to do the right climate things

Actions:

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 upcoming 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, Simon

Notes form 9th November 2022 CASaV Waste Group Meeting

Agenda
Apologies – Wendy, David
Updates
Matters arising
Recent online / physical meetings
AOB

Updates

Joy
CoP27 underway and George Monbiot’s article equating livestock GHG emissions as being equivalent to those from fossil fuels used in transport.  Livestock isn’t being discussed at CoP27, this is crazy as the contribution to GHG is large and the occupancy of land has an even bigger effect as the land can not then sequester carbon.  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/09/leaders-cop27-livestock-farming-carbon-budget-governments
There is a huge divide with farmers, not just with Monbiot, but just mentioning agroforestry and regenerative agriculture would alienate you from many farmers.
So how do we achieve a farming transition with climate justice,  There are costs in transition, farmers have huge investments in equipment and will need to learn new skils.
Action: Simon encourage a farming discussion group based on the follow-up from the CASaV farming meeting and the Climate Action Northallerton’s the Ants and the Grasshopper film showing.

Kate
Stokesley Toy Bank – Town Hall drop off from 10th December, unwanted toys good enough to pass on, donations towards Zoe’s place – https://www.stokesleytowncouncil.gov.uk/latest-news/stokesley-toy-bank-2022
12th November – Global Day of Action for Climate Justice nearest is in Newcastle – 11.45am at Grey’s Monument – to encourage our leaders at CoP27.

Chloe
Mapping local carbon sequestration mainly industrial activities, but also interested in tree planting.  We are aware of a number of tree planting recently: Tees River Trust,  Angrove Park outside Great Ayton – Caroline Kitching, Tanton Bridge outside Stokesley – Barbara Agar

Action: Simon Check with Caryn / Bridget about CASaV recent involvement in tree planting

Action: All let Chloe know about any tree planting

Been working on Net Zero Teesside assets – map of all projects, BEIS project also in the wider area – Humber hydrogen cluster, Newcastle wood fired power station will be decarbonised.

A number of lithium related developments are happening locally with lithium refineries and battery recycling.
A large solar farm is planned stretching from Stockton into County Durham plus battery backup.
Green hydrogen plant.

The attached document gives an idea of the amount of project planned – AAA site description for Stokesley Climate Action Group.pdf.

There are a huge amount of plans in place for net zero related projects on Teesside, some of this is carbon capture from existing plants which will feed CO2 into a Teesside wide grid of CO2 pipe that will go south to join CO2 coming from the Humber to then be feed into the Endurance field offshore.  Attached is Chloe’s list of what’s happening on Teesside, if you want to know more what is happening now / soon then a good place to start is the Net Zero Teesside website (https://www.netzeroteesside.co.uk/) which also link to the East Coast Cluster based on the Humber and the Northern Endurance Partnership which is providing the carbon storage.

If you want to understand carbon capture storage and utilisation then https://www.greenfacts.org/en/co2-capture-storage/has both accessible summaries of the technologies, details and links to further sources of information.

Fred
The Guisborough Eco Group has had a number of meetings with         guisboroughecogroup.co.uk
 GEG hopes it is pushing at an open door with a set of residents keen to plant trees on some land at the end of a cul-de-sac, this aligns with RCBC Net Zero Strategy – tree planting, just need to find out who owns the land – may be possible to use the map on the Land Registry site https://www.gov.uk/search-property-information-land-registry

Please do let any of your friends in Guisborough know about GEG and any suggestions for how to attract more members are keenly received.

Anne
The Refill scheme’s local uptake is progressing slowly, partly as it is slow to get people onto the map – chasing up Refill over back end problems.
Turns out that it is a legal obligation for anywhere that sell alcohol to provide free water, but then charge for the glass or service if they want to – https://www.hospitalitylaw.co.uk/free-tap-water-pubs-restaurants/
Repair Cafe volunteered to act as Treasurer (thanks 🙂 ).

Jenny
Just having external cladding installed by WallTransform in Stokesley, they are keen to give talks, very knowledgeable, in fact he invented Rubbercrete.
Food share going well, 

Go past Tesco’s when taking food into Middlesbrough, so just wondering about Tesco are they using Olio?

Action: Simon check up on Olio and Tesco

It looks like Tesco Coulby Newham are using Olio but all the collection slots are permanently taken – https://olioex.com/food-waste-in/united-kingdom/middlesbrough/1523359-coulby-newham-do-good-and-save-food-from-going-to-waste-/

Wendy
1) What Planet Are You On plastic free refill shop in Guisborough has a tub for recycling Pringle tubes – https://www.facebook.com/WhatPlanetAreYouOn/
2) Interesting article in New Scientist…a rechargeable battery made from zinc and crab shells can be recycled or biodegrade.  The chitosan from the shells stops the zinc corroding – https://www.newscientist.com/article/2336296-battery-made-of-crab-shell-and-zinc-is-rechargeable-and-biodegradable/
3) Guardian today has a full page on Fixing factories etc.  Especially concerned with electronic waste.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/08/the-trend-to-mend-how-repair-shops-are-leading-a-fixing-revolution

Any opportunities for something similar locally.

Also in other parts of the country councils have been persuaded to provide free premises for groups such as ours to set up Climate Emergency Centres.  Not only do these have support for things like retrofitting, but also often zero plastic shops, low carbon cafes, fixing shops, basically anything the group wants to get going.  Could we get North Yorkshire Council to help to provide such spaces?

Simon
Climate Action Middlesborough which is a grouping of 3rd sector and council groups largely lottery funded have a monthly Green Forum.  I was invited to the November Green Forum to tell them about CASaV, our waste activities and the Repair Cafe.  In a weak moment I volunteered to sponsor the Middlesbrough Repair Cafe’s first year of Repair Cafe International membership, so hopefully something will come of this.  I attach the presentation I gave – 221109Simon Gibbon – CASaV and SaVRC Presentation – Compressed.pdf.  Next month they have a presentation from Food Cycle “We are FoodCycle, and our vision is to make food poverty, loneliness and food waste a thing of the past for every community.”

I am attending the 2nd Yorkshire Post Climate Change conference in Leeds next week which will look at implementation of the Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission.

Actions from last meeting
Joanna – co-ordinate further visit to Allerton Waste Recovery Park.

Simon to connect when Joanna has returned.
Lorna – look at pulling together list of reuse / repair organisations locally to form the basis for a newsletter item.
Simon – contact Tracey Flint and/or Jos Holmes to find out when local domestic food waste collection will happen.
Response from Tracey Flint: “Ah the million dollar question!  I was at a conference last week where we were hoping for an announcement from DEFRA on the Consistent Collection consultations, what we got was a promise that we’d hear by the end of the year.  It’s very disappointing because although the latest date we have been told is 2024/25 for separate collections we have to take into consideration the time it will take to get contracts, vehicles, anaerobic digestion plants etc in place. https://www.mrw.co.uk/news/defra-to-set-out-drs-and-consistent-collections-response-before-end-of-year-07-10-2022/
Fred – look for or write suitable template letter that we could individually send to businesses or use to engage our local councils in promoting best practices around energy saving.

Matters Arising
2nd Stokesley Repair Cafe went well with over 30 items presented, requiring kettle springs to be fixed, and zips to sewn.  The session started quiet, but then got busy.
19th November Swainby Repair Cafe – Swainby Repair Cafe – all welcome get your friends to volunteer as repairers or just bring things to be repaired, already this year we have stopped over 150 items from going straight to waste.
The North Yorkshire Climate Coalition has found its feet with lobbying our local MPs and focusing on shaping the new North Yorkshire Council.  David Tonge will make a 3 minute statement on behalf of the Coalition on 16th November full council meeting encouraging them to accelerate action on carbon reduction and requesting that all councillors undergo the carbon literacy programme, basically a day of training.

AOB
The current government doesn’t seem to really get it over climate change now our MP is the Prime Minister, there is even more need for us to get the message across to him, letters to Rishi Sunak.  We would probably have more success if we all address a specific issue, for example objection to onshore wind farms.
Action: Kate template letter to send to Rishi Sunak
10 minute letter writing session at start of CASaV meetings

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