November’s Waste Thoughts – 2024

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

Actions:

  • Tracey – discover North Yorkshire Council involvement in Skipton / Craven PFC and NYC’s ability to be involved in any new ones.
  • Tracey discuss with NYC’s commercial waste director how to make Give and/or Take events possible across the whole of North Yorkshire.
  • All suggestions for what to offer on our Christmas Stall.
  • Simon approach wood workers for any source of offcuts.

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 12th November 2024 CASaV Waste Group

Plastic Free Communities – Edith Reeve

Plastic Free Communities provides the tools to reduce community plastic use, so less plastic waste, less being burnt, ending up in nature whether on land or sea.

Edith, having noticed a lack of local Plastic Free Communities, is starting one in Guisbrough, we asked her to tell us about it with a view to setting up some locally.

Plastic Free Communities (PFC) is an initiative of Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), it started in 2017, there are only a few in the North East. There was one in Redcar and Cleveland, but it no longer exists. So by starting one in Guisbrough Edith hopes that people previously involved will be keen to get involved again. Redcar and Cleveland is really multiple communities, so Edith only setting up one in Guisbrough, but there is also interest for independent plastic free communities in Redcar, Saltburn and Marske.

SAS has a proven way to run a PFC, one of the first steps is to reach out to an appropriate local council as they need to be represented on the PFC steering group as a member. Not only does the council need to be wiling to provide limited support but it needs to lead by example with the PFC holding it to account (information for councils).

The next step is to reach out to local businesses, they are provided with a business dashboard allowing them to monitor their progress and the business gets plastic free champion accreditation. The first level of accreditation only requires the business to remove 2 plastic items, for example stops using plastic bags and replace plastic spoons for ice cream with wooden one.

The PFC needs to have an active social media presence that is used to promote all the activities on the road to plastic free, so this will promote the businesses plastic reductions, how the council is reducing plastic use, give advice for individual. All this opens up conversations between businesses, the council, customers, citizens about plastic reduction – which often result in more plastic reduction.

Then reach out to potential community allies for example churches, Brownies/Scouts, schools and have a presence at community events. Some easy tie ins are with groups such as repair cafes, litter picking groups, keep tidy communities, etc..

Then the PFC will get accredited as a Plastic Free Community

Steering group meets every 3 months, consisting of the PFC leads, council representative(s), business members and public members. The active members communicate on a WhatsApp group so that everybody sees what is going on.

Edith has one volunteer who works with schools on environmental things, so PFC will add to this easily and the local litter picking group is keen to be involved.

SAS provide all the support you need to get started, a dashboard – which walks you to getting accredited status, publicity materials – t-shirts / leaflets.

The Plastic Free website details the path to get started as community / businesses / people.

CASaV covers many local council areas, but only one county council, so it may be appropriate to register several local areas – but want to work with the most engaged level of local government whether town/village/parish or county. Several existing CASaV members are town / parish councillors, may be interested to be involved, also NYC could be involved.

Action: Tracey – discover North Yorkshire Council involvement in Skipton / Craven PFC and NYC’s ability to be involved in any new ones.

There is some similarity to Fairtrade towns – where there are different levels bronze / silver / gold, and for councils the Local Government Association runs the sustainability improvement programme.

Children’s plastic consumption is considerable, alternatives are part of PFCs. Plastic Free Guisborough plans to have links on how to reduce plastic – sharing / regifting / etc.. Also normalising not doing party bags, go to toddler groups. Ecologico based in Yarm has a camper van – hire party things rather than throwing away – party activities. Could we invite the van to a Repair Cafe?

Do we need to become the Grinch? Get rid of Christmas crackers / stocking rubbish, actually a call for real Christmas.

CASaV’s Leaflet “Enjoy the festive season and protect the climate” has suggestions for pressies, food, decorations and relaxation which all have a low impact on the climate and nature. Please let us know your ideas, email us or come along to the CASaV Sustainable Christmas Stall on Stokesley Market on 6th December.

If you join Sustainableish with Jen Gale then you will get access to her Crap free Christmas Course.

Community First Yorkshire

Su Morgan, a member of the Community First Yorkshire team, joined us and told us about CFY.

Su is a development officer at CFY supporting voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations, as well as running the North Yorkshire Reuse Network which has a Facebook presence and meets 4 times a year – next meeting is 29th January “measuring impact” – impact helps to get grants and get new volunteers.

CFY is funded by NYC to support voluntary sector organisations, help set up as CIC / charity, help to find volunteers, allow people to register as / for volunteers, has a network group for community buildings, provides training, social media help, writing funding bids.

CFY’s website has details of all the help / resources that CFY offers, a funding portal – look for funding, guidance / experience, network groups to learn from eachother.

And all of what CFY does is free to the different groups.

Across North Yorkshire there are very different models for example Selby has social enterprise funded activities such UP for Yorkshire and Our Zero, locally to CASaV there is not so many social grant funded enterprises.

Su is also the Founder and a Director of Tadcrafters which is community interest company which practices craftivism locally in Tadcaster – “crafting things, while sitting quietly and having meaningful conversations” as a complement to the more activist way of changing things. You can find out more about Tadcrafters here.

North Yorkshire Council

Give and/or Take Events are a really good way of stopping things going straight to waste and are very popular in what was the Ryedale District Council area.

Basically, you give things you don’t want and take away things you do want – so like jumble sales but no charge to enter and very free form. Practically, people are asked to preferably give things the day before, the things are sorted and then people arrive the following day to take, but they can also give more things. The obvious catch is that there may be things that nobody has taken at the end, while much of this can be sorted and given to charity shops, it is not possible to do that with everything, so waste has to be taken away, and this is now classified as commercial as it is now the responsibility of the organisation that organised the Give and/or Take event. In Ryedale as both domestic and commercial waste are collected by the same company on behalf of now North Yorkshire Council, they are happy to collect anything left over at no charge, as otherwise they would be collecting it as domestic waste. In Hambleton, the domestic and commercial waste is collected by different companies, so payment would have been required to collect the waste. Now we are only have one North Yorkshire Council, it seems unfair that CASaV would have to pay for waste collection in Stokesley, when there would no payment needed in Helmsley.

Action Tracey discuss with NYC’s commercial waste director how to make Give and/or Take events possible across the whole of North Yorkshire.

Heard a fantastic talk on textiles, at the LARAC Local Government Recycling Officer Conference in Birmingham, by Su Morgan (with her Tadcrafters hat on). Su’s talk goes all the way from why we need clothes, through how business has made us addicted to us to fast fashion to the company that is trying to cure our addiction to fast fashion. The slides of the eariler talk she gave to the North Yorkshire Community Reuse Network are here.

Great visit to Manchester’s Suez Trafford Park shows real effort when collecting waste to repair/reuse as much as possible WEE / Bikes / Furniture / Big Toys – sorted / sold / given to charities. All part of the contract from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. There is even a Renew Hub, sorting through things and then offering them on eBay.

Reuse UK Workshop

NYC has a good web page of suggestion for reuse and reduction of waste – here, and YorWaste have reuse containers at NYC’s Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs). For examples bikes working with a partner who fixes / sells / donates to charities. Again this year NYC with Yorwaste is running the Reuse Santa Appeal where you can bring toys / books from 18th to 30th November HWRCs across North Yorkshire. Recently vape collection bins have been introduced at all HWRCs.

The Stokesley Christmas Toy Bank is back again this year – it provides toys FREE of CHARGE in time for Christmas for those who like them AND to give good toys a new life. Donations of no longer wanted toys can be deposited at the gazebo outside the Town Hall on Friday 22 November 11am – 4pm. The toys will be cleaned and sanitised, repaired (if needed) ready for display. The toys are displayed in the Town Hall in the Main Hall on Saturday 30 November, from 9am until 2pm a donation to Zoe’s Place is optional. Any left over toys will be offered to Zoe’s Place first and the rest will go to the Stokesley Charity Shops. This years event is supported by Stokesley Rotary Club and Labman.

The current government has confirmed that the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS – April 2024 Policy Paper) will finally be introduced in October 2027, where you will deposit your bottles and cans either in a Reverse vending machines or directly at shop counters.

Lets Talk Rubbish Survey has now closed, with the most responses submitted to any consultation of NYC’s Lets Talk – 10,475 responses. The survey was focused on waste / recycling collection options for the unified approach across NYC. The preferred option being the Selby approach where we will all get an extra recycling wheelie bin and stopping using our blue glass boxes. Ryedale will change in 2025 as vehicles there need replacing, other districts will follow as appropriate.

Tracey’s old job has been replaced by 2 waste minimisation officers across North Yorkshire, so one of them may attend these meetings in future.

Anne

The stall is booked for the Stokesley Market on Friday 6th December from 9am to 1pm. Everything from making Christmas stars out of old books to 2 buckets – 1 pick out an idea for waste reduction / another for your ideas. Have 20 draught excluders give away.

Action: All suggestions for what to offer on our Christmas Stall.

Pete

Attended the York and North Yorkshire retrofitting strategy review, there were 50 people helping the new combined authority to revisit the earlier North Yorkshire negative carbon strategy. Two inputs into this are the March 2024 review of the processes of retrofitting in Yorkshire and the North East and the York and North Yorkshire Routemap to Carbon Negative. This is also key to the delivery of the York and North Yorkshire Mayor’s vision where he has promised to “Provide warm and affordable homes – delivering affordable and social housing, increasing innovation and support retrofitting to reduce energy costs”, which he confirmed as recently as the 8th November.

It is disappointing that the low targets for carbon neutral living are not being met and that nothing is being done about the recognised gap of DIY solutions for low income people in cold houses – basically no cash and no ability to move out.

Little being done on Intermediate technologies for making their homes more comfortable / cheaper – no funding for low tech / DIY options, whereas much can be done for less than £30-40k the focus is on this level.

A significant amount can be achieved building on Kate’s draught excluders, moving onto polycarbonate secondary glazing, thermal underlay for carpets, seals on doors, insulating wallpaper and of course extra attic insulation.

I had hoped to learn more at the Harrogate Homebuilding / Retrofitting exhibition in Harrogate, sadly it was almost entirely high end – Grand Designs. However there the only things was single room mechanical ventilation / heat recovery systems, which while not cheap are an efficient way to make one room liveable.

The other approach is to heat the person rather than the space, MoneySavingExpert and Warm & Well have advice on it, but both stress the potential dangers of this approach well – damp, mould, etc..

While research on cheap ways to keep warm seems lacking, there is work going on from a medical viewpoint on “How can research support these under represented communities“, North Yorkshire Council is part of one of the 24 centres involved in the Health Determinants Research Collaboration.

Fuse, the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, brings together six Universities in the North East and North Cumbria (Durham, Cumbria, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside) in a unique collaboration to deliver world-class research to improve health and wellbeing and tackle inequalities: https://www.fuse.ac.uk/. “Research shows us that education, income, housing, and access to transportation play a significant role in an individual’s overall health.This collaboration will help us better identify the local social, economic and environmental factors that influence the health and wellbeing of our residents, and help the council, with our partners, to shape policies and interventions that promote health equity.”

Jenny was at a meeting about this today, a quote from this meeting “If we are not counted, does that mean we don’t count”.

Jenny has also worked on UNFAIR which is also about health inequalities through the lens of avoidable hospital omissions. This link tells you a little about it and links to a video that I was involved making in about health inequalities – not directly housing, but that is part of the picture: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/latest/2023/02/unfairhealthinequalitiesanimation/

There is also grant funding available for landlords to get houses up to certain EPC and regulation that properties can’t be rented below a certain EPC level. Broadacres are leaders in greening their properties.

The other challenge in the whole area is workforce, there is a skills gap that Brexit sadly made a lot worse. Locally, our LEAD funding also involved some exposure for local contractors to signpost them to the skills they need to acquire and further away colleges are targeting retrofit training at those working in construction – Harrogate College (Retrofit awareness course, Retrofit for landlords), Redcar and Cleveland College, …

CASaV’s Energy page has suggestions of where look for help to make your home cosier, of course let us know if you have ideas to help keep warm in winter.

Fred

Things are a little bit different in the Tees Valley so it’s good to hear what Guisborough Eco-group are up to.

Guisborough Eco-group has done a Waste to Resource survey of local businesses to understand what waste businesses produce and how it could be reused / recycled. This might be a good thing to incorporate in any Plastic Free Community activities.

Good to hear that North Yorkshire Council has taken into account the carbon footprint that is involved in collecting recyclables and this has been one of the factors involved in going for the 2 bin approach.

Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council to help with retrofitting locally uses the Trustmark list of trades people to help people who want to retrofit find the people who have the necessary skills.

Guisborough Eco-group has been thinking about energy for those who are cold or ill – read their blog here. The best place to look for information is from UK Energy Support which has the details ECO4-Scheme.

Jenny

A local person is making Hedgehog and Owls boxes, they are looking for wood offcuts to use.

Does the woodworking team have offcuts?

Action: Simon approach wood workers for any source of offcuts.

Wendy

Donated wool has been turned into a mega blanket for the homeless.

Kate

Our Environment and Climate Osmotherley is running a mending group every Tuesday 10am at the Friends Meeting House in Osmotherley. The first two have been fantastic opportunity to share and learn mending skills. It doesn’t matter whether you are the world’s best knitter or have never crocheted but would like to come along, of course mending is intensely practical, so darning gives old socks new life and keeps jumper being used.

What to do with old piano? Ask a piano tuner, is there a Local marketry society, or a Men’s Shed?

There is a even a book on How many things can you make from one tree.

Matters Arising

Repair Cafes

You can see our repairs – https://dashboard.repairmonitor.org/?cafe=401&country=gb&year=2024

12th October Stokesley – over 60 items dealt with.
16th November Swainby – come along to get things repaired or to help, and don’t forget to tell your friends Facebook and Twitter.
14th December Stokesley – find more details here.

Actions from Last Meeting

All please bring any old pillows / cushions to the repair cafe for a new life as stuffing for draught excluders.

All get in touch with Kate if you would be able to help at a draught excluder workshop.

Anne check details of Christmas stall and raise at CASaV group meeting – Tuesday 15th.
All booked and discussed at CASaV October meeting.

All get in touch with Anne if you would like to do a session on the CASaV Stall on 6th December.
Plan to run the stall from 9am to 1pm.
Volunteers – Jenny, Anne, Tracey, Kate, Simon – more welcome.

Meetings

AOB

Next Meeting

Wednesday 11th December – note shift to Wednesday for December, will be back to Tuesdays in the New Year.