Green Southwell held our first Green Fair on 25th March, bringing together a range of groups with different emphases on what it means to be green. The day was wonderful. The sense of collaboration between different organisations and the quality of the conversations we had have lifted us, and lots of people made pledges on the day about the things they would change.
However, not everyone could be there on the day and there was lots to see, so we throught it would be good to develop some of the themes here on our website.
The first is waste.
In the UK we produce around 27m tonnes of household waste each year. Around 44% of this waste is recycled and transformed into new products, which represents a significant energy saving vs creating the products from virgin materials. It also makes a huge difference to the amount of waste which goes to landfill or incinerators. Both these methods of waste management release harmful greenhouse gases which contribute to global warming. At the Green Fair we considered what items could be recycled locally. You can find more information about this here.
The second part of the stall covered different ways to reduce the waste that we bring into our homes, and how to avoid plastic waste as much as possible. The bathroom is often a particular culprit here, and the stall had a number of examples of swaps that we can make to reduce waste or avoid it altogether. Here are some examples:
However there are all sorts of other parts of the household where swaps can be made in order to reduce or avoid waste. You could try getting milk in plastic bottles (either delivered or from the Real Milk dairy), buying veg from farm shops or other places where it’s sold loose rather than packed in plastic from the supermarket. Here are some other swaps to consider from around the house:
Lots of people at the Green Fair had already made a number of these swaps already, but most found something they hadn’t considered. If you have other examples to share to inspire others, please add them in the comments below.
Sources:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-waste-data/uk-statistics-on-waste
https://www.recycle-more.co.uk/what-can-i-recycle/recycling-facts
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