The Surrey Waste Partnership (Surrey County Council working together with the 11 district and borough councils in the county) is offering home composting bins at fantastic prices, starting from £14.00 (RRP £39.00).

Did you know 1/3 of your household waste could be used for composting?

Compost recipe: Kitchen waste includes:
 Cereal packets and egg boxes
 Fruit scraps, vegetable peelings and salad leaves
 Tea bags and coffee grounds
 Vacuum bag contents
 Vegetarian pet bedding

Garden waste includes:
 Old flowers and nettles
 Wood chippings and straw
 Twigs and dried leaves

Mix both kitchen and garden waste together, and over a 9-12 month period, you will have compost.

Benefits:
Saves you money:
 By not having to buy compost.
 Because it is organic and reduces the need for other garden products.

Boost your garden by:
 Keep plants healthy.
 Feeding your lawn and enriching borders.
 Nourishing flowerbeds and vegetable patches

Helps our environment:
 Because home made compost produces ‘peat-free’ compost. This eradicates the need to buy peat products, which have been commercially sourced and extracted from peat bogs, resulting in the release of stored carbon from the bogs.
 By putting less household waste out for collection, less energy is required as there are fewer vehicle movements.

Composting at home is the easiest way to recycle your waste because you can do it at home, in your own time. It takes little space and effort, and it’s so rewarding. Once you start, you’ll be surprised to see just how much the waste in your kitchen bin and garden bin reduces by – simply by putting suitable waste items into the compost bin instead.

To buy a bin or to dig up more advice on how to turn your table scraps and garden waste into compost, visit www.surreycc.gov.uk/getcomposting or call 0844 571 4444.

* The Surrey Waste Partnership is made up of Surrey County Council and the 11 district and borough councils in the county to manage Surrey’s waste in the most efficient, economic and sustainable way possible.

We support the plans to increase recycling locally. The following are suggestions of how the council could improve its plans, including a greater focus on waste reduction and reuse. Some of these are suggestions of areas where we could work together with the council. We look forward to hearing your comments back on the following and discussing how we might help work together on this.

Comments and Issues Raised

1. New Waste and Recycling Collection Plans

Street Cleaning. Can the council please confirm that now collection routes are clustered into areas (e.g. collections on a Monday, for example, are in Horley) that this will make it easier for the council to do a cleansing sweep after the rubbish has been collected, and that therefore this will improve the cleanliness of our streets. 

Question. How much of the 40% that is recycling is due to the 100+ neighbourhood recycling centres and how much is currently black box doorstep collections?

Street points. We understand that Brighton has communal refuse collection at the end of each road. Is this the same for recycling too? Is this an option that the council might consider in future?

More recycling points for small polluting/valuable items. Some of the items that are thrown away currently are highly polluting. Examples include mobile phones (just 3% currently reused or recycled across Europe 3 years ago), batteries and compact fluorescents. Can these items, which would be a real waste and have dangerous chemicals if landfilled or put into a gasification plant, be collected more locally. Suggest that all local recycling collection points have bins for these small items.

Education on Plastics Recycling. Suggest that currently not everyone recycling plastic bottles know which can be recycled, that the tops need to be removed, and that they should be stamped. There could be a big sign and education to make this point in a fun way.

Education to Inspire. In Finland there is a set of ‘piano steps’ to encourage to go up steps instead of an escalator, and a bin that makes a sound if you put something in it to  encourage picking up litter. This could be considered.

Rail Transport? Would it be cheaper to send the paper for recyclng by rail to Kent? Is there an opportunity to use the railway sidings at the aggregates depot at Salfords as part of the waste solution?

Discussion Forum. A clear recycling directory, showing what you can recycle where could have more details and frequently asked questions than is currently the case. Perhaps this could be a wikipedia directory and perhaps a blog, where individuals can share how they have achieved ‘zero waste’ to landfill from their household (e.g. www.myzerowaste.com).

Competition to Encourage Participation. Can the council positively encourage participation in the new recycling plans – suggest sponsorship and incentives for opting in to the recycling scheme such as a prize draw with theatre tickets and stuff particularly to interest kids. Perhaps ‘sponsorship could publicise companies that achieve levels of greater than 70% recycling themselves.

2. Opportunities for Waste Reduction and Reuse

Freecycle and Furnistore. Does the council promote these clearly from the council website? Can this be better promoted? Can the council invest in new warehouse space in Redhill to allow them to work together.

Toy Library. Can the council establish a local toy library?

Waste Reduction. This is currently a recycling blueprint. The waste hierarchy is for reduce, reuse and then recycle. The council should have a plan for increasing waste reduction and expanding opportunities for reuse as part of the strategy, including greater budget for these items. We note that last year waste costs were reduced as the amount sent to landfill was reduced by 8%, mainly due the recession.

Contracts not Long Term. We support the current arrangements to have short term contracts. If the overall amount of waste is reduced can the PFI arrangements with SITA be revised so costs are reduced?

Opportunity to Increase Bulky Goods Reuse. We note that in Surrey Fridges and Freezers (and other bulky items like hoovers) are sent to be broken up for recycling, whereas in Croydon these items are first repaired and resold, by the Croydon Appliance Reuse Centre (ARC). This is an opportunity to support a local enterprise such as Furnistore, with warehouse space in Redhill.

Opportunity for Food Reuse. We welcome the introduction of food waste collections. You could choose to put fallen fruit into a food waste collection to generate energy but far better to keep it, share it, or even to make cider. Sustainable Redhill are considering a community Apple day in the autumn, to respond from ad-hoc measures to rescue wasted fruit in 2009. Is this, and other measures to share surplus food (before recycling it) something that the council would support?

3. Anaerobic Digestion Plants – Local Opportunities

Siting of AD Plants. We support sites across Surrey so that food waste does not need to be transported across Surrey. In the Netherlands financially viable AD plants have been set up at a scale of less than 10,000 tonnes/year. Smaller sites are viable and would minimise transport distance and maximise sustainability.

Food Waste from Business. What is the volume of food waste that currently goes from Gatwick Airport to the Biffa landfill in Redhill each year? Could this enable an AD plant to be set up more locally, perhaps jointly with Crawley Borough Council?

Joint Operation with Thames Water? Can we do a joint plant for Thames Water sewerage and for our food waste. A combined site would reduce smells from the sewerage plant and may be more efficient overall. 

Confirmation of Direct Cost and Carbon Benefits. Can the council confirm that the money you get for the recycling offset the costs of the collection and fuel – or is it only worth doing because of the higher landfill charges? Also, what is the carbon benefit of recycling, including consideration of the distances that different items are sent for reprocessing? How much better would local food and compost treatment be, for example?

The energy monitor lending scheme has proved most popular in Reigate and Banstead, with 64 individuals and families borrowing the devices from one of the borough’s six libraries during October and November, compared with just 22 in Spelthorne.   Read more on the council’s website: http://shs.surreycc.gov.uk/sccwebsite/sccwspages.nsf/LookupWebPagesByTITLE_RTF/Scheme+to+save+residents+money+on+energy+bills?opendocument

Another great scheme coming up is being run by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and Partnerships for Schools (PfS).  They are running an exciting new initiative to get Energy Display Meters provided and installed into English state-funded schools, absolutely free.  

This is a fantastic tool for getting pupils and teachers excited about monitoring electricity use and actively engaging them in sustainability issues. It works by monitoring your electricity use and displaying real-time results on your school’s PCs.  

As we understand it, there are 4000 available and they’re on a first-come, first-served basis.  So, register on their website now – http://www.energydisplaymeter.co.uk/ – and they’ll let you know the moment you can apply.

A range of public consultation activities for Memorial Park will be taking place in January 2010 in order to agree on an Improvement Plan. 

As part of the Redhill Regeneration Programme, Reigate and Banstead Borough Council is in the early stages of considering how Memorial Park could be improved for the benefit of Redhill and its residents.  Some initial work has been done to assess the current condition of the park and they have been reviewing previous feedback from local residents. The next step is to undertake a much wider consultation with residents, voluntary groups, businesses and other organisations in and around Redhill.
Details provided so far are as follows:

*    Week commencing 18 January: A display of potential park improvements in Redhill town centre
*    18 January – early February: The display information will also be published on the Council’s web site www.reigate-banstead.gov.uk
*    Tuesday 26 January, 7pm – 9pm: Public consultation event in the Harlequin Theatre, Redhill.  This will be an opportunity to discuss your views and ideas about the park with members of the design team.
*    18 January – early February: If there are several members of your organisation interested in the park then it may also be possible for one of the design team to provide an individual group presentation. 

The Improvement Plan will include a number of proposals, some of which the council hope to be able to deliver in the short term and others which are longer term aspirations (for example, they may be dependent on the Council securing further funding and/or they may be linked to other developments in the town centre).   

Let us know what you think of the plans when they are published, either here or at one of our meetings.

10:10 is an ambitious project to unite every sector of British society behind one simple idea: that by working together a 10% cut in the UK’s carbon emissions is achievable in 2010. Signatories to 10:10 pledge aim to achieve carbon reductions in their organisation as close to 10% as possible during the year 2010. Read on and then sign yourself up to the campaign at http://www.1010uk.org/. Together, we can achieve meaningful cuts.
The Council’s commitment to 10:10 builds on its previous successes in reducing its carbon footprint. In the last few years the Council has invested in a number of projects which are intended to reduce the Council’s carbon footprint. These include: installing energy saving computer technology; using alternative fuels in its vehicles; promoting energy awareness to its staff and installing a combined heat and power (CHP) generator in the newly refurbished Leatherhead Leisure Centre. All of these projects have resulted in lower carbon emissions as well as lower energy costs for the Council, both of which benefit Mole Valley residents.

The Council has a clear strategy to reduce its carbon footprint in 2010 and beyond. In partnership with the Carbon Trust, the Council is developing a carbon management strategy and identifying a set of practical actions that will reduce its energy bills and carbon emissions.

Leader of the Council, Jean Pearson, said “Mole Valley District Council is proud to be a 10:10 Council. We have already started to address and reduce our carbon footprint through ‘invest to save’ schemes. This campaign makes sense for the Council, the community and the global environment by addressing climate change.”

Any word on Reigate and Banstead doing the same?

By re-organising their routes to eliminate overlaps (e.g. collecting from parts of the same area on different routes on different days), they no longer need one of their 8 dustcarts, and this frees up staff for the next stage of improvements — collecting more kerbside recycling.

Whether you use it or not, everyone has an open-top plastic box for recycling paper, card and cans.  Now the idea is to add a caddy (with a lid!) for recycling food waste, plus a smaller caddy to collect the waste as you cook in your kitchen.  Whenever the smaller caddy fills up, you empty it into the larger caddy outside.

The council will also provide two more open-top bins, one for plastics and cans, the other for mixed glass (you’ll no longer need to sort by colour).

National surveys suggest that over 1/3 of the average wheelie-bin-load is food waste, over 10% is plastics (bottles, cartons and other packaging), and another 5% is glass.  In all, that’s about half the average load… if it was all recycled, the average wheelie bin would only need emptying half as often.

So the council proposes to empty the food waste caddy and other the other recycling bins each week, but only empty the wheelie bins every other week — always on the same day of the week.

If you follow the letters pages in the local press across other Surrey boroughs, this is the change that most exercises people’s imaginations.  A more interesting issue is where to keep all these bins and caddies, especially if you live in a maisonette. 

Read about the council’s proposals in detail, and give your views direct, here by Wednesday 13 January 2010.

Come along to the Sustainable Redhill meeting in January (19th) where we’ll be discussing the plans in detail, or add a comment here in the meantime to let us know what you think of the plans …

The unique new Heatseekers vehicle – developed and mobilised by the Energy Saving Partnership – has the ability to assess over 1,000 properties an hour by automatically detecting and determining the insulation condition of a property. Operating at night, during the heating season, the thermal-imaging technology inside a specially adapted vehicle determines the address of each property and produces an energy efficiency verdict which is attached to a thermal image.

The project in Reigate & Banstead is being carried out in partnership with Reigate & Banstead Borough Council, to improve energy efficiency measures in homes throughout the borough.

Once the property has been scanned, a dedicated team of Energy Advisors will visit householders to show them the thermal image scan of their homes. The advisors will explain the results and how the householder can take action to reduce their energy bills and carbon footprint.

The surveys will take place in Jan/Feb 2010 and surveyors will approach targeted householders in May/June 2010 to offer them insulation in mitigation of the issues raised by the surveys.

Before surveyors actually approach any households there will be letters to residents explaining what the project is and how it can help them. There will be a simple way of opting out of visits from surveyors and data will of course be confidential.

Councillor Mark Brunt, explains: “I am delighted the council is able to support this initiative to offer this much needed assistance to the residents of the Borough. With fuel prices escalating there is no better time to help residents insulate their homes.”

The image produced from these surveys are not a photographs, they simply shows which parts of the building are hot and cold. No people or details of the homes will show on the survey.  The images resulting from the project will also remain entirely confidential and will not be published in the public domain.