Waste Group
Contact:
Jon Gunson, 01273 473262, jon@jongunson.fsnet.co.uk
The waste group has been looking at ways of dealing with food waste because this is one of the waste streams that we feel is not being tackled to any degree by agencies locally. Of course there are other issues that we as the waste group would like to pursue but owing to limited resources, we have had to prioritise.
Rocket project:
In particular we were concerned about food waste from businesses in Lewes. We thought it was an area where we could raise awareness and make an impact.
The project involves collecting food waste from pubs, restaurants, shops and possibly institutions such as schools and composting it in a rocket composter (see http://www.quickcompost.co.uk/ for details). This project has been taken up by the County Council and Furniture Now with European Funding. A rocket composter has been installed at County Hall and is being trialled there. Hopefully in 2010 we shall be able to approach local businesses to invite them to send their food waste to be composted at County Hall.
Master Composting project:
We also wanted to see if there was a way to reduce the amount of domestic food waste being collected and landfilled. A pilot project completed in August 2009 was run by a member of the group to encourage households in Hawkenbury Way, on the Nevill, to compost their food waste using Green Johannas (see http://www.greencone.com/how_it_works.asp?prid=28 for details). We obtained funding by the County Council for purchase of Green Johannas and kitchen caddies and our "master composter" found neighbours to try it out and gave them help and advice, if they needed it. We felt it was a very successful pilot and are aiming to roll this out further in other streets in Lewes. Anyone who would like to run a simple project like this in their street is very welcome to contact us and we can provide help to get it started. We have support from both the County Council and District Council and Lewes Little Gardens.
Waste Awareness Days:
The group has also done several food waste awareness displays about food waste (eg at Tesco and the precinct) with the food group, We had some funding to pay for leaflets and a banner.
We still have many more practical ideas we would like to pursue given time and energy. However, there are few of us in the Waste Group and we need more people - please think about joining us!
Some of the things we want to tackle are how we can further raise consumer awareness of food waste both at home and in restaurants, takeaways and pubs; getting takeaways to use compostable containers.
There are other projects that we discussed at the outset which we would still like to pursue such as what would convince people to use washable nappies and stop using disposable ones; how can we make it easy for businesses in Lewes to recycle their waste; can we extend the types of plastics we can recycle; what we can do with all the waste we produce by making our homes more energy efficient such as what we should do with our old inefficient light bulbs and fridges; checking out what the new private waste collectors are doing with the waste they collect.
OUR VISION
Our vision for Lewes in 20 years time is that we try to produce as little waste as possible and deal with as much as we can locally. We think this means that everything that’s recyclable is recycled (from building waste to yoghurt pots) and everything that’s compostable is composted and that attitudes change so we reduce the amount of waste we produce in the first place.
We recognise that there are many steps between where we are now and achieving our vision and we will be working on plans on how to get us there. We’re also aware how much is already being done to tackle waste in the town and there are lots of people with many years of expertise who we can learn from.
Get involved: contact one of the Group contacts on the Groups page
