 Give us your views
Did this postcard come through your letterbox this week?
We want your views on potential changes to your weekly rubbish and recycling collections.
If you haven't taken the survey, click the blue button below to find out more and give your views now.
 Enjoy a green and sustainable Halloween
Halloween is on its way, and it’s time to start planning some guilt-free, waste-free celebrations.
Some Halloween traditions can be quite wasteful, as millions of pumpkins, costumes and decorations are binned every year in the UK.
Reducing Halloween waste is not difficult. Here are some simple ways to help you enjoy a green and sustainable Halloween:
Eat your pumpkin
According to Hubbub, a sustainability charity in the UK, 22 million pumpkins bought for Halloween will go to waste this year.
Pumpkins are increasingly seen as food rather than just decoration. Pumpkin flesh and seeds are a great source of vitamins and nutrients. Hubbub has shared many sweet and savoury pumpkin recipes on its website, which are co-curated with food influencers. Make sure the pumpkins have not decayed before you cook them.
If you can’t eat them all, add those left over to your compost heap and they will break down quickly.
If they need to be thrown away, all the insides can go straight into your food waste caddy. If your pumpkin is too big, chop it up first. Alternatively, sit it next to your bin on your collection day. Our crew will take it away and it will be turned into fertilizer.
 Zero-waste costume
An estimated seven million Halloween costumes are thrown away every year in the UK, contributing to 2,000 tonnes of plastic waste - equivalent to 83 million plastic bottles.
You can get crafty and creative with your children’s Halloween costumes. Try out these easy DIY ideas which will save you money and help the planet:
-
Use old clothes: cut some holes, rub some dirt, pour some red food colouring on them to make the perfect zombie outfit
-
Use old towels and bedsheets: use sheets and towels as wraps and link pieces with safety pins to make an eco-friendly mummy costume. You can also transform your pre-loved pillowcase to a spooky Halloween treat bag.
-
Use leftover paper and cardboard: a great activity for your children as they personalise their masks using leftover paper and cardboard already at home
Easy-to-make Halloween decorations
Halloween decorations are another source of plastic waste. It’s always best to re-use as many decorations from the previous year as possible. If you really want to put up something new, gather supplies, arts and crafts throughout the year, instead of buying new materials.
Here are some eco-friendly and yet spooktacular DIY Halloween decoration crafts:
- Turn stockings with runs into spider-webbing
- Paint foam peanuts (packing materials) and turn them into worms
- Use leaves and branches from the yard
- Turn cardboard boxes into tombstones
These are just some of the many ways to reduce Halloween waste. If you want to know more, visit the World Wildlife Fund website and Greenredeem blog.
 Recycling for the local community
Have you come across a Facebook page called “Ali’s Recycling for the Local Community”?
This popular page, set up by Alison Chaney (or Ali as most people call her), is frequently visited by residents who are keen to reduce waste and recycle more.
Ali ventured into the world of recycling in 2013, when she took over four TerraCycle recycling schemes started by a fellow parent in her children’s pre-school.
TerraCycle partners with brands to offer a range of free programmes that help people recycle hard-to-recycle materials, such as razors, writing instruments and kitchen gloves. It recycles waste into raw materials and then sell them to manufacturing companies for turning into other end products.
“I am very passionate about saving things from landfill,” said Ali. That’s why she has been gradually expanding her ‘portfolio’ and is now taking more than 25 types of recyclables, including personal and beauty care product packaging, crisp tubes, dental care products, cheese wrappers, coffee bean and ground pouches and more.
You can find a complete list of items that Ali takes in her Facebook page.
 Drop-off points in and around Wokingham
Some individuals, local charities and businesses have learnt of Ali’s Recycling and volunteered to collect recycling materials from others in their neighbourhood and then take them to Ali.
At present, there are 45 drop-off points for Ali’s Recycling in Berkshire and Hampshire, with some in and around Wokingham like Shinfield, Three Mile Cross, Lower Earley, Bracknell, Swallowfield and Finchampstead.
After receiving the recyclables from her drop-off points, Ali sorts them into the relevant TerraCycle programmes and boxes them up. All boxes have to be weighed to make sure they meet the minimum shipment weights, before sending them off to TerraCycle.
So far, she has saved close to 56,000kg of waste from landfill, according to TerraCycle’s records.
 Recycle for charitable causes
Every time Ali sends waste to TerraCycle, she is given points which will are redeemed and donated to charities. Over the past nine years, she has raised more than £53,000 and her donations have benefitted 35 charities, including The Cowshed, Babies in Buscot Support, Thames Valley Animal Welfare based in Reading and many more.
Apart from monetary support, Ali helps Against Breast Cancer, a research charity, collect unwanted bras to help small businesses in developing countries, and takes milk tops to raise funds for Air Ambulance.
Without help, I can’t go further
Ali started the “Ali’s Recycling for the Local Community” Facebook page about five years ago. Thanks to the power of social media, she has been able to reach out to many people who share the same enthusiasm for recycling.
Ali said, “Without help, I can’t go further”. Whenever she asks for help on her Facebook page, she will get responses promptly, no matter if it’s for taking away soft plastics from her bins or looking for volunteers to collect recycling from drop-off points.
“It helps me if you can sort your recycling into various TerraCycle schemes before taking them to a drop-off point,” Ali added, as she spends up to 30 hours a week on handling the recycling she receives from different people.
If you want to help Ali, message her on her Facebook page.
 Some recycling tips from Ali
- Take soft plastics to large supermarkets
- Soft plastics include crip packets, pet food pouches, baby food and wipe packets
- Use your kerbside collections as much as possible
- Donate, re-sell, recycle your old clothes before throwing them away
- Many coffee pods can be recycled through Podback. Hot chocolate and tea pods are accepted too.
|
