Ideas to waste less food
On 26 April, it is Stop Food Waste Day, a day to raise awareness to waste less food. Food waste has a big environmental impact and if we waste less food, we not only save the planet, but also money too.
We are encouraging the borough to waste less food not only on this awareness day but all-year-round.
There's plenty of ideas to waste less food including:
- Storing food well - e.g. in airtight containers, out of direct sunlight or in the fridge
- Making use of every edible part, e.g. cooking broccoli stalks or cauliflower leaves
- Make a tasty soup from leftover vegetables. For some inspiring recipes, visit the BBC Good Food website
- Planning meals in advance. There's plenty of recipe ideas from Stop Food Waste Day's cookbook
- Inspiring others to waste less food
- Repurposing food by giving away surplus items to your local community. Local food app Olio encourages people to share unwanted food items to help tackle food waste
We know some food waste like banana skins, orange peels, bones and tea bags is inevitable. If you don't compost at home, you can put these unwanted food scraps in your food waste caddy. Find out what you can put in your food waste caddy.
Children's anti-idling art is a breath of fresh air
Creative and colourful anti-idling banners designed by pupils have gone up outside six schools in Wokingham Borough to support our efforts to improve air quality.
Idling means leaving a vehicle's engine running while it is stationary. By switching off your engine, you can reduce the amount of exhaust fumes entering the atmosphere, conserve energy and save money.
The eye-catching artworks were the winners of an annual competition organised by our My Journey Wokingham sustainable and active travel team.
The banners remind drivers to switch off their car engines outside schools, particularly around drop-off and pick-up times, as this contributes to harmful air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
The location of the anti-idling banners and this year’s winners are:
- Felicity (St Teresa's Catholic Academy, Wokingham)
- Emily (Wheatfield Primary School, Winnersh)
- Lucas (Emmbrook Junior School, Wokingham)
- Sebastian (Nine Mile Ride Primary School, Finchampstead)
- Izzy (The Colleton Primary School, Twyford)
- Aeyva (Charvil Piggott Primary School)
Ten schools are now signed up to our Air Quality project, which is funded by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Pupils take part in a range of activities including monitoring air quality and encouraging their school community to travel more sustainably.
Thriving toad population in Swallowfield
We're pleased to see the toad population at Priest Hill in Swallowfield parish is still thriving many years after we installed toad crossing signs that go up during the annual migration and come down afterwards.
Ecologically, toads play an important role in food chains as they eat insects including spiders and insect larvae and invertebrates such as slugs, snails and worms. Larger toads have been known to eat small slow worms and grass snakes too. Toads are also a food source for fish, birds, mammals, reptiles and other amphibians.
Numbers are still checked annually by the volunteer Toad Patrol, part of the Berkshire Reptile and Amphibian Group, who count the amphibians while helping them safely cross the main road to breed in a nearby pond.
This year the volunteers moved 1,118 toads as well as three frogs between 18 February and 26 March, patrolling on most nights when temperatures allowed, and this is considered a healthy number by wildlife experts.
It shows that our signs and, more importantly, the volunteers' efforts are paying off because in other parts of the country, numbers have been seen to drop when toad crossings aren't supported.
In total, the volunteers have now helped 13,176 toads to cross the road since 2009 and we'd like to thank them for their continued efforts over more than a decade.
Photo credit: Charlotte Allchin
Feature in our next newsletter
Would you like to feature in our next newsletter? Tell us what you are doing to tackle climate change and the savings you are making by emailing the Climate Emergency team.
We are interested to hear if you have installed energy efficient technology throughout your home and how you are doing your bit to help the planet by saving water, managing your waste and recycling, using active transport, buying or using reusable items and sustainable fashion.
Thanks for taking part in Earth Hour
Last month, millions of people around the world took part in Earth Hour where lights were turned off for an hour to show they care about the future of our planet.
We received several emails from borough residents who took part in Earth Hour - well done to all involved and thank you for getting in touch.
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