Are you a Champion Recycler? My Street Sign Up
Would you like to do more for the environment? Would you like to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle more? Could you help your friends or neighbours to do more too? Then please get in touch…! Your contribution can help to make Lewisham a better place now and in the future.
We are asking you to speak to others in your local community and to distribute information leaflets. We would also like you to collect pledges from others to say that they are willing to do something new to help their environment. Sign up now and you will receive information leaflets with pledge forms in them to distribute and supporting equipment. We will start in January with training events on Friday 20th January 11am to 1pm or Tuesday 24th January 7- 8.30pm. There will be a prize for the most pledges and the most innovative Champion Idea. Contact beth.sowden@lewisham.gov.uk or kate.parkinson@lewisham.gov.uk or ring 020 8314 2245.
We would also like to promote a new scheme which will be launched in January by Keep Britain Tidy. It should make it easier to arrange meet ups at an inspirational venue local to you which you can help with creating! The details are as follows:
Keep your eyes peeled as Keep Britain Tidy will shortly be announcing the launch of their Eco-Centres Award 
programme. This will be aimed at public and community buildings in England that want to take action on reducing their carbon footprint and engaging their employees and local community in environmental and sustainability issues. The programme is inspired by the international Eco-Schools Award www.eco-schools.org.uk. For more information about Eco-Centres, contact the national programmes team at Keep Britain Tidy on 01942 612621 or look out for the new website coming online at www.eco-centres.org.uk … the Eco-Centres team are working on having this ready in time for Christmas!”
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We would like to hear from residents with an inspirational waste prevention or recycling story to tell, or an idea which could make a difference in their own street (and others!). Do you have one?
If so we’d love to hear from you!! Tell us about your idea or what you’ve been doing and we will spread the word to inspire others.
Or if you need help with an idea or to get started reducing, reusing and recycling let us know and we will help in any way we can.
The first ten people to tell us their story or idea can choose one of the following thank you gifts!
1. Electricty monitor to show energy usage and cost, 2. Wind up radio/torch, 3. Energy sense – remote control to turn off up to 10 plug sockets in hard to reach areas.
Recycling Superheroes – Inspirational examples from our younger generation!
Recycling Super Heroes have already been found in local schools. Children wanting to become Super Heroes were asked to tell us in no more than 100 words why they should be made one! Here are examples of winning entries:
’I recycle, reuse and reduce every day. I recycle when me and my family fill up our recycling bag and empty it out in a recycling bin. I reuse by mending old clothes or sending them to charity. I reduce when I turn things off that aren’t being used. I also have a job in school to turn things off. I even wrote an Eco-code for my school to remember. If I was a Recycling Superhero I would promote walking, cycling, and recycling to people around me, like sending leaflets to my neighbours.
Thank you for reading. From Fadekemi Adeleye’
‘My name is Mya Musundi and I’m sure I’d make the best Recycling Superhero. I am the complete eco warrior. I love recycling, I make my own dolls houses out of recycled materials and help my Mum sort what goes in recycling. Me and my Mum also make natural slug repelents for the plants, out of recycled materials, egg shells. If I was a recycling super I would organise an event where everybody can come and make new things out of recycled materials. That’s why I should be a recycling hero.
Please send your story to me beth.sowden@lewisham.gov.uk by the 16th of December (in as many words as you want!).
There will be a prize for the most inspiring!
[...] Champions [...]
Lewisham is currently retendering the recycling collection contract and following that should be able to accept other items such as aerosols. Residents will be notified of changes!
MY TOP TIPS FOR REDUCING RUBBISH – Alona Sheridan, September 2011
People 100 years ago didn’t have regular waste collections so they had to reuse ore repair things as much as possible. They did not have as much ‘stuff’ as we do, so it may have been a bit easier for them. I’m trying hard to reduce the amount of waste I generate, re-use items whenever possible, repair things that can be repaired, refuse some packaging and recycle most of the rest. Here are some tips that work for me:
1. I recently found out where to take all plastic packaging that cannot go into Lewisham’s recycling bins. The car park at Sainsbury’s, Bell Green has various large containers for recycling and among them are some for all kinds of plastic packaging. So yogurt pots, mushroom and meat trays, plastic bags from bread and pasta, have now been removed from my waste bin.
2. Old household batteries: Several stores such as my local Lidl now have a small container for batteries, near the check-out. I’m sure other places have this facility too.
3. Low energy light bulbs last much, much longer than incandescent light bulbs, but when they finally give up, you can take them along to Homebase Catford or Homebase Penge, where they have special containers for these items near the check-out.
4. Cardboard: Larger electrical appliances such as fridges come in brown corrugated cardboard packaging. I have used the card to line my dalek-style compost bin, after first removing plastic sticky tape and labels. The cardboard will rot down, is a good ‘brown’ waste that will soak up excess moisture in the bin, and it provides insulation to help the bin contents heat up and rot more quickly and thoroughly.
5. Glass jars: no need to put these in the recycling bin. Pass them on to friends who make their own jams and preserves or those who keep honey bees.
6. Composting food waste: It can be a bit of a ‘faff’ to take small amounts of food scraps to the compost bin in the garden. And a compost caddy in the kitchen can be a nuisance as the rotting contents can get smelly. I now use a small plastic tray (such as from supermarket-bought mushrooms). I line that with a sheet of newspaper or an old envelope and it sits by the sink. Every day I empty the food waste and the lining paper into a bucket with tight-fitting lid. The bucket sits outside the back door. Only when the bucket is full do I take it to the compost bin.
7. Garden waste: grass cuttings and plants go into the compost bin. Larger, woody items that take too long to rot will go to the garden waste collection point at Girton Road car park in Sydenham, on Saturdays and Sundays, from 9am to midday, until the end of October.
8. Plastic milk bottles can be cut up to make good plant labels in seed trays or in the garden. Use permanent marker pens to mark the labels with the plant name and date planted.
9. Lewisham Freecycle is a good place to post your household items such as furniture, toys, equipment, which are in good condition but you no longer want. I was able to pass on carpet underlay and a kitchen worktop through Freecycle.
10. Clothing and shoes can of course go to charity shops. But when you have clean textiles that are fit for nothing else, you can turn them into rags to use around the house. Or you can take your textiles and shoes to a suitable recycling bank. There is one along the high street in Sydenham, near to Bell Green.
These tips require very little effort to do and it can be surprising how big a difference all this can make to the quantity of rubbish you leave out for the refuse vans.
Stillness Infant School is Lewisham’s only Green Flag Eco school and currently one of the highest performing eco schools in the Greater London region having been recently awarded a third successive Green Flag. Our pupils are aged between 3 to 7 years old but as we say at Stillness, you are never too young to start recycling! Every class and office recycles its paper – even the nursery. Regular assemblies explain to the children why and how we recycle with further discussions in class and curriculum work to reinforce the message. At break time, the fruit waste is recycled by composting or putting it in the wormery. Our parents can recycle batteries, clothes, shoes and postage stamps in school as well as second hand books and toys at our summer and Christmas fairs.
We participate in the Lewisham Schools Clean and Green Awards winning gold on many occasions and waste/recycling is one of our favourite topics to explore. We hold waste and energy audits to see how well we are doing, have lots of eco reps to help empty the bins, switch off lights/ projectors and take the fruit waste to the compost bins. We educate the children in how to reduce water and food wastage. The children make posters to put up around the school, write poems about wastage and recycling. Art is a great way to recycle and many fabulous pictures have been created from waste destined for the rubbish – over the years, the children have used everything from old paper taken from the bins to scraps of fabric and old boxes and bottles to cds and rubber bands. Even pencil sharpenings have been rescued from the rubbish bin! Last year also saw the ‘arrival’ of our recycled scarecrow, our entry in the RHS Schools Scarecrow competition, made entirely from waste from the pavements, bins and skips!
It may sound like hard work but it’s not! A few seconds here and there to sort your recycling really isn’t going to ruin your day. But now is the time to stop making excuses and make the 3 Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle – as much of a way of life as eating, drinking and sleeping! If our infant children can do it, so can you!