April 18, 2012
Reduce and reuse
Recycling waste has almost, but not quite, become the norm. Councils provide us with different coloured boxes and bags and we dutifully separate out the waste and await the Council to come by and collect. The net amount of waste we export from our communities is roughly the same – the difference being it no longer all goes to landfill. The next logical step must be to reduce the amount of waste exported and increase levels of re-use. The community of Ardoch in Perthshire may be onto something.
18/04/2012
http://www.stirlingobserver.co.uk/stirling-news/local-news-stirling/news-stirling/2012/04/11/
COMMUNITIES in south-west Perthshire will be paid not to dump recyclable waste in their household bins.
The villages of Greenloaning and Braco are staging a concerted green effort this month in the hope of benefiting their communities – and getting something back from Perth and Kinross Council.
Following their pioneering neighbours in Muthill, the villagers are being urged to compost, reduce, reuse and recycle waste so that their general waste green-lidded bins are as light as possible for the May 7 collection.
In turn the savings made by PKC, which forks out £78 per tonne of landfilled waste, will be handed to the Ardoch Development Trust, a community trust linking the two villages.
On Saturday the communities are being invited to come together to launch the project, which is part of the Zero Waste Fortnight.
They will be urged to use their garden composters and brown and blue-lidded bins for recyclable or compostable waste – or find another way of making sure they do not go to waste.
The launch event at Braco Village Hall from 10am on Saturday will also have demonstrations on how residents can revive unwanted clothes and fabrics and learn how to make rag rugs.
Recipes using leftover food will be passed on and Ardoch Gardening Club will demonstrate good composting.
The information-packed event will also give tips and advice on reducing unwanted mail and a chance to trade unwanted CDs, DVDs, toys and gardening tools.
A host of other events to spring clean the communities will also run throughout the period, with litter picks and initiatives to get residents to reuse bags when using the village shop.
There will be a final event on May 4 when residents will able to look back on what has been achieved and possibly toast success.