Shropshire residents encouraged to recycle aluminium foil this Christmas

Mince pies, turkey, wine and trays of party food are all the ingredients of a great Christmas celebration.  Shropshire households are being urged to make it a ‘green’ Christmas by remembering to recycle all our festive aluminium packaging including foil trays, aerosols, screw caps and tin foil.

With the average Shropshire household expected to generate an extra 30% of rubbish over the festive period its really important to use your kerbside recycling scheme to recycle more. 

At Christmas you’ll see aluminium foil containers being used in a wide range of food packaging including mince pies, oven-ready food such as turkey, sausages, party food and pre-prepared vegetables. Aerosols are a major feature in our bathrooms and bedrooms, used in deodorants, body sprays and haircare products. Once empty, all can be recycled under the scheme.

Shropshire-based Rick Hindley who is Executive director of the Aluminium Packaging Recycling Organisation (Alupro) Rick Hindley says: “Aluminium food and drink cans are already a familiar sight in most household recycling schemes, but it’s great to see that Shropshire also collects aerosols, foil trays, tin foil, metal lids from jars and aluminium screw caps from bottles too especially as we use more of them around Christmas. More than 580 million aerosols are used in the UK each year, plus 16,000 tonnes of foil trays – so recycling them has huge potential to save energy and cut the amount of waste going to landfill.”

Carry on composting this Christmas

With Christmas now only a couple of weeks away, the need to reduce waste is significant. Composting food waste can help, and a compost bin is the ideal gift for keen gardeners in your family.

Compost bins make a great Christmas present for green-fingered friends and family - so why not check out www.shropshire.getcomposting.com for ideas.  

At Christmas we always produce more food waste than at any other time of the year. The remnants of your New Year’s Eve party will also be a welcome addition to your compost bin such as nut shells and wooden cocktail sticks.  When the festivities have drawn to a close, if there is any room left in your compost bin you can add those natural home-made decorations like holly and ivy centre pieces, mistletoe and other compostable decorations.

So don't let the cold-weather put you off going down to the garden this Christmas, you can make your own compost, reduce waste and save money all year round with a compost heap.

Mumsnet survey finds people lack cooking skills

Are we in danger of losing basic cooking skills?

A recent survey we carried out with Mumsnet revealed just that almost a quarter of parents surveyed were not confident they could use leftovers to make another meal without resorting to a recipe. To curb a potentially lost generation of cooks we have launched ‘Save More’ to help people get to grips with budgeting, planning, and portioning in the kitchen along with money saving tools and tips.

Not only can confidence in the kitchen have a positive impact on our health and our families health but having these skills can also save us money and help to reduce household food waste.
 

How you can help?

1.    Download our Save More pack today and get sharing
2.    See the NEW report detailing how it was developed and tested. You can also check out our guide to setting up a new group.
3.    Share our NEW Mumsnet-Love Food Hate Waste infographic on cooking skills
4.    Check out our NEW Top tips for mums and dads from Love Food Hate Waste
5.    Pass on our hints and tips  to help rescue food.
6.    Share our recipes – many include videos to get you started

Local school gets composting

Kids from St Mary’s Bluecoat Primary School in Bridgnorth have been getting into gardening and composting following a talk about recycling from local Councillor John Hurst-Knight. 




















Pictured above are pupils Jack Coley, Jack Farmer, James Lannigan, Kai Embrey, Abigail Swinnerton, Phoebe Hadley, Ellie Cartman.

Recycled compost bins from the www.shropshire.getcomposting.com range were provided from ex-display stock by the Council.  The school were also supplied with seeds, gardening kit and six bags of Pro-grow compost (which is a peat-free growing medium made from local authority garden waste) sponsored by Veolia. 

The children are really keen gardeners and they meet every Tuesday after school and the kids said that they will use the new equipment to improve their skills and to grow plants which they sell on at their local Co-op store to raise funds for the school.  So now all in all the school is well and truly sorted out for gardening now and as a spin off a new social enterprise selling their produce has been born. 

The school head was really pleased with it too as she noted that not only would their be income from the plant sales but they by composting their food waste on site they will save money on their waste collection bills and also it will help towards their eco-schools status.