Save yourself a wasted trip to the tip

Shropshire Council have asked us to remind people about the entry rules to their Household Recycling Centres (HRC’s). There are 5 x HRC’s where you can take excess household waste:


• Bridgnorth (Barnsley Lane)


• Craven Arms (off Long Lane)


• Oswestry (Mile Oak Industrial Estate)


• Shrewsbury (Battlefield Enterprise Park)


• Whitchurch (Waymills Civic Park)


(There is also a limited skip facility in Ludlow, Coder Rd).

To prevent illegal use of the sites and to keep them safe, some types of vehicles are completely banned from the sites, including:


- Any vehicle longer than 5 m, or higher than 2.1 m


- Tractors or agricultural vehicles


- Tipper trucks, flatbed and pick-up trucks


- Luton Box Vans


- Any trailers longer than 2.4m


- Horse boxes


Do not turn up at the site in these vehicles, you will not be allowed in! For other large / commercial type vehicles and large trailers– you are allowed in but only with an Entry Permit.  These permits are only issued via the Council website http://www.recycleforshropshire.com/ or by calling 0345 6789 007.


For most people with normal cars and small ‘hobby’ trailers the rules will not affect you at all. However if you have any doubt, before you set off, please check that your vehicle is suitable to avoid disappointment.


Did you know? You can recycle 30 different types of material at the HRCs!

Waste less this Pancake Day

This Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday) we want to encourage everyone to get into the spirit of Lent and rummage through your cupboards and use up all your leftovers.  The beauty of pancakes is they go with literally anything, so if you have any bits of left overs in the back of the fridge, try them out as a pancake topping.  You'd be suprised how nice things like leftover bolognese sauce, approaching its use by date houmous, leftover grated cheese, mashed up bruised apples, or a bit of double cream go with pancakes (though not all together!) You can save money if you re-use your leftovers (check out the Love Food Hate Waste website for more ideas)

 The other thing we want to try to make sure people only cook what they need, so here's a recipe for perfect pancakes.  This will make 12 pancakes, so enough for 4-6 adults (depending if you're on a diet or not!)

Ingredients:

110g/4oz plain flour, sifted

pinch of salt
2 eggs
200ml/7fl oz milk mixed with 75ml/3fl oz water
50g/2oz butter

Instructions:

1.Mix together the eggs and milk.


2.Sieve the flour & salt into a large bowl then slowly stir in the ‘wet’ ingredients. Dont worry at this stage if the batter may look a little lumpy.


3. Now here's my key trick - do nothing - just allow it to stand for 10 minutes.


4.Heat a lightly oiled frying pan over a medium heat until smoking hot. Cook in batches on each side until golden.

Making the most of your left overs is a great habit to get into this Pancake Day. Recent research shows that 1.3 million unopened yoghurts are thrown away every day in the UK, and fresh fruit and veg tops the list of the most wasted food type. Each year the average family bins about £50 worth of food! So instead of sending your leftovers to landfill, why not follow our simple recipe for a Shrove Tuesday treat.


Happy pancake making and remember, if you do have too much pancake batter left over, you can use the exact same mix to make Yorkshire Puddings the next day. Cook once and eat twice! Nice...

New furniture recycling store in Oswestry

Leader of Shropshire Council Cllr. Keith Barrow has welcomed the opening of a new furniture recycling centre just yards from the Councils Household Waste & Recycling Centre in Oswestry.  The building run by Shropshire Housing Alliance (SHA) at Glovers Meadow, Mile End Industrial Estate, will provide a larger showroom for furniture sales, increased workshop space for the repair and restoration of furniture and more suitable offices where clients can receive the necessary guidance and support concerning housing issues.

In his address to the 100 guests who attended the opening event, Councillor Barrow, recalled the first furniture scheme in the area, which was set up in the mid-1980s and how the idea has progressed to where SHA is in its new offices today. He said: “I am sure that this new high profile location combined with such a dedicated team will prove to be successful and that SHA has a fantastic future.”

SHA is a voluntary organisation and its core objectives are to assist homeless people in need of housing, to relieve poverty, protect the environment and improve the quality of life for individuals and families throughout Shropshire. James Wood, Chair of SHA and director of local affordable housing construction company Saxonby, said: “In a week when a number of household name companies entered into administration as a result of the economic climate, the opening of these premises may be seen is a bold move. However, I believe we have a great team of people in place who have the vision, determination and forward thinking approach to developing and growing this project. I anticipate continued success, not only in the sales showroom but equally as important, in providing crucial support services to the homeless and vulnerable people in our county.”



Picture: (left to right) Gill Preston, area manager SHA, Neil Williams, Oswestry furniture store manager, SHA, Councillor Keith Barrow, leader, Shropshire Council, Mandy Mulloy, joint chief operations officer, SHA, James Wood, chair, SHA and Julian Price, joint chief operations officer, SHA.

Composting carpet

As the UK looks to cut down on the quantity of products ending up in landfill sites, Carpet Recycling UK has come up with a novel idea for composting woollen carpets.
At present the idea is in its trial stage with Derbyshire-based composters Vital Earth looking to see whether wool-fibre carpet can be composted successfully. The idea of composting carpets marks a change of focus on how best to recycle woollen carpets, with previous ideas exploring its insulation value amongst other things.

The original idea seems to have come from research conducted in New Zealand and, if the idea passes the trial stage, it has the potential to divert at least 35% of carpet material that has come from domestic waste towards composting to create a good quality fertiliser.

However, before the agricultural sector can look forward to the benefits of carpet composting, the UK Environmental Agency wants evidence that the carpet’s backing is biodegradable and will not cause harm to the environment. As well as this, there are fears that chemicals such as bleach that are used to treat fibres mean that the final product may not pass the PAS 100 accreditation that would enable it to be used as feedstock.

Despite this, the project can only be seen as a positive development as the UK moves towards a more sustainable society and as such it has received the support of the Environmental Agency. Whether the initial trials are successful or not, Carpet Recycling UK can already be pleased that their work is generating interest in carpet composting that was previously unseen.

Recycle your Yellow Pages

Shropshire residents are being asked to recycle their old Yellow Pages, now that the new one has been delivered. Yellow Pages and all types of telephone directory can simply be placed in your kerbside recycling boxes along with your newspapers and magazines for collection, or taken to a paper recycling bank.

With each directory weighing around 1.7kg, this means more than 200 tonnes of waste paper will be generated by old Yellow Pages in Shropshire alone. All Yellow Pages are collected mixed with the rest of your paper and sent to Shotton Paper Mill near Chester, to make newspaper print.

Cllr. Mike Owen, cabinet member with responsibility for waste at Shropshire Council said, “recycling Yellow Pages is simple - just put them in your paper recycling box and then put it on the kerbside for collection. The plastic wrapper should be removed first. By recycling Yellow Pages we help support UK manufacturing as well as reducing the amount of waste which goes to landfill and thus protecting the environment."


NB - Across the whole of the UK more than 75 million phone books are left on the doorsteps of UK homes and businesses each year by Yellow Pages, BT and Thomson which results in a staggering 62,000 tonnes of waste paper every year. Recycling a tonne of paper saves around 3500 kWh - enough energy to power an average house for one year. So recycling phone books helps to reduce our carbon emissions as well as helping to reduce waste to landfill.


If you want you can opt out of delivery of phone books completely and use the web and telephone based services instead. Simply contact the companies and ask to be removed from their distribution lists. For more information visit http://www.saynotophonebooks.org/

New Years Resolutions...

Breaking old habits….


It’s a brand new year…so time for breaking old habits and starting some new ones! The average household here in the UK can save around £50 a month, or £480 a year rising to £680 for families simply by not wasting our food and drink. It may seem daunting but taking a few simple steps can help us get the feel good factor back from our food. Better planning and portioning can help not only with wasting less but healthier eating too.


These are our top tips:


• Try to plan a weekly menu in advance when you have time and then take a list to the supermarket - it helps focus the shopping trip on just what you need, and makes it an awful lot quicker too.


• If you want to make the most of discounts in-store as a way of saving money, get into the routine of sticking the other half of the buy-one-get-one-free offer straight into the freezer which means it will last until you need it. With meat and fish simply divide it into freeze-able portions so you can use as much as you need as and when you want it.


• When it comes to cooking just the right amount of food at mealtimes, try to avoid the temptation of “one more for the pot” – often this portion ends up getting thrown away. Try letting everyone serve themselves so they can have as much as they need – then you can freeze the leftovers for another time or have them as a fantastic lunch the next day.


And finally, research shows that shopping day is bin day in most homes – 30% of fruit in the home gets thrown out on the day of the weekly shop because we forget to check what we already have so always remember to have a quick check before you leave home!

Veolia Volunteers

 

Volunteers from local recycling firm Veolia have been helping maintain the grounds of the historic Shrewsbury Castle. 

One of the volunteers, Phil Hartshorn said: “I usually spend my day driving the refuse vehicle around the town so this has made a nice change.  I think it’s great that my employer, Veolia, gives us the time off to help out in the local community.”


Shrewsbury Town Council had been trying to get something done about the trees opposite the Mayor's Parlour at the Castle for several years and finally received planning consent last month to remove them.

The volunteering is part of Veolia half day volunteering scheme where employees are encouraged to give something back to the local community.  All 12,000 staff who work for Veolia across the UK can spend a half day working in the local community or for a charitable organisation of their choice.  This amounts to 6,000 days each year across the whole company.

All the horticultural waste generated over the course of the day was taken to the Town Councils site in Meole Brace Shrewsbury for composting and chipping and thus will ultimately be re-used on public parks around the town.