Waste

Spring Community Litter Pick & Clean for the Queen

We had an excellent turnout for our spring community clean up and it was good to see our regulars together with some new faces.

We split into groups and covered; White's Field, the Driftway from Chinnor to the Kingston Stert Road, Keens Lane, part of the Ridgeway to Wainhill, Springfield Gardens, Top Recreation ground, Conigre Playing Fields, Emmington Churchyard and part of the Thame Road. 

Once again, the weather was with us albeit a bit chilly. This didn't stop our volunteers and 12 bags of rubbish was collected.

Litter pick volunteers

Some of the rubbish collected

Thank you once again to our lovely volunteers who do a brilliant job to help keep Chinnor and its environs a beautiful place to live.


Autumn Community Litter Pick

Excellent turnout at our Autumn litter pick on Sunday 25 October and as a bonus, the weather was great! A huge thank you to all who came along. 

It was good to see some new faces as well as the usual stalwarts and we are pleased to say that there seemed to be a lot less litter this time. We were particularly pleased about not have to pick up so many used poo bags!

It is still disappointing to find so much litter in the children's playgrounds particularly Conigre. Not only were there lots of plastic bottles, crisp packets and chewing gum, but empty beer cans that had been pulled open before being dumped on the ground so there was a lot of sharp metal for young fingers to cut themselves. This is particularly irksome not only because of the danger to the children, but that there are plenty of litter bins nearby.

Once again a huge thank you to the volunteers who came along.

Look out for details of our next community litter pick which will take place in the Spring.

Spring Community Litter Pick

On Sunday 19th April an enthusiastic group of 20 Chinnor volunteers carried out the 7th Community clear up on some of our most popular village footpaths and byways in the village. Once again, we were fortunate with the weather and it was good to see our ‘regulars’ together with some new faces.

We are finding that some of the areas we regularly clear seem to be less littered now and hopefully this is showing that the hard work is paying off. However, we are still finding the problem of anti-social dog owners who either don’t clear up after their dog/s or bag their waste and throw it into the hedge or edge of the path.  I would like to point out that there are NO ‘DOG POO FAIRIES’, but it is cleared up by your neighbour!

We would like to thank everyone who turned out on Sunday and did a tremendous job and the Parish Office for supplying the litter picking kit.



April 2014 Food Waste

Have you ever wondered what happens to all your food waste that is collected each week? Greening Chinnor went on a guided tour of an anaerobic digestive (AD) facility near Cassington to find out.

In a fascinating tour we found out that weekly food waste collection is taken to the Cassington plant where it is recycled into a liquid fertiliser called digestate which is then used on local farmland.

At the facility we were informed that the food waste from kerb side collections together with food waste from restaurants, supermarkets, breweries and dairies is all mixed together and pulped to create a thick liquid ‘soup’.  We were shown into the collection area and saw the waste going from the hopper through a mincer which chopped everything into minute particles. Any non-food that had been put in with the waste was extracted by means of machinery from the mixture. This is then taken to a composting site.

This liquid ‘soup’ is then pasteurised in tanks at 70 degrees for 1 hour to kill any harmful bacteria.  The heat for pasteurisation is taken from recycled heat generated on site by the gas engines. Once pasteurised the liquid food waste is then transferred to large tanks that act like ‘stomachs’ where good bacteria breaks down the food producing biogas (a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide) which is extracted from the tanks and fed into gas engines to create electricity and a fertiliser called digestate.  The food waste is pumped through the five tanks which take around 100 days. It is essential that the tanks are kept ‘healthy’ are tested every day to ensure that the good bacterial mix is correct.

The gas is stored in the roofs of the tanks and once the gas has been removed the liquid food waste is now a 100% biological liquid fertiliser which is used on local farmland. The digestate is high in valuable nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and other elements required for healthy plant growth and fertile soil.

We were joined on the tour by James Price, a local farmer from Woodstock who uses the digestate. James was very enthusiastic about the product you can read about James and his use of digestate here.

The Cassington AD plant uses around 12% of the electricity it produces itself, the remainder is fed into the national grid to power over 4,200 homes on a continuous basis. A case study about the facility can be found here or watch a video of the process on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX5MU_IrNZ4&feature=player_detailpage

So what can you put in your kitchen food waste caddy:

All of your raw and cooked food waste such as leftovers and spoilt food, and including:

·         meat and fish - raw and cooked including bones
·         all dairy products such as cheese and eggs
·         raw and cooked vegetables and fruit
·         bread, cakes and pastries
·         rice, pasta and beans
·         uneaten food from your plates and dishes
·         tea bags and coffee grounds
·         cooking oil, lard and fats (do not put cooking oil in plastic containers)
·         old flowers
What cannot go in your food recycling bin?
·         packaging
·         plastic bags
·         glass

These can all go in your recycling bin.

For further information on what happens to Chinnor's recycling visit South Oxfordshire District Council's website at http://www.southoxon.gov.uk

September 2013 - Recycling Batteries

Batteries can now be recycled on your  recycling collection day.  Put them in a clear plastic bag (such as a sandwich bag or food bag) on top of your green recycling bin and leave out on your collection day.

SODC can collect household batteries, such as 6v batteries, 9v batteries (transistor batteries), D, C AA, AAA and button batteries (watch batteries) as well as mobile phone batteries, laptop batteries and lithium batteries with tape across the terminals.

They cannot collect batteries with trailing wires, car batteries, or other industrial batteries but you may be able to take these to a Household Waste Recycling Centre.  For further information on battery recycling and disposal facilities, please see the Oxfordshire A-Z section on batteries on the SODC website.

See Events page for details of any local Swap Shop events. 

30/10/12 Recycling  video cassettes: SODC's website suggestst that video cassettes can be recycled at some of their recycling centres, though futher investigation of services provided at each site suggests not.  This is a major problem as there are millions of video cassettes in circulation that are gradually ending up in landfill.  Greening Chinnor are taking the issue up with Oxfordshire Waste Partnership via our representation on South Oxfordshire Sustainability (S.O.S).  Discussions have already been had with OWP about the principle of bulk recycling specific items collected at local points, so it may be possible in the future to provide a video collection point.  In the meantime, households can recycle videos in reasonable quantities for free via a Bristol based recycler BUT you have to get the videos to them which will cost your postage. See http://www.ems-europe.co.uk/services/domestic-tape-disc/ for details of how to do this.


25/10/12  Boots Plc have kindly responded to our query about the recyclability of their own brand water filter cartridges.  Whilst the Brita filters can be recycled via collection points in Robert Dyas in Thame, there is no similar scheme operated by Boots which shows a lack of "extended producer responsibility".  However, they did advise that the cartridges are made from polypropylene (recycling code PP5) so they could be broken down and the plastic should be able to go in the green recycling bins.  However, the cartridges are not labelled so it'd be helpful to write PP5 on them and a little recycling logo to help the sorting people I guess.

20/4/12 - retrader.org.uk is an online materials exchange, a free tool used by businesses, charities, local government and agencies to increase the lifetime of useful materials.  It is designed to reduce business waste and provide an alternative to direct disposal that can deliver real and measureable financial and carbon savings.  Retrader enables exchange of furniture and fittings, electrical and electronic goods, building materials, drums and containers, paper, card, pallets, plant and equipment, textiles and clothing, wood and virtually anything else.  It is a little known alternative to Freegle with an emphasis on organisations rather than individuals and is provided by Oxfordshire Waste Partnership.

Benefits:

• reduced waste disposal costs
• improved environmental and social performance
• free or cheap materials or resource

Remember, if you generate business waste it must be handled safely and in accordance with the law.  Details of Duty of Care and other regulations can be found at www.netregs.gov.uk
To use retrader simply register online at www.retrader.org.uk, list materials as available or wanted and wait for someone to respond.

23/3/12 - note, that in addition to collecting CFL lightbulbs for recycling in the Chinnor Parish Council office in Station Rd, they also collect:

• batteries
• ink cartridges
• mobile phones
• IT equipment, cameras, printers and laptops

So drop them in when you're passing - don't put them in the bin.

14/3/12
There was an interesting presentation at the Chinnor & Thame FOE AGM last night by Matthew Beasley from Biffa, the company that runs the residential waste collections for SODC.  Here are some insights!

• Your green bin recycling materials are taken to Culham and then transferred either to Aldridge near Walsall or to Edmondton for sorting.
• Food waste goes to a local anaerobic digestion plant to produce liquid fertiliser, biomethane and residual digestate.  It is essential that food waste is not wrapped in non-compostable bags.  Compostable bags are available from Coop in Chinnor and also the Chinnor Parish Council office in Station Rd.
• Garden brown bin waste is either composted using a fast in-vessel system or in open high volume rows at various sites locally.
• Approximately 70% of materials collected from homes in SODC is recycled - currently the 2nd best in the country!  Of the recycling bin materials, about 4-5% is "contaminants" - materials that can't be recycled including general rubbish, nappies (eurgh!) etc.  Residual materials that can't be recycled are either landfilled or sent for incineration to produce electricity.
• Recycling is sorted by both machine and by hand.  It's therefore helpful to rinse tins and plastic cartons

There were many questions about what can or can't be recycled.  Here are a few pointers:

• The general rule with plastics is "if in doubt, put it in the recycling".  However, they do NOT take cling film, any sort of polystyrene or composite materials (e.g. pill "blister" packs which have elements of foil and plastic).  
• Metallised plastic wrappers (like you find on tea bags, and on harder plastic trays in boxes of chocolates) need to go in the non-recycling black bin.
• Please do NOT put mixed recycling into plastic bags in the green wheelie bin.  These bags only have to be manually split for sorting.
• Compact discs, DVDs etc cannot currently be recycled through kerbside collection - though someone mentioned there is a recycling collection point at Waitrose in Thame.
• Lightbulbs cannot be collected at the kerb side but energy efficient lightbulbs can be recycled via the collection point at Chinnor Parish Council office.
• Brita type water filter cartridges should not go in the green bin.  There is apparently a collection point for recycling these in Robert Dyas in Thame.

Freegle / Freecycle
Looking to dispose of usable household items but can't/don't want to sell or do a car-boot sale?  Then get involved with Freegle (also know as Freecycle) to post Offered or Wanted messages for anything from paving slabs to piano's!  See http://www.ilovefreegle.org/ Everything is free.
Local groups are based in High Wycombe and Wheatley, but in my experience people will travel for the right item.  I've picked up a piano from Wheatley, and disposed of tonnes of old paving slabs.

SODC Waste / Recycling collection info (what bins go out on which days!)
http://bit.ly/obr6Zm 

16/11/11 - WRAP release new report on estimates for household food and drink waste in the UK. Good news - waste levels have fallen. Bad news - still an awful lot of food wasted at huge financial and environmental cost.  For details see here

26/10/11 - Oxfordshire Waste Partnership launches new A-Z of recyling website which enables you to select a listed item and see what you can do to avoid sending it to landfill.
Website is http://www.owp-reuseguide.co.uk/ Give it a visit!