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Oh! Such joy ( well a new recycling scheme, anyway.....!)

Today we had an unexpected delivery. A new Recycling Bin!

You may remember my previous rants on the subject of recycling , in which I mention that we don't get any doorstep collection out here in the wilds of rural Herefordshire.

But,Herefordshire has now decided to extend the scheme to ALL its residents so everybody gets some recyclables collected from their home. (Well, it, and all Councils, are now legally obliged to do so ,
by legislation I helped to campaign for! )

As an Environmental Consultant and activist I also spent a huge amount of time in the late nineties vigorously campaigning to stop the building of an Incinerator in the town of Kidderminster. This was meant to "dispose" of a large chunk of Herefordshire and Worcestershire's joint household waste. I rather suspect that IF they had managed to build this incinerator I would not now be feeling so happy as "Energy Recovery" from the incinerator would have counted as "recycling". So, I guess, there would have been no Big Green Recycling Bin sitting outside my back door?

But we won the fight against the Kidderminster Incinerator (hurrah) and the Incinerator plan "went up in smoke". And lo, I have a Recycling Bin.

Here it is in all its glory...




along with a calendar, a handy leaflet telling us what we can put in our bin and a sticker to go on the front of the bin.

Here is a list of the items that you will now be able to recycle from your home:

Paper - including newspapers, magazines, phone directories, catalogues, office paper, junk mail, greetings cards and envelopes.
Cardboard - light card and corrugated cardboard, egg boxes and kitchen/toilet roll tubes.
Metals - food tins and drinks cans, aerosol cans and sweet/biscuit tins.
Glass - bottles and jars of all colours.
Plastic - all plastic bottles. Plastic containers including yogurt pots, margarine/ice cream tubs, fruit/vegetable punnets, cream/ custard pots, cake/pastry trays and soup/sauce pots.
Cartons – including milk, juice, smoothie cartons, fabric conditioner, soup, chopped tomato and custard cartons.

So...finally .....we have a recycling bin at Compost Mansions and we can stop filling up our car boots with recyclable stuff "just in case" we go near a recycling point.

We will still need to go to the Household Recycling Site with textiles, batteries, CF lights, wood, electrical goods, soil and rubble etc, but this bin will make SUCH a difference to us! Apart from anything else, the bottles, cans etc can go in the bin, outside, rather than filling up boxes in the boiler room, or in my car boot!

Also the 100g (ish) of landfill waste that we do put out each week at the moment for the landfill collection (all else is reused, recycled or composted here) is largely yogurt or margarine cartons, so we will now be able to reduce the stuff we send to landfill even more, maybe even down to a true Zero Waste level! Previously the recycling system would not take these items, but the building of a new Materials Reclamation Facility has changed all that. |

All collected recycling will be transferred to a new material recovery facility (MRF) being built at Norton, Worcestershire. This new facility will sort materials using state of the art technology into their different types ready for recycling.

So, we will be able to put these items inside our lovely new recycling bin!

Hurrah! I am a very happy Compostwoman, today! Good on you Herefordshire Council, for doing this...!

Chicklet update

Here are some pictures of the chicklets aged 15 days old...growing fast, see the feathers forming?

Fabric from the Scrapstore

I laid the fabric I got from the Scrapstore out on our king sized bed, so you could see the size and colours of the various bits of material I acquired.



Oh how I wish there had been enough of the biggest bit to make a cover for the bed....I would LOVE a cover in this fabric! I am planning to redecorate the sitting room in these colours.

The cream and brown piece nearest to the camera is actually two bits, the other bit is underneath!

Ah well, perhaps I can make it the main fabric in a BIG quilt.....the one I WILL get around to making...one day...when I have more time....

Colours of the Autumn Equinox.....

taken from my garden last night...what a fabulous sunset!