2 minute read
Environmental Issues
from SE23 May 2021
by SE Magazines
Slim Your Bin!
Environment News by Zaria Greenhill, Chair of Climate Action Lewisham
What happens to all the things you throw into your black bin? We tidy our homes and organise our waste into the bin, but once waste leaves our property we assume it’s no longer our responsibility. It would be nice to think that all rubbish vanishes safely into thin air with no harm to anyone or anything, but we’ve all seen those Attenborough documentaries, and we also see litter outside every day, so I think it’s probably beyond doubt that ‘thin air’ is not actually where our rubbish goes once we throw it ‘away’. In Lewisham all our ‘black bag’ (i.e. nonrecyclable) waste, goes into the incinerator at Deptford known as SELCHP (pronounced sellchip). The burning process provides some heat and power for neighbouring homes, but it also produces 32 tonnes of CO2e per year (that’s 32 hot air balloons, the same as about 20 more cars on the road), and some air pollution. You only have to stand on one of the borough’s hills to see that. SELCHP is quite old: it was built in 1994. It produces a higher flow of emissions than other comparable incinerators in London. Those that live near it hate it and want it gone. But where should our rubbish go? In 2017, the frequency of collection of our domestic rubbish halved, from once a week to once a fortnight, with no long-lasting bad effects. Can we produce less domestic waste? Can more be recycled? Interestingly, recycling is often seen as the answer, but in many ways, comes last in our list of ways to slim your bin.
The 5 R’s
REFUSE: Firstly, you can refuse excess ‘stuff’ – do you really need marketing freebies? How about bringing your own utensils instead of grabbing the plastic spoon? Or shop at zero waste shops springing up which reduce excessive plastic packaging. A list of zero waste shops can be found here: https://climateactionlewisham.org/
zero-waste-shops-in-lewisham/
REDUCE: Purchase with a purpose – buy what you need rather than random whims. REUSE: Think about using reusable items rather than disposable. Think about repairing, mending, using things until their very end of life before replacing. REPURPOSE: finding a different use for an unwanted object can bring a strange satisfaction! Pallets into raised garden beds, toilet rolls as cable sorters, an unravelled moth-eaten sweater knitted into something new! RECYCLING: what’s left that can be recycled - put in your green bins. Also, some supermarkets offer to take back plastic which can’t go in those bins e.g. bread bags, plastic bags etc. But recycling is not a panacea: sorting, transporting and recycling waste is energy-hungry, and while it can be useful to manufacture new products, a lot of collected recycling isn’t suitable and gets incinerated along with the black-bag stuff. Top tip: clean everything before you put it in the green bin, it should have no food waste on it and be perfectly dry to be useful ‘recyclate’. There’s even a sixth ‘R’: Rot – if you have a garden, you can start a compost bin for your food waste trimmings, the RHS have help here:
www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=444 A Waste Challenge!
Climate Action Lewisham will soon launch ‘Slim your Bin’, aiming at slimming our domestic waste. You start with a litter pick, and then do a waste ‘challenge’: a bin audit to find out exactly what you’re throwing ‘away’ and support to take steps to reduce it. Keep an eye on our website here:
