Green Issues 30

Plant at least 1500 trees to stabilise banks and connect existing habitat filter water.

Develop and implement a programme of citizen science monitoring schemes to provide an important source of information and support for understanding and restoring the health of local river catchments.

Rivers Trust spokesman Ed Bramham-Jones said: “The renewed funding commitment comes at a time when farmers are adapting to a post-Brexit landscape, while facing significant changes to financial support and agricultural practices.

The new phase of the initiative is really exciting – we hope to reach new farmers, strengthen our existing partnerships with the agricultural sector and supply chain, recruit and train a team of citizen scientists, and ultimately deliver nature-based solutions for our desperately polluted and degraded rivers.”

Alex Adam, of The Rivers Trust, said: “Improving our freshwater environment is a huge challenge that requires collaborative action across the food and drink industry. As such, Water Sensitive Farming has been placed as a key delivery mechanism for achieving the aims of Courtauld 2030 – a corporate water stewardship commitment and the associated roadmap towards water security for food and drink supply. “We’ve already seen other Improving our freshwater companies including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, M&S environment is a huge and Asda invest in the challenge that requires initiative, and we’ll be continuing to encourage collaborative action other key businesses to across the food and drink engage collectively. industry. “We’re also keen to capitalise on the learnings and experience gained over the partnership by delivering a nationwide training programme for other NGO advisers, as well as engaging with policy makers.” Jon Woods, General Manager of Coca-Cola Great Britain, said: “Water is our most important resource and is central to improving food sustainability. We are proud The Coca-Cola Foundation has supported the Norfolk Rivers Trust for the last nine years to help local farmers and communities protect, reduce, recycle and replenish water supplies.”

Water and the food and drinks industry

Norfolk Rivers Trust will partner with The Rivers Trust (RT) to share best practice with NGOs and policymakers, and encourage collaborative water stewardship action across the entire UK food and drinks chain through the Courtauld 2030

Commitment. THE NORFOLK RIVERS TRUST

norfolkriverstrust.org

Undersowing maize event for farmers

OXWASH: PUTTING A GREEN SPIN ON LAUNDRY

A Cambridge eco-cleaning company has put the traditional laundry industry in a spin.

An Oxwash lagoon.

Using space-age technology, green tech start-up Oxwash has set its sights on decarbonising the toxic washing and dry cleaning sector.

Oxwash was founded in 2018 by ex-NASA scientist and Forbes’ Europe’s 30 under 30 alumni, Dr Kyle Grant, and Oxford engineer Tom de Wilton.

Kyle was still at university, finishing his Synthetic Biology PhD, when he and Tom launched a cleaning service for students – born out of frustration at constant washing machine breakdowns on campus.

Together, the pair re-engineered the cleaning process using technology more typically seen in space and hospital sterilisation, before setting up washing facilities (known as lagoons) in Cambridge, London and Oxford. The UK’s industrial laundry sector currently processes over 743,000 tonnes of laundry every year, with the nation’s households using a collective 360 billion litres of water (equivalent to Lake Windermere) just by sticking a wash on at home. The Oxwash team is determined to help clean up the sector’s unsustainable working practices. Kyle explained: “Our team is not only developing chemistry that works at 20˚C better than at 40˚C or higher, but we have integrated water reclamation and reduction technology into our process that saves up to 60% of the water consumption versus you washing at home or any other typical commercial washing service.” Their cleaning process uses ozone (generated by renewable electricity) and biodegradable disinfectants to sterilise fabrics at lower temperatures, achieving higher than medical-grade disinfection. Such tech is typically only used in hospitals and spacecraft!