RIBI ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY GROUP NEWSLETTER FOR CLUBS & DISTRICTS APRIL 2015 RIBI CONFERENCE – April 10 to 12 in Belfast If you are going to the Conference, please feel free to call in at our stand which we are sharing with Community. There will be leaflets available covering 18 different projects or more general information. Now is a good time to start planning what your Club is going to do for the environment in the forthcoming Rotary Year. This divides into two aspects – one is how, as an individual we try to do as much as we can for the environment by the way we live, such as recycling, saving fuel etc, and the other as a Club and/or within our within the community where we can encourage others or can carry out specific projects such as tree planting, litter picking, balsam bashing etc. There are lots of ideas on our web site.
COMPOST TOILETS Technically this is an ‘international’ project, but someone wrote to me and asked why we were not promoting Compost Toilets especially for those with projects in Africa and other overseas countries where not only water is a problem, but sanitation. I am told that the reason they are not more widely used is that whereas a Pit Toilet costs around £100 but has a limited life, a Compost Toilet costs around £350 in India and rather more in Africa but will last 30 years and will also provide compost! The person behind this is David Crosweller and the Charity name Wherever the Need has its own web site or you can contact David at david@wherevertheneed.org.uk or telephone 07939 576504 for more details.
WOODLAND TRUST Out of interest I wrote and asked the Woodland Trust how many trees had been planted through Rotary Clubs in recent years and got the following reply:I put together this summary recently for someone putting together a Rotary magazine article. There was a great deal of interest around the Jubilee year, but interest has tailed off a little since, so further efforts to publicise the scheme amongst your membership would be greatly appreciated. That said, we have managed to distribute almost 20,000 trees to Rotary Clubs in the last 3½ years! COMMUNITY TREE PACKS - UK ROTARY CLUBS 2012 onwards
Spring 2015 Autumn 2014 Spring 2014 Autumn 2013 Spring 2013 Autumn 2012 Spring 2012 Pack Totals Tree Totals
Small (30) 0 3 3 3 2 0 0 11
Medium (105) 2 2 4 4 2 9 6 29
Large (420) 2 5 3 12 1 9 6 38
330
3045
15960
Total Packs 4 10 10 19 5 18 12 78 Total Trees 19335
BUG LIFE My attention has been drawn how important of bug life to our sustainability. Natural habitats are disappearing as we build more and more houses, and more and more roads. People seem to be covering their front gardens with driveways rather than flower beds, so it is time we tried to take into consideration how vital bug life is to our wellbeing. To quote from the web site:Imagine trying to travel around Britain without our road and rail network. Or imagine if nine out of every ten miles of road just didn’t exist – life would be impossible! Well for much of our wildlife this is the reality - it is confined to tiny fragments of habitat and unable to move across the countryside as our climate and landscape rapidly changes. It has been predicted that 40-70% of species could go extinct if action is not taken to enable species to move through the landscape. We need to do more to encourage people to have insect friendly gardens. There is a lot more information on the web site, so please have a look and at least be aware of what could be a huge problem in the future if we continue as we are. https://www.buglife.org.uk/campaigns-and-our-work/habitat-projects/b-lines)
BICYCLE RECYCLING Someone kindly sent me this picture of bicycle transport! I thought it was a good image to draw attention to this scheme. All you need is somewhere to act as a holding area, put an advert or article in your local newspaper saying that people can bring their unwanted bicycles for recycling to the store at a certain time, and wait for them to arrive. If you collect 50 or more, contact the Margaret Carey Foundation and they will arrange to come and collect the bikes from you. Prisoners at several of our prisons will then do them up ready for them to go abroad to where they are needed and where other forms of transport are impossible to use. See the web site for full details or contact David Brown from the Margaret Carey Foundation Tel 07794 534907 or 01535 275530 or e-mail david@margaretcareyfoundation.org.uk
ENVELOPE RECYCLING Member of our Group, Keith Tovey, has drawn my attention to a project being run by his Club, the Rotary Club of Norwich, to promote the re-use of envelopes. The price for a pack of 50 is £3 with the profit after the cost of printing is going to Foundation at the moment. The name on the label is their Club Secretary who is also an AG and District Rotary Scholar coordinator. The Packs are quite heavy so they do not want to waste money on postage if they can - it is perhaps an initiative to highlight for other Clubs but they are happy to hand over a box of 50 packs at a mutually convenient location.
FREE LOVE PARK WEEKS WORKSHOPS – Keep Britain Tidy Book your place onto the Love Parks Week workshops
Free Love Parks Week workshops Love Parks Week is now in it's ninth year and we want to do more to help you plan and deliver show stopping events in your green spaces. We are holding workshops in the run up to Love Parks Week, each will be interactive sessions where you will be taking an active role in discussions and plans.
The workshops will be held in Manchester and Birmingham in May and June but hurry, spaces are limited so book your place today! Manchester 8 May workshop Birmingham 19 June workshop The workshops will be run by Corinna Hartwig, Funding Doctor and will cover a range of subjects that fit ALL green spaces. Topics *What is your space? *Who uses your space? *What type of event works best in your space? *Funding opportunities *Promoting your space and event We hope you can attend these important workshops. If you would like any further information, please get in touch loveparks@keepbritaintidy.org.
http://www.rotarygbi.org/members/humanitarian-service-programmes/community/environmentsustainability-group/environment-projects/ There you will find leaflets on all the subjects above as well as many others which I am sure you will find useful. If you need any help or advice, please contact the person or Club named on the leaflet or me, Terry Knowles, Secretary and Member of the RIBI Environmental Sustainability Group, TERUNA2@aol.com.Tel 01423 525014