February 3, 2010 16:15 by
dereksSurrey County Council (SCC) announced In December that there are no longer plans to build Energy from Waste (incinerators in Surrey. Instead they are planning an Eco Park in Shepperton that will have an anaerobic digester (AD) to handle all Surrey’s domestic food waste. SCC is already working with the district and borough councils on separate food collections which should be operating throughout the county by the time the digester is ready. The picture is an artist’s impression.
This is good news of course, but is it the best option? Green Mole Forum has set up a group to study this and we have met the SCC manager responsible for developing these plans. We learnt that SCC has only studied a single site to handle all of Surrey’s domestic food waste, but agreed there are viable alternatives that they have not studied properly. Importantly they haven’t considered having a number of local AD plants instead of one big plant, nor have they considered commercial food waste or farm waste as a possible feedstock for the plants. Smaller plants have a number of advantages including:
- Less visually intrusive so more likely to get planning permission
- Shorter distances to the plant so fewer lorry-miles to transport the waste
- Communities deal with their own waste.
We have recently taken a big step forward by commissioning an MSc student at Surrey University to carry out a thorough study of large vs local AD plants. The student is an MSc student at the university’s Centre for Environment Strategy (CES) and the study will be her MSc project. It will use Life Cycle Analysis, a study technique at which CES has an international reputation, to work out the best environmental option.
An important early part of the work will be collecting data from Mole Valley’s cafes, pubs, sandwich shops, school canteens etc so we can estimate how much commercial food waste is produced. SCC estimate that it could be about the same quantity as the total domestic food waste.
Derek Smith
When Cuba lost access to Soviet oil in the early 1990s, the country faced an immediate crisis — feeding the population, and an ongoing challenge: how to create a new, low-energy society. Cuba transitioned from large, fossil-fuel intensive farming to small, less energy intensive organic farms and urban gardens, and from a highly industrial society to a more sustainable one.
The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil tells the story of the Cuban people’s hardship, ingenuity and triumph over sudden adversity — through cooperation, conservation and community, told in their own words. As the world approaches Peak Oil, Cuba provides a valuable example of how to successfully address the challenge of reducing our energy use.
“Everyone who is concerned about Peak Oil needs to see this film. Cuba survived an energy famine during the 1990s, and how it did so constitutes one of the most important and hopeful stories of the past few decades. It is a story not just of individual achievement, but of the collective mobilization of an entire society to meet an enormous challenge.” – Richard Heinberg, author of The Party's Over and Powerdown
Transition Bookham is intending to screen this film as part of it's launch event. Date, time and venue to be announced soon.
If you have an hour to spare with a cuppa this week-end is the Big Garden Birdwatch organised by the RSPB.
This winter has been particularly hard for many species and so this survey will give the RSPB an idea of how the various species are doing.
https://birdwatch.rspb.org.uk/
In our garden we recorded the following over one hour:
Woodpigeons:6
Blue tits: 4
Starling: 2
Blackbirds: 2
Great tit: 1
Song thrush: 1
Robin: 1
And we think a female blackcap
Zap your leaks
We have been lending out energy monitors for some time, and now the Green Mole Forum can lend you a thermal leak detector.
This nifty gadget makes it easy to check your home's energy efficiency by finding places that let heat out or cold air in.
As you scan it around it shines a light on the surface your are measuring - green, blue, or red.
Simply set the detector's temperature tolerances to one, five, or 10 degrees farenheit (or 0.5, 3, or 5.5 celsius) and scan the light across the area you want to inspect. As well as displaying the temperature of the surface you aim it at, the light will change to red for warmer spots and blue for cooler spots to detect air leaks in both warm and cool weather.
Cut Energy Bills and Improve Your Home's Efficiency
Sealing the leaks and improving insulation in your home can help you save as much as 20 percent on your heating and cooling bills. An efficient, greener home will stay cooler in summer and warmer in winter. Use the Thermal Leak Detector to check your refrigerator and freezer temperatures and efficiency.
If you would like to borrow it for a week or two contact us or send an email to ask to be added to the waiting list. Happy hunting!
Once again, the Woodland Trust are offering recycling facilities for your Christmas cards throughout January. There is a poster on the Epsom Tower noticeboard giving more details - cards can either be taken to WH Smith, Marks & Spencer or TKMaxx - or you can just leave them in the box in the Tower. The scheme ends on 31 January.
This is a great way of recycling your cards. Over the 12 years that the scheme has been running, 600m cards have been recycled. This has had two readily measurable benefits: firstly, 141,000 new trees have been planted, and secondly, 12,000 tonnes of paper and card have not been landfilled, thus saving 16,000 tonnes of harmful carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere.
The Woodland Trust's website (www.woodlandtrust.org.uk) also has an important reminder about reducing and reusing things before we worry about recycling - these early steps in the waste process are even more effective ways of cutting down on landfill and reducing our carbon footprints. For reducing they suggest simply refusing plastic carrier bags wherever possible - something I'm sure that many of us do automatically now. For reusing we can support organisations such as Green Metropolis (an online second hand bookshop - www.greenmetropolis.com), but charity shops and high street second hand bookshops are non-online ways of doing the same thing. An "inhouse" way to reuse birthday cards is to either make "eco-cards" yourself, or pass them on to the Tots Alive! children who like cutting them up and sticking them - just leave any cards in the box in the Tower.
Another way to reduce, reuse and recycle is to learn how to knit or crochet, remodel your own clothes, or even just mend them by stitching on buttons and making repairs. If this appeals, Dorking Stitch Up could be the new group for you. They meet on the second Saturday morning each month in the Christian Centre in Dorking, see www.transitiondorking.org for more details.
On the morning of 
Saturday 16th the Green Mole Forum was present at Bookham Vision's Volunteers fair.
It was an event to enable the many people who ticked the box in the village plan survey indicating they were interested in volunteering to meet groups they might be able to help.
More than 100 people who filled in the survey also indicated they would be interested in joining a Transition Towns initiative for Bookham - Transition Bookham - an initiative which the Green Mole Forum is helping to support. Not sure what the Transition Town initiative is about? Then click here. The Green Mole Forum has already helped Transition Dorking and Transition Ashtead get going. With your help we can start Transition Bookham and make it a success.
What you can do if you are interested in taking part:
And we will let you know. For more articles on Transition initiatives click here.
We also had a great response to our Energy Monitor scheme. What's this? Simply: we can lend you whole-house energy monitors to help you easily identify where you can save money by not accidentally leaving energy-sapping appliances turned on.
(Updated flyer to show the correct mobile 'phone number of 079 4234 4801)
December 31, 2009 16:43 by
anneb
It's much more fun trying to reduce your carbon footprint in company with others and having some sort of target to aim for. So to help encourage Mole Valley residents to cut their carbon we are inviting Mole Valley residents and their Councillors to take part in a 2010 footprint challenge, to see who can achieve the lowest carbon footprint - a resident or a councillor!
The contest is based on your individual household energy use, car use and airmiles during 2010 and your footprint is very easily calculated using www.thecarbonaccount.com. The Green Mole Forum will present a small award to the winner. If you saw the article in the local press about the green granny with a zero footprint - don't think its not worth you entering as the green granny won't be so green in 2010 - she's flying to California to visit her son!
If you want to take part in this challenge contact us here or telephone 01372 456421.