A meeting to combine various efforts to rid Mole Valley of plastic bags took place today.
Present were Zen George: Director of the Leatherhead Chamber of Commerce, Lucy Hanson: Leatherhead Town Manager, Sandra Grant: Dorking Town Manager, Clare Curran: Councillor for Bookham North, Graeme Kane: Sustainable Development Officer MVDC, Emma Wheeler: Communications/Research Officer MVDC, Margaret Hibbert: Eco-Cordinator St Nicolas Church Bookham, Jane Gavey & Esther Phillips-Constans: Green Mole Forum.
The aim of the meeting was to get to know and to coordinate the different campaigns that are taking place in Mole Valley and to find out how the Council can help publicise and support the various initiatives: Zen George’s efforts in Ashtead/Leatherhead, Sandra Grant’s efforts in Dorking.
The next step will be to write up a questionnaire that will be put to the shop holders by people helping with the campaign. Zen George is looking at sourcing various types of bags and the Leatherhead Chamber of Commerce are considering selling jute/cotton bags on a stall in Leatherhead.
Clare Curran mentioned it is important for shop holders and people at the tills to systematically ask their customers if they need a bag. The shopper then has to make a choice and hopefully will be discretely reminded that he/she could do without a bag with only a small effort on their part. Shoppers will hopefully then get into the habit of bringing their own bags which obviously is the most important thing, as we want to produce as few additional bags as possible.
Emma Wheeler will do a write up in the November edition of MVDC’s Newsletter as it is too late for the next edition but will try and get a brief mention into the coming edition.
Tomorrow evening there will be a talk by Russell Smith about retro-fitting old buildings at the Sustainable Redhill meeting.
RETRO-FIT !
Russell Smith is a developer with a difference who is interested in how to make existing homes sustainable, which means retro-fitting new technologies to older properties. Come and hear him talk about his demonstration project, a late-Victorian 3-bed semi in Carshalton -- the technologies, the installation techniques and, above all, what he's found to be practical and cost-effective. That’s for solar heating, rainwater harvesting, greywater recycling, high-efficiency insulation and airtightness with ventilation control.
99% Campaign Award for Refurbishment
Track Russell’s project http://www.parityprojects.com/ and his solutions http://tinyurl.com/5NZYH8
There'll be time for questions and if enough people come along and ask, maybe Russell will agree to host a tour of his house for members of Sustainable Redhill later in the year.
Matt and I had regular disagreements when it came to deciding what goes onto the compost heap, in which quantity and in which order.
So it seemed a good idea to attend Hugh Baker's Master Composting Course to find out a little more and also to learn how to teach others about composting.
We were given very comprehensive yet simple instructions to composting, and amongst other things an overview of the various methods (conventional, trench, leaf mould, wormery, hedgehog pile, mulching etc) as well as some do’s and don'ts in a friendly atmosphere at Hugh’s lovely house where we met other enthusiasts from all over Surrey.
A short presentation was also given by Peter Hill from WRAP about subsidised composting bins (check these out) and by Jane Taylor from Sita who are working together with Surrey County Council to manage and reduce Surrey’s waste. See their web site here.
We will be there to give advice on composting at the Green Mole Forum stand at Bookham Village Day on the 21st June 2008. If you want more information click here.