Recycling facilities in the Godmanchester area
Reading glasses –
Put them into the recycling box in the entrance to the Roman Gate Doctors Surgery. The rotary club will send them away to be used in third world countries.
Mobile phones - Recycle your mobile phone
Has your old mobile reached the end of its days? Donate it to Christian Aid and we’ll make £3. That’s enough to vaccinate 21 children in India against life-threatening diseases.
Last year Christian Aid collected more than 8,500 old handsets and raised over £30,000.
There are a massive 60 million redundant mobile phones in the UK, most of them languishing in drawers or at the back of cupboards. If left where they are or just thrown away, these mobiles could cause some serious damage to the environment - they contain arsenic and mercury, after all.
By donating your mobile to christian aid, however, you can ensure that it’s either recycled or re-conditioned.
If you want to get rid of your mobile, just pop it in the post to:
Christian Aid UK
Greener Solutions,
FREEPOST LON17592
Mitcham
CR4 3UZ
Visit www.greenersolutions.co.uk for more information
Ink cartridges –
Please hand them in at church and when we have a collection we will send them away to raise money for christian aid.
Batteries -
All household batteries, including car batteries, can be accepted at Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRC). Our nearest is in Buckden BUT have you thought about recharging batteries to use again? Even normal batteries can be recharged in the correct charger for a fraction of the cost of replacing them.
If you click on Easyfundraising, register and then go to the gifts and gadgets link, then on to Britisheco.com and look at their Delux Battery Recharger Wizard and make every battery last longer. You will also donate 4% of the purchase to St Mary's as well as making an investment that will pay for itself many times over.
The Council Collects Material for Recycling
Dry Recycling
Dry Recyclable waste includes the following materials:
- Paper, cardboard and envelopes
- Newspapers and magazines
- Brochures, junk mail, telephone directories and catalogues
- Food packaging - cereal boxes without inner bags
- Plastic bottles including drink and detergent
- Drinks cans, food tins and aerosols
We collect dry recyclable waste from households in the district using a variety of containers.
Residents can use:
- Wheeled bins
- Green Boxes
- Clear Sacks
Garden Waste And Composting
Kitchen Waste can now go in the Garden Waste Bin
Organic kitchen waste, such as vegetable and fruit peelings and left over food can now be placed in garden waste bins and sent for composting.
Major new technology is now up and running at the composting facility used by HDC to process garden waste, allowing a greater variety of organic waste to be composted into soil improver. This means that all organic kitchen waste can be placed in the garden bins and composted resulting in a further in waste ending up in landfill sites.
Your Green garden waste bin can now be used to collect the following materials:
Organic Kitchen waste includes the following materials:
- All food waste from the kitchen - RAW & COOKED
- Vegetable & fruit peelings
- Dairy products
- Meat
- Fish
- Bones
Garden Waste includes the following materials:
- Grass cuttings
- Prunings from hedges, shrubs and trees
- Trees that will fit into the green bin
- Leaves and bark
- Untreated wood (i.e. no nails, paint or varnish)
- Flowers and weeds
- Windfall
- Straw and Sawdust
- Cold ashes
Why should I cut down on plastic carrier bags?
It is estimated that around 17.5 billion plastic bags are used in the UK every year - that's about 290 plastic bags per person! Research also shows that plastic carrier bags are used in average for 20 minutes before being put in the bin. All this plastic ends up in landfill- what a waste! Even though more bags are being made to rot away, air and sunlight is needed for this. Landfills have no air or light so bags that have only been used once for 20 minutes will sit there for decades if not hundreds of years! Reusing plastic bags from the supermarket, buying bags for life or using stronger material bags will cut down on how many bags we use and send to landfill.
Why not use the youth groups cotton carrier or for example, the new fairtrade cotton carrier from the co-op?
Campaigns & Education - Smart Shopping
Smart shopping is a partnership initiative to encourage people to think before you buy. The amount of waste that fills up our bins is directly linked with the goods we purchase for consumption.
Being a smart shopper will helps us reduce the amount of waste that is sent to landfill, thus reducing our impacts on the environment; it may also help you save some money!
Every one can be a smart shopper and here you have some little actions that can make big differences.
- Choose fruit and vegetables loose - preventing unnecessary packaging in your house not only reduces your hassle to get ride of it, but also helps the environment
- Choose to shop at local markets - products are fresher, you help the environment by cutting down on emissions associated with transport and support local producers and your community!
- Choose reusable/rechargeable/repairable items - it will cut down on waste and may generate you some savings.
- Choose to buy refillable items - you only need the contents, not the container, don't you?
- Choose to shop with reusable bags - plastic carrier bags take hundreds of years to degrade when landfilled. Reusable cotton bags not only are long-lasting, but could be composted once they get too old.
- Choose charity shops - they're full of interesting, good quality stuff, for a fraction of the price of brand new items. The funds they raise will help people in need here and abroad.
- Choose to home compost - why buy fertiliser for your garden when you can make your own? Home compost would make your garden nicer, help the environment and save you money too. It's no doubt a winner option!
Did you know that:
- Every year the average UK adult spends £1,725 on wasted goods and services?
- Wasted food accounts for almost £424 per person every year?
- Each person in the UK uses an average of 290 plastic carrier bags a year?
- In less than 10 years we will run out of landfill space?
www.recap.co.uk/campaigns/shopsmart.aspx
RECAP Information - Reduce & Reuse
Why do it?
It seems everything is disposable these days! Disposal items such as pens, bags, razors, dusters and nappies all create more rubbish that just gets sent to landfill. Throwing things away creates a big financial and environmental burden for us all.
The best way to help prevent this is to remember: Repairable, Reusable, Refillable, Rechargeable!
- Almost 65% of our rubbish in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough just gets buried in the ground, when at least 60% could have been recycled - what a waste!
- Recycling is only part of the solution to the issue of waste - recycling doesn't reduce the amount of rubbish produced but it does send it for a more useful purpose.
- Reducing and reusing is actually what we should be doing first before recycling but how we can do it often isn't so obvious. Stopping waste being produced in the first place is the most important thing we can do and is always the best option.
What does reduce and reuse mean?
Reducing and reusing helps reduce the rubbish we bury in the ground.
- Reduction is sometimes referred to as "Minimisation" and means reducing the amount of rubbish you generate and throw in your bin for your Council to collect.
- Reusing means thinking if you can use something again for the same or another purpose before throwing it into the bin.
How can I Reduce and Reuse?
The guide below gives suggestions of easy actions that we can take to make a real difference. Please see our Smart Shopper page to find out more.
- Bags of bags
- Reuse your shopping bags! Really simple and something everyone can do.
- Instead of picking up new ones, just take back ones you got last time (you will soon get into the habit of remembering to take them)
- Buy bags for life and use them each time
- Request a reusable cotton shopping bag by filling in the feedback form on the site and use it each time
- Reduce Packaging
- Reuse your carrier bags
- Buy fruit and veg loose instead of putting it in bags and buying pre-packed goods. (Better still, grown you own, buy from local markets or have a veg box delivered to your home)
- Try to buy goods with less packaging on them and when it is unavoidable look for packaging you can recycle locally
- Bulk buy goods where possible
- Look for goods, such a fabric conditioners that use refillable containers.
- Choose durable and reusable items
- Spend a little more and buy goods with a longer life span or that can be repaired. It will stop items being thrown away after only a few years (or months!)
- Buy rechargeable batteries and a charger. (Batteries are very toxic in landfills)
- Choose Real nappies instead of disposable ones. There are so many to choose from and you can ask for a free trail to find what best suits you and your baby. See our Real Nappy page for more information.
- Home compost
- Buy a home compost bin. The council may provide a collection for composting but the best thing to do is to make compost at home. There are also financial benefits as it avoids the collection and treatment of waste (that you pay for through your council tax) and it saves you buying compost as you have a free supply. See our home compost page for more information
- Composting of garden food waste is also an easy way to stop climate change. If this bio-degrable material goes to landfill it produces methane, which contributes to climate change.
- Reuse Envelopes
- Reusing envelopes is often done in offices, but can be done at home as well.
- You can buy reuse label to help you do this. (See www.recyclenow.com) Next time you receive some mail in a sturdy envelope, such as a jiffy bag, use it again and save a bit of money too!
- Use charity shops, community groups and our Swap and Sell!
- Charity shops are an ideal place to find something you need on a budget and are a good way to ensure your unwanted goods don't go to waste. They stock loads of stuff from clothes, shoes, books, kitchenware and so much more. To find out where your local shops are go to www.charityshops.org.uk
- Swap and Sell Our swap and sell website is a free service for the residents of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. Don't just throw it away, see if you can swap it or sell it! swapandsell.recap.co.uk
- Donate it. Don't Dump it! There are plenty of community recycling and reuse organisations in the area that may be able to take your unwanted items.
Visit our community network page: www.recap.co.uk
Brita Water Filters
If you use Brita Water Filters, don't just bin them when you’re finished, recycle them by simply collecting up 6 and sending them to: Brita Recycling, FREEPOST NAT 17876, Bicester, OX26 4BR. (Ian G's Top Tip) from www.recyclenow.com
Furniture re-use network
Four million children in the live in households that cannot afford to replace worn out or broken furniture and three million children live in households that cannot afford to replace broken electrical items. Source DWP March 2007
The FRN is the national body which supports, assists and develops charitable re-use organisations across the UK . We do this to reduce poverty by helping households in need access furniture, white goods and other household items at affordable prices. In addition, we support re-use organisations in providing training and work placement opportunities for people who are socially excluded.
Approximately 400 re-use organisations work with social and environmental aims across the UK . These vary in size from small local charities to large social enterprises. Some are attached to housing associations, development trusts and councils for voluntary service
Our local organisations are below. Contact them if you have any items of furniture that you no longer want.
CAMBRIDGE
(furniture & electrical items)
EMMAUS CAMBRIDGE LTD
Green End
Land Beach
Cambridgeshire
CB4 8ED
Tel: 01223 863657
Email: info@emmauscambridge.org
Web:www.emmauscambridge.org
HUNTINGDON
ST BARNABAS FURNITURE PROJECT
2 Blackstone Road
Huntingdon
Cambs
PE29 6EF
Tel. 01480 437755
PETERBOROUGH
(furniture & electricals)
COMPASS
24 Maxwell Rd,
Woodston,
Peterborough,
PE2 7JD
Tel: 01733 310107
Email: dave@compasspeterboroughltd.com
We believe that the Parish Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Godmanchester, exists to build up the individual and corporate spiritual life of our Church and to spread the love of Christ through word and deed, by enabling those who live and work within our town to come into contact with God’s love and come to faith in Christ.