Little Wenlock C Red
Little Wenlock Carbon Reduction Action Group Newsletter 5
(Aiming to reduce our carbon emissions by 20% by the end of the year)
Others are doing it too!
Hilary has just come back from a conference held at Ashton Hayes, the Cheshire village aiming to be the first village to become carbon neutral.
140 people attended from all over the UK, with many on the waiting list that couldn’t get in. Groups were represented from as far apart as Cornwall and North Scotland, as well as many others there to find out how to start a group in their own community.
They ranged from those that started with a bit of recycling and home composting and now moving on to tackle climate change (a lot like us in fact!) to those that have plunged straight in for the full package of trying to save the planet.
Some groups were the size of just one street in a town, many villages and others were large towns such as Chester and Stirling, and we were told that Ken Livingstone wants to start in London.
The key note speaker described the potential climate chaos and urged us all to continue to
‘save energy as if the world depended on it, because it may very well do so’.
Recycling
As a village that’s been recycling stuff for years, and now has red boxes and green wheelie bins that make it even easier, you may think we know all about it. But did you know that recycling saves vast amounts of energy too:
Recycling ONE ALUMINIUM CAN saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours.
Recycling ONE GLASS BOTTLE saves enough energy to light a 100watt bulb (or 5 low energy 20watt bulbs) for 4 hours.
The Little Wenlock PAPERBANK recycled 10 tonnes of paper last year, saving 23 cubic meters of landfill, 170 trees, 320,000 litres of water, 27kg of air pollutants,42,000kWh of electricity, and raising £380 for Village Hall Funds.
25 plastic PET bottles can be used to make an adult fleece jacket.
Currently only 3% of plastic bottles get recycled, largely because they still can’t go into our red boxes, but they can now be taken to Plastic Banks at Sainsburys & Morrisons, as well as Ketley Brook & Halesfield recycling centres.
Other possibilities include passing old furniture etc on for reuse to Chairs & Spares, a Telford based charity. Follow the environment links on www.telford.gov.uk
Don’t forget ebay for selling unwanted items, but there is also freecycle a website to pass on wanted stuff for free. www.freecycle.org
Unwanted computer hardware can be passed on for reuse too, see www.digital-links.org
Did you know:
Boilers that are over 15 -20 years old may be only 60-70% efficient, and therefore wasting 30-40% of your heat and money up the flue pipe. From this month building regulations require that when you replace an old oil boiler, it will have to be with an ‘A’ or ‘B’ rated condensing boiler, and therefore 85-95% efficient.
For information about the Magic Boiler scheme for ‘A’ rated boilers at discount prices, and £300 grants for pensioners if your boiler breaks down call the Energy Efficiency Advice Centre 0800 512012
Summer is a good time to replace boilers as heating engineers are less busy.
Next C Red meeting Thursday 17th May, 7.30pm, In the Huntsman, come and join us
For your free Home Energy Survey call the
Energy Efficiency Advice Centre on
0800 512012
or request a home visit from hilary@eec.org.uk
