Why is it important?
- Material extraction, such as deforestation or intensive farming and fishing damages our vital ecosystems.
- Manufacturing and delivery of things uses lots of energy, which means burning fossil fuels that accelerate climate change
- Waste and pollution is often created throughout the process and in many cases the final product becomes waste, if it breaks, becomes obsolete or we simply no longer want it.
What we buy can fuel global warming, damages our ecosystems, and pollutes our environment.
Household waste in Bury
52% of household waste in Bury is reused, recycled, or composted. 66% of household waste is reused, recycled, or composted in the best performing similar local authority area. Link.
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What can I do in my community
Many of our actions to reduce, reuse and recycle are individual one, whether its the choices we make when we buy (or don’t buy!) something or efforts we make to recycle or donate things when we no longer need them. But communities can also work together to share, swap, borrow, create, clean up, and campaign to reduce waste and consumption.
Shop no plastic, low impact
‘Zero-waste’, shops are local businesses that focus on principles of zero-waste, sourcing local produce that is produced in a more sustainable and ethical way. Support this businesses and ask them for advice!
Bury:
Flora no Fauna: A zero-waste shop in Bury town centre following the principles of reduce, reuse and recycle. They also run workshops to inform, encourage and educate the community about sustainable living.
Ramsbottom:
Plentiful: Buy better food, with less packaging. A supermarket owned by the community that sells organic fresh fruit & veg, sustainable deli food, refillable toiletry and household items.
Prestwich:
Village Greens: Buy better food, with less packaging. A supermarket owned by the community that sells organic fresh fruit & veg, sustainable deli food, refillable toiletry and household items.
Choose second-hand
Facebook groups:
Waste Savers Ramsbottom, Bury and Rossendale: a group to connect neighbours with each other so surplus food and items can be shared and not thrown away.
Freecycle Bury: an online, grassroots & entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving and getting stuff for free in their own Towns
Radcliffe:
List anything specific to individual townships.
Swapping, sharing and borrowing
Facebook group: Free to a good home Bury and surrounding areas. This group is for people to give away things they no longer want or need. Electronics, household items, clothing, free services or anything else you can think of.
School Uniform Swap Shop: A Facebook group set up to swap or donate school uniforms.
Whitefield:
List anything specific to individual townships.
🍅 Food waste
Prestwich:
Foodcycle Prestwich helps nourish the hungry and lonely in our communities with delicious meals and great conversation, using food which would otherwise go to waste.
Radcliffe:
List anything specific to individual townships.
📱Apps that help you share food and reduce food waste in your local community:
Olio is a mobile app for food-sharing, aiming to reduce food waste and other household items. Fight waste. Help your neighbours. Save our planet. Feel amazing. olioex.com
Too Good To Go is the free app which allows you to purchase unsold food from top eateries at the end of service, to prevent it from being thrown away. … By saving that food from ending up in landfill, you prevent the CO2e released when it decomposes. https://toogoodtogo.co.uk/en-gb
ShareWaste is a free app connecting people who would like to recycle their organic waste but lack access to necessary space and facilities with their neighbours who are composting, worm-farming or keep chickens. https://sharewaste.com/
Litter picking
Keep Bury Clean is a voluntary litter picking group based in Bury. Their aim is to make Bury Clean, Safe and Green Email: keepburyclean@gmail.com / or join their Facebook group.
Radcliffe: Radcliffe Litter Pickers Facebook group
Recycling
TerraCycle is eliminating the Idea of Waste® by recycling the “non-recyclable.” Whether it’s coffee capsules from your home, pens from a school, or plastic gloves from a manufacturing facility, TerraCycle can collect and recycle almost any form of waste. Link: https://www.terracycle.com/en-GB/
What we could do in Bury
Set up a Community Grocery: The Community Grocery is being run by the national award-winning charity, The Message Trust in partnership with local churches. They provide a range of food options fresh from local supermarkets, meaning members can come and shop for their whole family at the fraction of the cost of a supermarket. Whilst also saving hundreds of tonnes of food being wasted each year.
https://communitygrocery.org.uk/
Resources
Useful websites, groups or reading material.
Visit the www.storyofstuff.org to learn more about our consumption-crazed culture
Here you can find lots of tips on how to reduce food waste at home:
https://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/
https://toogoodtogo.co.uk/en-gb/consumer
https://www.loveyourclothes.org.uk
https://buynothingproject.org/community