GreenerCuckfield Community Groups & Events, Nature, recovery, Wildlife

Be a Home Scientist and Save the World!

We can all be home scientists just by observing and recording what is going on around us. Many organisations rely on citizen science (aka crowd science) to get data. This data can make a real difference to where organisations might start projects, what they might ask the government to change and the money they might be able to get to fund their work.

You can have a major role in these citizen science projects. Right now conservation organisations across the UK are asking individuals like you to help them with their important conservation work. There is no way that without members of the public these groups can get a real picture of animal, plant or insect populations right across the country. Take a look at the studies you could be a part of right now:

Butterfly Conservation’s Big Buttery Count
From now until 7th August Butterfly Conservation are asking you to spare 15 minutes to identify and count the butterflies and day flying moths in the area where you are. This could be out on a walk or in your local park or back garden.

Swift Mapper
The RSPB together with other conservation groups are asking us to record swift numbers on their Swift Mapper. This time of year, you might hear the screaming of swifts up and down the streets where you live. These incredible birds travel all the way from Africa to nest here in the UK and the RSPB want to know if you hear groups of swifts (called a screaming party), if you know where there is a nest or even a swift nest box.

Great Eggcase Hunt
If you are heading to the beach this summer, the Shark Trust are interested in the shark and ray egg cases you might find on the shoreline. Known as mermaid’s purses these fascinating egg shells can be seen all over beaches in the UK and will give the Shark Trust a good idea of how different populations of sharks and rays are doing in our waters.

National Bat Monitoring Programme
The Bat Conservation Trust would like your help to keep a track of where the bats are hanging in the UK. They have a number of different monitoring projects they want you to get involved with. You can do a sunset survey, a night watch or a boost count if you have a bat roost near you. If you know how to use a bat detector – the device which can pick up the bats high pitched calls – you could also take part in a full survey.

Mammal Mapper
If you love our furry four legged friends you might want to take part in the Mammal Society‘s Mammal Mapper app. You can record the signs of mammals – such as dropping, footprints or the mammals themselves, when out and about on a walk, run, cycle or even as a car passenger. The Mammal Society are asking all citizen scientist to help them collect this important biological data so they can keep an eye on mammal populations.

Every Flower Counts
White clover, self-heal or something rarer – what wonders are cropping up on your lawn or greenspace this July? Take part in #EveryFlowerCounts to find out. It’s fun, free and helps Plantlife to better understand our grasslands. The second Every Flower Counts survey starts today and says it runs until the 17 July, though we believe you can still submit your results at the moment. No matter how you’ve been managing your lawn, or whether you took part in the first survey in May, you can still take part and find out how many pollinators are benefitting from the floral feast you’ve created. Click here to take part.

These are just some of the ways you can help conservationists across the UK to help protect our beautiful and diverse animals. If you come across any more then please comment on this blog and we can share.  Or email us at hello@greenercuckfield.org

by Nicola Brewerton

GreenerCuckfield Community Groups & Events, Composting, energy, Fashion, Household, Plastic, recipes, Sustainability, sustainable living, Waste Prevention

Sustainabl(ish) Talk Hosted by Fairer World Lindfield

During The Great Big Green Week 2021, Fairer World Lindfield put on a very commendable selection of talks and events to help raise awareness for sustainability and fairer trade. One of the talks was with non other than Jen Gale, founder of Sustainable(ish) and The Knackered Mums Eco Club, author of two best-selling books on sustainable living and to top it off a mother of two.

So please find below the whole talk kindly hosted and recorded by Fairer World Lindfield. I realise not everyone has a spare hour and twenty minutes to watch its entirety. So to save time, please find below the video a description of where to skip to, depending on what you are most curious about.

However, if you do have time to watch it, it is definitely worth it. Jen Gale has many easy-to-do ideas, tips and information relating to sustainability. She is also very down-to-earth and relatable.

skip to 2m 00s for MY STORY…
An introduction of the talk called, Sustainable(ish) in Sixty Minutes and a little bit about the speaker Jen Gale including her accomplishments such as setting up an online community of over 60,000 taking part in imperfect eco action.

skip to 10m51s for THE PROBLEM
Jen explains why there is such a great need for sustainability. Mostly explaining what is happening to our planet because of greenhouse gases. She summarises this into five key points relating to current climate change issues.

skip to 16m06s for THE SOLUTION
Leading with the quote from Dr. Jane Goodall, “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make.” Jen talks about how you can make a difference just by making better decisions more of the time. You do not need to bust a gut changing everything in your life for the good of the planet. You just need to take small sustainable steps that work with your life.

skip to 17m 0sec for THE POWER OF YOU
This is where you can learn what the point is of taking those small steps even though others may not be. Jen elaborates on how and why you have power as a consumer, a citizen, an influencer and a change agent. Thus proving how your efforts to live more sustainably can have such a huge impact on those around you. She gives an example of her workplace when she used to be a vet. It really wound Jen up that there was no recycling and at first she didn’t say anything because she didn’t think she had agency to. However when she eventually did raise the issue, she was met positively by her bosses saying they were happy to do so if she could do some initial research. Point being: you can but ask if you want to make a difference.

skip to 26m49s for DEFINITION OF SUSTAINABLE(ISH)
A term coined by Jen herself. It is the idea that we can be sustainable and live our lives. We just all need to realise that we are going to start from a different point and therefore will each make different changes.

skip to 29m45s for CONSCIOUS CONSUMPTION
A plethora of relatively easy tips and good ideas for things you can do at home and in your life to cut down your carbon emissions.

skip to 40m32s for ZERO WASTE(ISH)
Jen illustrates why we need to prevent waste with some important and interesting facts. Such as the fact that the average person in the UK will throw away their bodyweight in rubbish every 7 weeks. The feature of this segment is the waste hierarchy that shows how to make putting waste in landfill bins a last resort. For example, she points out you can ask yourself how to refuse buying balloons for celebrations or how to reduce your consumption of fashion.

skip to 48m20s for PLASTIC-FREE(ISH)
Ridding yourself of single-use plastic is a tough one for many. Yet so important for the good of our oceans and our wildlife as well as the carbon emissions. Jen puts forward the ‘BIG FOUR’ items that you can swap for reusable versions. She breaks down the issues of plastic production into four main points.

skip to 51m58s for FOOD
Another hot topic, food waste is responsible for a quarter of all global greenhouse gas emissions. One great highlight of this slide is Jen’s suggestion to have an ‘Eat Me First’ Box in the larder or fridge (or both) to help prevent food waste.

skip to 54m22s for AT HOME
Top tips here for changes you can make at home. One of her easiest tips is for you to delete and unsubscribe from emails. When you consider that our emails are all saved on servers, those servers are usually powered by fossil fuels and regardless of how they are powered, they consume a lot of energy – it is a no brainer. You can do this simple task while you watch the television or while waiting for the kettle to boil.

skip to 1h0m52s for DO ONE THING
The conclusion and the question: what one thing can you do today?

skip to 1h02m21s for QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Take advantage of Jen’s expert advice and information coming from her experiences and research. Questions include:

What media and methods has Jen found best to capture peoples imagination and inspire them to start an eco-journey?
What do your children think of your sustainable activities?
What tips do you have on moving your pensions?
Where do you shop? How do you avoid the plastics?

If you liked this talk and would like to watch more of the talks from The Great Big Green Week with Fairer World Cuckfield, please go to their YouTube page where you can find talks on:

Green Energy for Your Home with Nick Owen, Director of HKD Energy and much more

Climate Justice and the Global South with Tearfund

Veggie and Vegan Demo – Food for Thought

Veggie and Vegan Cooking Demo – Sushi!

Peter and Chris from Fairer World Lindfield also run a monthly climate cafe that is worth following. Each talk is online and varies widely in content from sustainable living to how to compost to circular economy. We would love to put on some talks of our own in Cuckfield, so if there is something you would like to know more about, please do let us know via email: hello@greenercuckfield.org

Until we meet again, thanks for your time, Cuckfielders and Mid Sussexonians.

GreenerCuckfield Community Groups & Events, cuckfield, energy, Sustainability, sustainable living, Waste Prevention

Why Recycling Earns and How to Help

In May 2020, Greener Cuckfield hosted its first talk thanks to guests Colin McFarlin and Joanne Clayton. Unfortunately, we did not record it so here is a summary for your perusal.

Did you know that recycling is actually all about reselling? Selling your recycling brings in funds for our council and other councils around the country. On the other hand, sending recycling to Landfill is expensive and heavily taxed by our government.  All topics of which we explored during our talk with Colin.

All our recycling goes to the recycling plant (the MRF) at Ford, Nr Arundel. 69,800 tonnes of recycling are sold on to markets from all of your West Sussex recycling. Of that amount, last year’s numbers show that 46.05 per cent was paper and card and 30.6 per cent was glass bottles and jars. All recyclable and reused over and over again. However, 9.18% was contaminated and had a further journey to the MBT.

MBT is the West Sussex County Council (WSCC) plant in Horsham where all of our black bin waste goes. It is shredded and then mechanically separated into paper, plastic and metals. The plastics and paper will be turned into refuse derived fuel, fuel pellets for industry, and the metals will be sent for recycling. Any biodegradable waste will be sent to the anaerobic digestion tanks.  The rest of the waste which is usually around a quarter of the total amount cannot be recycled and goes on to landfill. The good news is that this has gone down by nearly 3 per cent last year so we are on the right track.

Landfill Tax means that £96.70 per tonne goes straight to the government. If you are anything like me and a bit rubbish with visualising big volumes remember that one bin lorry can hold roughly 10 tonnes of waste. With gate fees and costs that means one bin lorry of landfill costs around £1,500 if going to landfill. Reducing landfill by 1 per cent would save WSCC  £200,000. You can imagine the good we could all do with that money. Recycling in West Sussex saved our county council £5.8 million last year in avoiding Landfill Tax.

WSCC has many initiatives in the pipeline including facilitating clothing, food waste and absorbent hygiene products to be recycled. Post lockdown education is an important part of their plans. The team are hoping to offer educational talks to schools, colleges and groups as well as site visits to Ford MRF and Horsham MBT.

One project that has already come to fruition is that you can now recycle small electrical items with your rubbish bin. WSCC are offering discounted compost bins on their website.  

Whether West Sussex recycling can get the amount of contaminated recycling down from 9 per cent to 6 per cent is largely up to individual households. It is in everyone’s interests to do so because recycling earns. The West Sussex County Council can actually profit from our recycling bins whereas it costs to recycle from rubbish bins.

Although West Sussex is currently doing well with a recycling rate of 53% (national figure 44.7%) we could still be doing better. From all that is disposed of in the black bins around 40 per cent of the total is food waste and 19 per cent is ending up in the wrong bin. So you can see by collecting food waste separately our households will greatly reduce the volume and smells in your black top rubbish bin.

Apart from knowing what to put in the right bins, we can help prevent waste by using other options. Wraps and packaging are a pest for most waste conscious people. One solution is Terracycling which means you can get rid of a lot of things that can’t be recycled at the kerbside For instance, crisp packets, cheese packets, plastic soap dispenser pumps, toothpaste tubes etc.

At the moment Greener Cuckfield only collects the crisp packets for the village. We are working on creating more convenient ways for residents to get rid of these items but until then you will need to drop to Joanne at Haywards Heath Recyclers. You do not need to sort these into separate bags for each product or material but do make sure that the waste you are bringing to Joanne are the right materials. Find Joanne on Facebook ‘Haywards heath Recyclers’ for full list and her address.

Did you know that plastic bags, bread bags are all the things you can now take to any major supermarket?  Or that milk bottle tops can go to Cuckfield Local Market? The Tip is always good for getting rid of larger items or for a good spring clean but don’t forget you also have kerbside charity collection bags, Facebook, charity shops, eBay and repair cafes.

If you have any questions or you want to find out more about what to recycle have a look at  Colin’s Facebook Group, ‘Colin Waste Prevention Advisor’ For those not on Facebook, you could also keep an eye on Cuckfield Life as Colin regularly writes articles with lots of facts that can increase awareness.

Recycling in West Sussex also has a new, comprehensive website that is worth looking at: Recycling and Waste Prevention in West Sussex

For a full overview of how to prepare your recycling check out this WSCC Recycling Page

Greener Cuckfield would love to hear from people who have recycling hacks and tips for their kitchen. Especially if it is a kitchen with small space. How do you sort and get rid of yours? Email hello@greenercuckfield.org and let us know.

by Vicky Koch

GreenerCuckfield cuckfield, Sustainability

Looking to the future…

It’s New Year’s Eve! A classic time for creating new resolutions. A wonderful time to think of the changes you would like to see occur in the year ahead.

So what can we do differently in Cuckfield in 2021? If you are following our Facebook page, you will already know that we’re in the process of sorting out terracycling bins. These bins will give us the chance to recycle a lot more than is accepted in the blue bins. However this is only the beginning. There are so many possibilities!

Once the vaccinations are rolled out in the village and life begins to return to normal, we will be looking to facilitate many more community activities and events to help keep up our motivation and introduce new ways of being greener.

GROUP TRIPS

Wouldn’t it be great to find out more about the local recycling sites, or where our terracycling goes after we have dropped it off? A visit to the two West Sussex based solar farms or large energy storage facility (due to be built in Sompting in 2021) would be fascinating. Another great field trip could be to go to Rampion Wind Farm that runs along the south coast and is now in its last stage of development.

TALKS AT THE QUEEN’S HALL

There are so many topics that we can cover around being greener. Ideally, we want to host talks next year on subjects such as circular economy, how to waste less and climate change. We could organise talks with nearby zero waste companies about how and why they have set up these shops. Or reach out to the Cuckfield residents involved in sustainability, conservation or studying ethical issues. Having these sorts of events is also going to be a great opportunity to bring together local businesses and find out what actions they are taking to do their bit for our planet. I know there are many out there!

REPAIR CAFE

A repair cafe is somewhere you can take your broken items to get them fixed by skilled volunteers rather than throw them away. Cuckfield is actually surrounded by them. To name a few, there are cafes in Burgess Hill, Chailey, Hassocks and Horsham.

Different cafes repair different things depending on their skills. For instance, at the cafe in Hassocks they specialise in repairing tools, household appliances, furniture and textiles. Burgess Hill offers all of the aforementioned repairs but also attempts to fix computers, phones and sound equipment. Could we gear towards having something similar here by the end of 2021? Do we have budding or brilliant DIY experts who would be willing to get together? Time will tell.

LIBRARY OF THINGS

Have you ever wanted to just use something once but you did not want to buy it nor could you find anyone to borrow it from? An item you seldom need like a tent or hedge-cutters for which you can’t justify the environment impact or cost of purchasing outright? Well, the library of things is made especially for these sorts of issues. Sadly, none are nearby – the nearest one is in Crystal Palace – but wouldn’t it be wonderful to start a site in Cuckfield, and be able to lend and borrow when and where we want? Just a little thing but the impact would be great.

____________________

There are plenty of other things that we could do as a community, especially in one as lovely as ours. Let’s see what 2021 brings. We plan to have a stall at Cuckfield Local in the near future so that we can find out what you, the residents of Cuckfield, would like.

In the meantime, Happy New Year!! 🌎🌈🎉

GreenerCuckfield cuckfield

Cuckfield Local

Volunteer led, Cuckfield Local runs a market on the second Tuesday of every month for local businesses selling local produce. From delicious fresh fruit, vegetables and eggs from the nearby farms to wax wraps made with the help of the sellers bees, there is something for everyone.

Their aims and endeavours are on their website with a list of successful projects that include promoting a plastic bag free Cuckfield, developing a community garden and building and populating a bee hive at that Community garden.

A lovely selection of soaps from Weatherseeds Soaps.

Cuckfield Local are always looking for new volunteers and ideas for projects and solutions that we can implement in the village to help the planet. Email cuckfieldlocal@gmail.com for more details or go to https://cuckfieldlocal.wordpress.com/