Sat 5 and Fri 11 Jan are "Give Days". Sun 13 Jan is "Take Day"

Link to web site

"Stuff for Free is a giant community reuse event – helping redistribute good quality stuff to a new home where it will be valued. 

"This weekend it’s brought to you by Healthy Planet and West London Waste Authority to encourage reuse and reduce landfill so you’ll be helping the environment and helping yourself."

Give Days:
Saturday 5th January 2013, from 10am – 2pm,
Friday 11th January, from 8am – 2pm.

The Take Day:
when you can get useful items for free is Sunday 13th January.

Location:
The Vision, Warehouse 15, Kendal Avenue, Acton, W3 0AF

Warehouse 15 is in the section near the mini roundabout by the John Lewis depot. Parking is available, please make sure you park sensibly and do not block in other vehicles or block the exit.  (More details)

Overpackaging: The alternative

"It sells everything you could ever need for a great meal.
There's only one catch – 
it won't give you anything to take it all home in."
Link to The Independent

"If you ever find yourself eyeing the kitchen bin guiltily, with its vast mound of plastic packets, cardboard containers and wrappers, you might be interested to know there's a whole movement that aims to go one better than even recycling: precycling, or cutting out packaging in the first place.

"Among those at the forefront of this consumer revolution is Unpackaged, a first-of-its-kind shop that eschews all packaging and invites customers to bring in their own containers and Tupperware to stock up on essentials such as flour, cereals, nuts, pasta, rice, lentils and so on. Bring bottles for oils, apple juice, wine and even gin. Simply weigh your container when you arrive so it can be deducted from the overall weight and then get filling. 

"Not only will you save money but by foregoing packaging you'll reduce the amount of material waste being either sent to landfills or incinerated."

Why Packaging?

"It’s hard to visit a landfill site without being struck by the craziness of taking very valuable minerals and resources out of the ground, using a lot of energy, turning them into short-life products and then just dumping them back into the ground. It’s an absolutely monumental waste of energy and resources. As someone from the fashion industry might say, its just so last century."

(Michael Pawlyn, The Guardian, November 21 2005)

The Problem with Packaging

Whilst some packaging is necessary in our modern industrialised food chain, unnecessary packaging is a waste:  

• Cost: It increases the price of the goods you buy. You are charged twice – first when you buy overpackaged products and then through council tax for disposing of your rubbish.
• Waste: It wastes resources at every level: production, storage, transport and disposal.
• Pollution: Landfill and incineration are the two main ways of dealing with un-recyclable packaging waste. These are major pollutants for people and the environment as they release greenhouse gases.

"What about recycling? While some packaging is recycled, most ends up in landfill sites and some packaging is difficult and impossible to recycle. Recycling is certainly part of the solution, but it will only work if we use less packaging and adopt more ‘reusable’ ways of doing things – Unpackaged is based on this ethos. Remember:

• Reduce by only buying what you need
• Reuse by bringing your containers for a refill
• Recycle what you can’t reuse.

"And… if you can’t reuse or recycle it, then don’t buy it!"

New Year, New North London Waste Plan

"Work on developing a new North London Waste Plan is scheduled to start in the New Year after a planning inspector ruled the existing document was unsuitable.

"The new North London Waste Plan (NLWP) will be drawn up by Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Hackney, Haringey, Islington and Waltham Forest Councils.

"It will set out how much waste the seven boroughs need to process, explain how planning applications for waste facilities in the boroughs will be decided and identify enough sites for waste management.

"A spokesperson for the NLWP, said:

“We have listened to the decision of the planning inspector and while we are disappointed with his decision, we believe the most appropriate way forward is to not adopt the current plan and start work on a new one as early as possible in the New Year.

We need to deal with more of our own rubbish and we’re determined to produce a plan that meets the needs of North London and identifies how the waste management facilities we need can be provided.

We’ll take the information we gathered in producing the original plan and use that as the basis for the new version, while taking into account the comments made by the planning inspector, so the work we’ve done to date will not be wasted. It's worth bearing in mind that the original plan was produced before the duty to co-operate was introduced.”

"Planning Inspector Andrew Mead was appointed to examine the NLWP but on the first day of the hearing in June he only heard evidence over whether the seven boroughs had failed to comply with the new Duty to Co-operate with local authorities who receive waste for landfill from North London.

"In August the Inspector decided the NLWP was not legally compliant because it did not meet the duty to co-operate and as result the examination into the soundness of the plan could not continue.

"To formally end the examination of the old NLWP the boroughs will now ask the Inspector to write his report which will recommend that the plan is not adopted and to start on a new version of the plan.

"This will formally call a halt to the old plan and enable work to start on the new plan.

"The boroughs will be writing to partners in the New Year to tell them about the new plan and how they can get involved.

Greens: London Councils Guilty of 'Greenwash'

Link to businessGreen

" 'Lambeth recycling rate soars!' screamed the headline on Lambeth's website. But the figures unraveled further down the page. The council explained the surge in recycling came from a switch from sending waste to landfill to sending compostoble or recyclable waste to an 'energy from waste (EfW)' plant in Bexley, rather than a recycling plant.

"The council had also counted bottom ash from the incinerator and other debris that is being used for road building as recycled waste, providing a boost to its recycling rates.

"Wandsworth, a borough of the Western Riverside Waste Authority and user of the Bexley EfW plant for 'residual waste' provided the same explanation for its imrpved recycling figures. Significantly, Wandsworth has revised its recycling figure from 45.9 to 43.8 per cent in the last few days on its council webpage.

"I really don't think it is right for councils to publish inflated recycling figures on their websites, and presumably in its literature to residents, when in fact it does not reflect official data.