 |
The Greening Alton &
Holybourne Campaign
SAVE ENERGY, SAVE MONEY and by SAVING CARBON |
 |
To contact the campaign either
or write to:-
Mrs Chris Chappell, Secretary, Greening Alton & Holybourne Campaign, 65 Ackender Road, Alton, Hampshire. GU34 1JT. Tel 01420 544422
Recycling in our Area
East Hampshire District council - EHDC - our local council, is responsible for our recycling and waste collection.
The good news is that EHDC has been awarded Beacon Council status for its waste, recycling and streetcare
services. EHDC has been praised for its high recycling rate, viewing waste as a resource and encouraging strong
community involvement.
We throw away so much waste in the UK. It would fill the Royal Albert Hall - once every single hour of the day.
In 2007 the UK produced about 100m tons of waste.
Of this domestic waste was 25.6m tons and 34% of this was recycled.
About one-third of the UK's waste is produced by construction and demolition,
and a further third by mining and quarrying.
In 1999 the recycling rate for EHDC was 8%. By 2005/06, this had increased to an impressive 35%. This puts us
at the top among councils in the UK for recycling. In 2006, over 250,000 tonnes of useful materials were brought
back into industrial or other production.
This is a reflection of the hard work and commitment that residents and EHDC have for improving our environment.
EHDC overall is aiming for a 40% or greater recycling rate for domestic waste.
As of June 2007, the recycling rate at Alton's Household Waste recycling centre is currently 72%.
East Hampshire is one of the top recycling areas in the country. The council has been awarded Beacon Council status for its waste handling.
It seems impossible at the moment to open the paper, or switch on the TV or radio, without hearing about
Climate Change and Global Warming. Every item you recycle, every bit of packaging you refuse, every carrier bag
you save, all helps reduce carbon emissions, thus reducing the effects of climate change.
The European Union five step waste reduction hierarchy is:- prevention > reuse > recycling > other recovery > incineration.
By thinking about your actions and changing your habits, you can make a huge difference.
If you put a glass bottle in your landfill bin it will last for a million years but if you recycle it, it can
find other uses in a few weeks. You will also save the energy needed to make fresh glass.
The full strategy for waste recycling in Hampshire can be found by clicking on this link
http://www.mrs-hampshire.org.uk/index.html
Our main Household Waste Recycling Centre - HWRC in Alton is at Omega Park Industrial Estate, Wilsom Road, Alton.
Its opening hours are 1st April to 30th September 8am to 7pm, and 1st October to 31st March
8am to 4pm. Closed Christmas, Boxing and New Year's Day. Telephone 01420 542572. Here is a leaflet.
Why is it very, very important to recycle?
The more fossil fuel energy we use, the more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases escape into the atmosphere and the
worse Global Warming will become.
Every item recycled, saves some of the energy cost associated with making it as a new item.
Many of us automatically buy new and discard the old, whether or not it can be re-used.
As global warming continues, the results will be increasingly devastating, with more unpredictable weather,
encroaching deserts, extreme floods and droughts, new spreading diseases, severe forest fires and
coral reef decline.
Sea levels will rise by 5ft this century, caused by the melting of Polar perennial ice and mountain glaciers.
Large parts of London and low lying land such as the Fens, Essex Marshes, Hull and North Kent will be flooded.
Most current beaches will disappear.
It is now predicted that the sea will become too acid to support current levels of fish stocks and other
beneficial organisms which fix carbon dioxide in their shells. Mussells and other shell fish will die out
which will have a drastic effect on the food sources for other creatures.
Current worldwide population levels will become unsustainable. Already if the current western standard of living
were possible for all mankind, we would need three earths to support everybody. This will lead to increasing conflict.
The longer we delay in reducing our production of greenhouse gases, in particular carbon dioxide,
the greater the economic cost to make corrections and live a good life will become. The opportunity to
prepare for change is now before any further crisis develops. The sixth great extinction of most life on earth will be entirely a human achievement.
Global greenhouse gas emissions are set to rise by 52% by 2030 if current cunsumption patterns continue.
The UK with about 1% of the world's population produces 2.3% of the world's carbon dioxide.
Even if the whole of Europe became super-green now it would not be enough to reverse the global trend.
We need to encourage the developing world to be more efficient as well as
demonstrating to China and other similar countries that it is possible to be green while still having a vibrant economy.
Europe's collective role in combating climate change will ultimately be
through us being exemplars to the rest of the world on how to be a successful low-carbon economy. We
will also be able to provide them with the proven technology they will really need.
A total of 106.4 billion people are estimated to have lived on earth since man first appeared about 50,000 B.C.
5.8% of all the people who have ever been born, are alive today. Every year, global population increases by
about 78 million people. By 2050, world population is projected to reach nine billion, a 38% jump from today's
6.5 billion. It is estimated that humanity is consuming the earth's resources 20% faster than
they can be sustained. Until the modern era, world population grew slowly. During the next eight milleniums,
population grew at 0.05% per year, reaching 300 million in 1 A.D. During the following 16 centuries,
the annual growth rate fluctuated, partly because of the Black Death, which ravaged 14th century Europe.
Today, there are six times as many people alive as at the start of the industrial revolution and 20 times
more than during the Roman Empire. This is totally unsustainable. The consequences for humanity will be dire.
The greatest recorded human disaster so far is about three million dead in the 1931 Chinese Yellow River flood.
AIDS has so far infected 36 million people with as yet no definite cure.
For more about this please click here.
The full Stern report, a weighty document on the economics of climate change can be found by clicking on this link
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independent_reviews/stern_review_economics_climate_change/stern_review_report.cfm
Here is a link to European Union Waste Legislation.
The results of the BBC sponsored multiple-PC,simulation on the effects of Global Warming are
here on the BBC website.
As much as one can predict, here are some possible effects of global warming on Alton and its area.
Here is a link to the latest comprehensive, authorative climate change report predicting a 3 degree centigrade temperature rise
from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
and here is their
April 2007 update.
More UK nuclear power stations are not a good idea. There is no instant solution for radioactive waste disposal which is a 20,000 year long term storage
responsibility ie for 10 times recorded history. The cost of current nuclear waste handing is put at an estimated £billion. Fast
breeder reactors only solve part of the problem. It takes at least 500 years
for the wastes to lose most of their initial high level radioactivity. Although the government says that it has asked for assurances
from nuclear companies, like bankers, they will just be able to walk away from their responsibilities. New nuclear power stations
will come on stream too late for the UK and will take funds from other better long term solutions.
Split wood, not atoms!
Here is an excellent solution to energy provision without using nuclear power.
top of page
Items to put in Your Recycling Bin
EHDC operates an alternate weekly kerbside recycling and refuse collection service
from wheeled bins Only. This means collections take place fortnightly with
the black recycling bin being collected one week and the green refuse bin the next.
(Yes, it is illogical but black means recycle!)
Reliance on landfill or incinerators is reduced. EHDC exceeds national recycling targets
and thus protects council tax payers' pockets, by reducing the likelihood of EHDC having to pass on Government
anti-pollution fines to the Council Tax payer.
Here is a link to help you decide which bin to put out
http://www.easthants.gov.uk/ehdc/recyclingandwaste.nsf/
The lid on your refuse bin must be closed otherwise it will not be emptied.
If the lid is not closed, the contractors will take out any bags necessary to close the lid, empty the bin, and
then return the surplus bag(s) back into the bin.
The standard green refuse and black recycling bins have a capacity of 240 litres which is sufficient
for a family of up to five. Only one green refuse bin per property will be emptied unless authorisation has
been given by the Council for families of six or in certain circumstances. You may have more than one recycling bin per household.
Both recycling and refuse bins can be missed for a variety of reasons, please make sure:
• Was your bin put out by 07:00am on your collection day?
• Was it at the correct collection point?
• Was the correct material in the bin?
Recycling (Clean, Dry and Loose)
Newspapers/magazines, catalogues and cardboard. Please take magazines out of their plastic wrappers.
Please take inside bags out of cereal and other boxes - they are mostly plastic.
Steel and aluminium drink and food cans - just wash out briefly. (No need to put them in the dishwasher!)
Plastic bottles (types 1 & 2 only) - either take the tops off or ideally loosen the top, squash the bottle and retighten the top.
Of the 13 billion plastic bottles bought in the UK in 2006, just 2.7 billion were recycled.
Five recycled plastic bottles make one extra large T-shirt.
No other plastics and definitely no glass.
No yellow pages - the glue, and print more than six months old does not recycle.
No shredded paper - it clogs up the sorting equipment. Its ok in dedicated paper bins.
No Polystyrene - too light to transport.
No Tetra Pak drinks cartons - you can recycle them at the Winnall Tesco in Winchester if passing.
No plastic bags - they clog up the machinery.
No aluminium foil.
Refuse - most goes to incineration in Hampshire.
No stones or brick rubble
No DIY material such as paint/chemicals or oil
No hot ashes
No commercial/industrial waste
No poisonous or noxious waste
No electrical products
Please put Christmas wrap in your refuse bin - it is usually made of plastic film, foil or heavily
printed low gradepaper along with sticky tape. Ideally try alternatives such as ribbons or decorative
bags or boxes which can be used again.
EHDC now in 2007 is collecting glass jars and bottles from home addresses on a monthly basis for free.
Each household has been provided with a free recycling box for this kerbside collection. Glass can be mixed
colours unlike the bottlebank collections which will still continue at the usual points. (Some wine bottles
now have metal screw caps so remove these before recycling.) Items like drinking glasses are not the same as bottles.
If they are whole, why not take them to a charity shop?
If a bottle bank is full, then telephone 01730 234295 to get it emptied.
In the last 12 months in 2007, EHDC residents saved about 775 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions just by recycling their plastic bottles.
The contents of your recycling bin are sent to the Materials Recovery Facility on the A31 just to the north
of Alton. Plastic bottles end up as fleeces or black plastic pipes and gutters. Newspapers with 30% of magazines
to provide the whitening clay needed, go to make more newspapers. Lower grade cardboard and paper make cardboard tubes.
The lowest grade cardboard makes more cardboard boxes. Steel cans, removed by magnets, make a multitude of steel items.
Aluminium cans make more drink cans. Both glass and aluminium can be recycled indefinitely. As both glass and aluminium require
high energy input to make them from raw materials, recycling can make a large energy saving of up to 95%.
Garden Waste is collected fortnightly as an additional Collection Service on your recycling collection day,
for which there is an annual charge of £18 for the first sack and £9 for the second and subsequent sacks.
To join this scheme, telephone 01730 234295.
Here is a link to EHDC recycling tips and information.
To efficiently compost at home, divide your compostable material into greens and browns.
Examples of greens are fruit and vegetable peelings, apple cores, teabags, coffee grounds, grass cuttings and old flowers.
Browns are dry hedge trimmings, twigs, torn up cardboard and paper, paper mache egg boxes, egg shells, tissues,
toilet roll tubes, shredded paper, straw and hay.
The ideal mix is roughly 50:50 of each by volume.
You can easily make a compost bin by cutting the bottom off a plastic dustbin and siting it on some bare soil.
Use the lid to keep out scavengers and insects.
top of page
Items Recycled at the Alton Recycling Centre
The following items can be recycled at the HWRC in Omega Park, Alton.
In in doubt, please ask as the staff are very helpful and motivated.
UK countrywide, only 15% of old mobile phones are recycled. Electronic equipment generates 915,000 tonnes of
waste per annum - 43% comes from large household applances and 39% from IT equipment.
The following hazardous waste items can be accepted at the Alton Recycling Centre. They are stored in dedicated lockable
containers and then taken for specialist and safe disposal.
This includes items such as white spirit, paint brush cleaner, hazardous paint products (those marked
with black and orange hazard symbols), descalers, stain removers,
drain cleaners, glues, photographic chemicals, oven cleaners and swimming pool cleaners.
Also classified are garden products such as pesticides, insecticides, fungicides & weed killers and
car maintenance products such as antifreeze, brake fluid, lubricants & degreasers. (Used tyres are not accepted
even though they can be used say for retreading, granulated for sports surfaces, children's play areas &
equestrian applications or burnt in power stations and cement kilns.
A tyre replacement company will typically charge a £1 for safe legal disposal. Some people prefer to leave them by the road side in a layby!!)
Fire extinguishers are also classified as hazardous waste.
Here is a list of glass recycling (and sometimes other recycling) banks in/around Alton:-
Alton Victoria Road
Alton Lady Place Car Park
Alton Raven Square
Alton Sainsbury's Car Park
Alton Sports Centre
Alton Turk Street Car Park
Bentworth Village Hall
Binsted Recreation Ground
Four Marks Oak Green Shops
Froyle Village Hall
Medstead Village Hall
Wield Village Hall
| If not now - When? | If not here - Where? | If not me - Who? |
(Change the " at " to @)