Welcome to Suffolk Recycling’s Spring newsletter. As the clocks go forward this weekend, we are looking forward to longer and lighter evenings to give us more time to engage and be inspired by our gardens and the wonderful Suffolk countryside as they burst into life. Our newsletter has lots of helpful hints and tips to encourage your greener behaviours this Spring!
Use Your Loaf and the Tasty Toastie competition
Crumbs! Did you know that over 20 million slices of bread are wasted every day across the UK and that bread is the most wasted food item by Suffolk residents? And it’s not just bread, each year billions of pounds worth of edible food gets thrown away! Saving food is a great way to save some dough and help the planet too. There’s lots you can do to make sure you #UseYourLoaf
Store bread the savvy way – think of your freezer as your best friend
Only buy what you need – check the cupboards before you go to the supermarket
Use what you buy – got stale bread? What about rustling up a quick bread and butter pudding?
As part of the #UseYourLoaf campaign, Food Savvy is running a Tasty Toastie competition. Toasties are great way to use up nearly stale bread as well as other leftovers for the filling. It’s a win-win! Simply have a go at creating a toastie and send your photo, drawing, recipe or mini film to Hubbub to be in for a chance of winning some great prizes. The competition is open to everyone in Suffolk and Norfolk; adults, primary school children and secondary school children and opens until midnight on Sunday 10th April. For all the details head to the competition page here: www.foodsavvy.org.uk/tasty-toastie
For more bread savvy tips and recipe inspiration to #UseYourLoaf visit www.foodsavvy.org.uk/use-your-loaf
Glass – It’s better in the bank
Glass bottles and jars are 100% recyclable and can be recycled into new bottles and jars over and over and over again, but only if they are taken to a glass bank and not placed in your household recycling bin! We don’t accept glass in Suffolk’s household recycling bins and any glass mistakenly put into your recycling bin at home will not get recycled. The Glass- It’s Better in the Bank campaign is designed to remind residents to take their empty bottles and jars to glass banks whenever possible. It will be featured on social media, radio, bus backs and supermarket billboards over the next few months. Bin crews will also be checking bins at the kerbside and recycling bins may be rejected if they contain glass! Up to 5,000 tonnes of glass bottles and jars are mistakenly placed into Suffolk’s household recycling bins every year. This glass has to be removed at our Materials Recycling Facility ( https://suffolkrecycling.org.uk/learning-zone/where-recycling-goes ), where Suffolk’s household recycling is taken for sorting. This costs taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds every year. In addition, glass can spoil other recyclable materials, especially paper and card, which means that they may not get recycled.
By supporting our #GlassItsBetterInTheBank campaign and taking your glass bottles and jars to your local glass bank you will:
Ensure your glass gets recycled
Improve the quality of Suffolk’s recycling
Help fight climate change by protecting valuable natural resources
Find out where you can recycle glass and lots more information including a full set of FAQs at https://suffolkrecycling.org.uk/where-to-recycle/glass-recycling
Home Composting – make the most of our offers!
If you are keen to do your bit to reduce your impact on the planet and grab a bargain at the same time please be aware that March 31st is the last opportunity to take advantage of Suffolk Council's subsidised compost bins at 2021 prices! A range of compost bins and accessories are available to buy through the Get Composting campaign - with systems such as Hotbins and Bokashi Digesters (both able to deal with all food waste) subsidised to Suffolk residents. The prices are subsidised by the Suffolk Waste Partnership to encourage home composting and you just need to live in Suffolk to take advantage of the offers! Compost bins will still be available through Get Composting when the campaign relaunches from April - but we can't guarantee that all the prices will be the same, so get them while they're Hot(bins!)
The Great British Spring Clean 25 Mar-10 April
Suffolk Recycles and local councils are once again supporting Keep Britain Tidy’s annual national campaign the Great British Spring Clean (www.keepbritaintidy.org/get-involved/support-our-campaigns/great-british-spring-clean/). This involves members of our communities taking positive action to improve our environment by removing litter that has escaped into our neighbourhoods and natural areas. It’s a great way of meeting up outdoors and keeping active whilst benefitting our local communities. It helps to keep Suffolk looking beautiful for those who live, work, study and visit here as well as making it safer for our wildlife. If you and other volunteers from your school, neighbourhood, workplace or community want to get involved, help is on hand from your local council who can help with the onward removal and safe disposal of the litter that your team capture and may have litter equipment to lend. See our litter picking page for contact details and a calendar of forthcoming community litter picks in Suffolk: Suffolk litter picking - Suffolk Recycling (www.suffolkrecycling.org.uk/learning-zone/get-involved/Suffolk-litter-picking ) The Marine Conservation Society analyses data from litter surveys by volunteers and take an evidence-based approach to lobby for changes in legislation. If you’re interested in contributing to citizen science whilst clearing litter follow these links to find out about the MCS marine litter Beachwatch (www.mcsuk.org/what-you-can-do/join-a-beach-clean/) or inland litter Source to Sea Litter Quest surveys (https://www.mcsuk.org/what-you-can-do/join-a-beach-clean/source-to-sea-litter-quest/).
A Final Word from the Suffolk Waste Partnership Chair – Cllr James Mallinder
I love this time of year and it’s great to see our wonderful county bursting into life. It reminds us that we can all play our part in looking after the environment by taking simple actions ourselves at home. By cutting down on food waste and by recycling our glass correctly, we can all make a direct contribution to reducing waste and making the most of the earth’s valuable resources. Food waste is an enormous contributor to carbon emissions and these small actions really can add up to make a big difference. By making compost at home where we can, it’s easy to turn unavoidable food waste, such as fruit and veg peelings and grass cuttings, into nutritious soil improver for the garden to encourage better growth without incurring any transport costs and their related emissions! I do hope that you will take advantage of our great offers we have for composting systems for Suffolk residents. And there is more we can do outside the home too. The Great British Spring Clean provides a focus for us all to get out in our local streets, parks and beaches and help to keep Suffolk looking clean and beautiful. I would like to thank all the people of Suffolk who take part in these wonderful community events throughout the year. By taking these small individual measures we can collectively work towards combatting climate change as well as making Suffolk an even better place to live!
Use our A-Z of recycling for the best ways to reduce, reuse and recycle most items and if you can't find what you need let us know! www.suffolkrecycling.org.uk