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What it's all about
Let the community handle its own waste disposal.
Currently Mersey Waste hold the Merseyside waste disposal contract. This is a private company that makes money from people dumping thier rubbish at the citys municiple tip. Theres is lots of money ot made with recycling and nearly every single item can be sold on in someway. As a private company any money that it makes from recycling our junk is profit.
I propose that the community runs its own waste centre, any money made from recycling should be plowed back intp the community were it came from.
How many times have you spotted something you could reuse at a local waste centre?
As a prviate fim as soon as junk is left at the tip, it becomes the property of Mersey waste, and there is a blanket ban on people removing any items they may wish to reuse.
You may have seen vans parked up at these places with electrical items piled up. These people have won exclusive contracts to take what they find, at the small price of £20 000 per year! As you can see there must be a lot of potential to make money from rubbish if someone is willing to pay 20k for the right to resue the waste. Builders with specific waste need to pay inorder to dump their rubbish.
I propose that a recycling centre is setup, items can be left, valued and resold on to someone else for a small fee. Afterall Items you may consider to be non recycable may be useful to someone else.
Why should a private company creme money off the rsources within a community?
Did you know, one of the large container they use for the rubbish collects costs £100 to empty in a landfill.
Trees and branches are chipped and sold on to the gardening trade
Old tyres are cut up and used to create hardwearing floors used in play parks.
Builders rubble is used to fill in holes etc.
car batterys and oil collect are sold on or dismantled for the precious metals within
Steel and Aluminium are sold on.
Usually the companies interested in buying recycled items, will provide the skip or container and will facilitate the removal.
Comments
I believe that people need to raise their environmental awareness…for example it really bugs me to see newspapers put in the bin when they could be recycled! It’s really easy to pop your rubbish down a chute or put the wheelie bin out every week without thinking what happens to your rubbish next.
I was wondering if you could you tell us a bit more about your idea? How would you like to see people take more responsibility for their waste?
People are more likely to express an interest if they understand the precise objective you are seeking to achieve. Perhaps you could post some actions so that Junction49ers know how to get involved?
Junction49 are really keen to support projects which improve local communities and can provide funding though our winfunding scheme! Or if you are still at Liverpool University, take this idea to your volunteer support officer who can help you and also offer funding.
Look forward to hearing more from you!
Victoria
I have been reading http://www.crn.org.uk/gifs/practicalguidetocomrecycling.pdf which is a really useful guide to community recycling. They suggest compiling a community directory to gauge what waste disposal schemes are already in your local area. Their golden rule is: do not collect anything unless you know what you’re going to do with it!
Use ‘actions’ to get other members to research different sections e.g. electrical, builders and garden waste.
You could set up a scheme where you offer to collect compostable waste – vegetable peelings to garden rubbish that could then be given to allotments. For this to work you would need to investigate the costs of storage containers and transport.
Jumble sales of bric-a-brac, clothing and scrap metals are a simple way to generate cash from reusing products. You could nominate a local charity shop to which all good quality second hand items are donated.
With computer equipment, businesses will want to make sure that all data is removed from the system before the components are reused. For this reason, it may be helpful to compile a list of companies who use this service. Computer Aid breaks down old computers into useable components which can then be sold or reused. IT Green work in Liverpool securely recycling computers.
Liverpool has a Freecycle Group whose aim is to match people who have goods to get rid of with people who can use them…http://www.freecycle.org/group/UK/North%20West/Liverpool
There is a scheme in Kent where recycling is exchanged for credits either for yourself or a local charity…check it out at: http://www.kentcommunityrecycling.org.uk/exchange.shtml. Junction 49 can help you with funding to get a project like this off the ground as it has a clear community benefit.
Let us know where you decide to go with this and just give us a shout if there is any other help you need :)
Have a chat to your VSO - you can definitely apply for funding through your uni perhaps to run a campaign to get a group of people interested and informed, or to start collecting one type of waste and recycling it. If you do want to apply for more money elsewhere there are funding streams available and we can help you find them - my advice is to start smallish and once you get something up and running you can extend it :)
Let us know if you need any support in developing your idea further, or what you experience following up any of the info Victoria passed on to you :)
As for funding...
If you're not working at the moment then The Princes Trust Community Cash Awards is offering grants of between £250 and £5,000 to help young people to set up a project that will benefit their community. The Awards are open to anyone aged 16 to 25 who are unemployed or working less than 16 hours a week. http://www.princes-trust.org.uk/communitycash
Another option is the O2 ‘It’s Your Community Awards’: Grants of up to £1,000 for Local Groups and Individuals (Ongoing). Up to £1,000 for anything that will benefit your community. You don’t need to be a registered charity. Apply any time and get a response within 28 days. Apply for an ‘It’s Your Community Award’ if your project is: sustainable (it will keep going once this money is spent); non-political and non-religious; on public or accessible land; ready to go (awards are granted every month, so apply when you are set to spend; small enough that £1000 will make all the difference...‘It’s Your Community Awards’ cannot fund the following: one off events or workshops; fundraising activities; professional fees; school projects that do not involve the wider community. http://www.itsyourcommunity.co.uk/WhatsItAllAbout.aspx
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