Waste Reduction Working Group
A forum to discuss the Council's waste reduction priority.
Waste and Circular Economy community project group
14 March, 4.00-5.30pm, MS Teams
Attended: Amelia Lupson, Les Gunbie, Kirsten Firth, Maria Antoniou, Mita Patel, Cat Fletcher, Ali Ghanimi, Juliet Evans, Julie Harris, Amy Allison,
Apologies: Katie Eberstein, Steve Creed, Susie Deadman, Steve Peake, Claire Potter, Rik Child, Nicky Lumb, David Greenfield, Sophie Moss
Chair: Julie
Notes
Introductions
Update on progress and challenges
Julie gave a presentation to update on deliberations inside the council
Discussion on vision, objectives, outcomes and campaign concepts
Questions/comments from the group
- Messaging should be more explicitly linked to the cost of living and used as a means to be more accessible
- Badge under a collective – elevate initiatives in the city
- Objectives are mismatched to the outcomes – would like to see a clearer link that’s practical and accessible
- Bring It concept for grass roots campaign
- 'Bring it'....but 'Take it' is also important...particularly when it comes to park and beach litter.
- Could we market city as a vintage hub? Link in with new creative industries strategy?
- Use what we’ve already got first and ensure this is properly resourced – use the ‘department store’ approach, visible signs that there is a shift – An example here
Measurement to show the value of re-use and to communicate impact:
- Is it possible to think about how the 'reuse' message could be measured? It is difficult to identify direct impact of a campaign as there are many different things impacting on people's ability to participate. Would it be possible to measure volume of waste?
- Cat measures items at the Free Shop that are prevented from going to waste
- Ali reports on the surplus food network tonnage of food waste redistributed. It's 1,982 tonnes for 2022
- Organisations like FareShare weigh all their food, repair cafes also keep track. BrightStore and other projects support benefits and outcomes. Charity shops don’t have to measure – could they consider measuring impact? Cat has contact with the Charity Retail Association
- Charity shops are able to provide donors with info on the number of their items and the funds raised... so maybe that means they could break this down more
- Zero Waste Scotland doing work around measurement
- And Suez Manchester – link to Renew Greater Manchester
- Possible to get a list of objects with their official average weight to work out total weights
- Map existing initiatives – David G has a database of reuse activities which could be reviewed to see which ones still current, which ones no longer operating (Cat)
- Local Insight data tool used by the council https://brighton-hove.localinsight.org/#/map
- Textiles was a notable problem in Whitehawk which was targeted through a project we ran there last year. This is likely to be a particularly problematic waste stream citywide though (and source of overconsumption). It's also something that Veolia flags up as a cause of contamination
Is it possible to have one campaign that incorporates all? Could have one umbrella waste/reuse strategy and visual identity with specific campaigns sitting under it targeted at specific things (tackling contamination in recycling) or audiences (students, areas, workplaces, visitors) eg Bristol’s waste campaigns and waste and reuse hub are organised in this way.
Suggestions for actions
- More data to help us understand what’s going on, where are the problems, who is the cause? Use this to narrow down priorities and specific actions
- Benchmarking to decide what to focus on – eg what is the tonnage of waste that goes to Newhaven every week?
- Capture what we’re doing already & what’s possible and then narrow down to specifics/audience
- Use existing intelligence ie Food Use Places participants reported that they were confused about recycling
- Focus in on specific materials or areas – can link with national initiatives like Plastic Free July – but keep going for at least 3 months otherwise it becomes confusing OR
- Focus on highest area for waste in city centre, north of Lewes Road, high student population
- If we are targeting certain areas, we could see what the demographics are in those areas e.g. visitors, students...
- And UoS are growing their sustainability team so could be timely opportunity to collaborate with them (and UoB) on a student targeted campaign. There is so much opportunity to support action and build on existing reuse activity that exists in student neighbourhoods - benefiting students and non-student residents/communities.
- Explore targeting visitor economy, AirBnB’s – eg a campaign to tackle the huge amounts of waste from short stays where food is bought, not used and thrown away – and hotels, with their individual sachets of ketchup, butter, and the toiletries they throw out.
- After identifying a specific action or smaller campaign, map networks and comms channels to engage
- Create different formats and share information the council is starting to put together for residents about what to recycle and how – latest going out in council tax bills
- Create an online form to invite people to share what they are doing & explain their vision, and also ask them their views, what’s challenging, what would help to do more?
- Concentrate on collating, celebrating, promoting to raise awareness and grow into the bigger campaign
- Explore how to create a bigger impact with less energy eg could we offer an award scheme for businesses to reward them for cutting down the waste they are putting out to consumers? (turn off the tap approach)
- Extend Brighton Loop campaign to support community activity to join the dots on messaging
For the next meeting / workshop, can we please look at the data - what's the main problem... and what can we do about it?
Commitment to actions
Les: Developing a film with schools with Katie and Juliet and sharing information about existing networks
Ali: Working with Public Health and caterers on food and packaging waste and with Les/Katie on a toolkit for auditing waste in schools. Would be pleased to catch up with people working on projects.
Amy: Help promote the recycling information resources Juliet is creating through networks
Cat: Update networks spreadsheet with David G. Melanie’s (Green Centre) updated A-Z of recycling pass on to Juliet to complement council information
Maria: Also going to promote Juliet’s resources – Working on Investors in the Environment project – have to take part in a specific project and could align with a strategic campaign within the community landscape (but have to make a decision soon on this) Community Works meeting with Marie Tulley-Rose and cllr Robins about the 10-year ‘creative destination’ strategy
Julie: Review what’s going on now, existing networks and data gathering with Juliet, Mita, Lauren and Sophie – link in with Creative Industries Strategy
Juliet: Continuing to create resources, distribute messaging and shape campaign
Mita: Continuing to help shape/refine campaign and input into messaging
Next meeting – in person – yes
More from the chat
The Danish city reimagining reuse
Sussex Uni re-use scheme:
Working with the Students Union, SEF currently operates a re-use scheme for residences on campus, through which abandoned and unwanted items can be re-used and claimed by students for free instead of being thrown away. Any donated or abandoned items worth re-using - pots, pans, containers, etc - in residences at the end of the academic year are collected by SEF, sorted, and sent to the Students Union for the Free Shop at the start of the new academic new year.
On mapping initiatives, there is the One Planet tool : https://oneplanet.com/
Lewes Climate Hub – Rethink Rubbish
Is the event’s team complying with the council's good food buying standards as they had said they would integrate it into city events? Has stuff on food waste and packaging but people have commented on the amount of plastic left behind at Pride this year.
Group Governance – chairing and process for agreeing agendas
Julie asked the group if anyone wanted to chair today’s meeting
Agreed to have a rotating chair going forward
Process of agenda-setting is evolving. We’re still feeling our way with the campaign as the notes above indicate. Anyone in the group can suggest agenda items. Julie can coordinate for now and suggestions for the next meeting are welcomed.
Question about the Circular Economy Hubs initiative – Mita updated that this is on the draft Circular Economy Action Plan and a parallel project. There have been some informal early investigations to see if there may be a space in the Hove area. There are no allocated resources, however, and the draft action plan has yet to be agreed.
AOB & date for next meeting
4-6 weeks? In person
