Weight Credits

Babergh District Council and Mid Suffolk Council are merging and reorganising some of their services. Waste and recycling is part of this cost cutting and streamlining initiative, so details of weight credit payments last year have been sent a little later than usual.
We receive payment for the weight of paper, glass and textiles taken from our recycling centre and the bottle bank outside the Rose and Crown. Between April and September last year, this amounted to just over £1500.00. Totally brilliant for a small village.
Many thanks everyone, especially Dennis Hill, who donates the weight credits from the his bottle bank to school.

Recycling your Christmas cards

We used to recycle our Christmas cards with Tesco, to help The Woodland Trust raise funds for planting trees. This year only WH Smith, TK Maxx and M&S are listed on their website as participating companies

As it will not be easy to deliver to these stores, which are in the middle of Ipswich, we shall be taking our bin liners full of cards to Sainsbury and the money raised will benefit the Forest Stewardship Council.

Morrisons are collecting cards for a second year. The Salvation Army is their chosen charity.

New Extension

The new extension at the front of the school is nearly finished. The architects and builders have done a grand job, matching the new building with our lovely old Victorian school. I know they took extra care with the window frames and sills. It will be a pleasure to look at while I'm sorting out the recycling!!!

Now the office staff will be able to work in peace, without being distracted by people having to use their very small room as a corridor to get from one part of the school to another and there will be a pleasant reception area for visitors.

I'm thankful that the villagers are still trying to use the recycling centre. The picture above shows that the builders have been working in very cramped conditions. Waste skips and latterly workers vehicles, have blocked the access for the companies that collect from the recycling area.

We are building a glass mountain in the corner!

Bad News--Good news

On returning from a two weeks restful break on Thassos (I shall plant some more trees via The Woodland Trust) and not having access to national or global news, it was depressing to start our first day back by listening to The Farming and Today programmes. Bumble and Honey bees still on the decline, as is the Arctic ice cap.

The good news is that had time to do a lot of reading. One of the books that I had in my case and thoroughly enjoyed was David MacKay's book about climate change. A strange thing to say about the prospect of impending chaos, but I was riveted by the way he has addressed the challenge of reducing out energy consumption in an understandable way! Everyone should read it and have it on their bookshelf. He is now the Chief Scientific Advisor at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Great news!

The second good thing was an email from Dr. Gary Robertshaw, requesting reciprocal links with The Green Providers Directory No sooner said than done! You'll find information and links to most aspects of sustainable/ethical companies and organisations and MORE.

So far, so good

This photo was taken at the end of the summer holiday. Now most of the end of the playground is taken up with equipment, building materials and of course, the new building and access ramps.
Difficult conditions for everyone to cope with, and nowhere for the children to play, when the weather is wet and they can't use the meadow to let off steam!
The new building is scheduled to be completed by Christmas., when I expect the recycling fund will help to provide "additional extras".

So I was really pleased to receive a bank payment of £814.46 in August, from Babergh District Council. The second amount of recycling weight credits this year.

We'd never do this, but ...

One Last Shot

Work on the new extension at the front of the school has started, so took one last photo of the school, before the builders arrived.
It's hoped that the extension to the front and side of the old building will be finished by the end of next term. The new entrance, with a ramp access, will take up a considerable area of the play ground.
With little room to maneuver, the builders are having to use the recycling centre to site waste skips.
Let's hope that this access isn't disrupted too much, as the funds from recycling will be needed to subsidise future projects.

A glitch in the system

One of the pleasing things about looking after our recycling centre, in the middle of the Suffolk countryside, is the great views over the fields at the back. Heavy, stormy showers had been forecasted, but these passed us by, which was lucky, because I had a bit of catching up to do on the rubbish front!
After a hot weekend, the aluminium cans were flowing out of their wheelie bin. Old books needed to be rescued and taken home to be sorted. Likewise, the textile bank had clothes mixed in with shoes and other odd items, which all had to be dealt with appropriately.
So where was the glitch?
Well Boltons were not able to pick up the paper last month, as a builder's skip was in the way, so the excess paper has been stored elsewhere. As the banks had been emptied, I had to spend some time retrieving and stuffing paper into them, whilst enjoying the view in the diminishing evening light.
P.S. We got the rain the following day, heavy and thundery. Another sign of global warming-- but that's a much bigger glitch.