Town Trail - Bog Plants go into the Ditch.

We had a hard working morning on the Town Trail yesterday, Monday, planting bog plants along the stretch of ditch between Bridge Street and Woodleigh Road. Many thanks to our lovely volunteers who, undaunted by the mud, finished preparing the ground and planting 250 plants. With the funding from Severn Trent, we are preparing an information board to explain what we've done and the plants we've used.

You won't notice much difference for a while as it will take some time for the plants to settle in and grow. Once they start flowering then they'll be obvious, although we'll need to keep an eye on the nettles so they don't swamp the bog plants.

Town Trail - preparing to plant up the ditch

We were out last Monday preparing the ground for planting and clearing nettles (there are still plenty for butterflies). This Monday (3rd) we will be out again planting bog plants.

If you'd like to join in, contact us on sustainableledbury@gmail.com for more information.

Town Trail update

We've been working away on the stretch of the Town Trail between Bridge Street and Woodleigh Road. We've got a bit more work to do clearing out the ditch and then we'll be planting marginal plants. The photos don't look very interesting at the moment -

We're looking forward to seeing flowers along the bank, hopefully this summer.

Our next session is on Monday morning (13th) - fingers crossed that the weather is fine again by then. If you'd like to join us, contact us on sustainableledbury@gmail.com

Town trail - Autumn/Winter sessions

 

There is only one working party on the Town Trail in each of the months September and October but then we're back to fortnightly until Christmas. The dates are as follows; reminders will be sent out to volunteers  as usual.

Monday 19th September

Monday 17th October

Monday 7th November

Monday 21st November

Monday 5th December

Monday 19th December

 

As usual the sessions will run from 10 a.m. for approx 2 hours - depending on energy levels! Also, as usual we will need the group size to be no less than 3, for safety/insurance reasons.

Food waste collections in Hereford powered by bike? And other measures from Herefordshire Council.

Herefordshire Council could be the first local authority in the country to have food waste collected by bike if proposed plans are agreed by cabinet members.

The innovative proposal is set out in a cabinet report on the next steps for the introduction of the new recycling and waste collection service.

The recommendations will be discussed at the cabinet meeting on 21 July. 

Cargo bikes pushing ahead

A cargo bike food waste collection is planned for central Hereford. The zero-carbon approach would see kitchen scraps turned into compost. While the environmentally-friendly step would be a first for a UK council, a BBC report shows food collection by bike is already underway in Paris. Meanwhile, online retailer Amazon is reported to be launching a fleet of e-cargo bikes to replace thousands of van deliveries in London.

New waste collections mandatory

We are working towards introducing a new waste and recycling collection service across the county that includes a weekly food collection and fortnightly garden waste collection service, which councils must introduce as part of new government legislation.

The new enhanced service will provide much more recycling capacity and will improve both the quantity and quality of recycling. Residents will keep the bins they already have for general waste and recycling. The council will pay the one-off cost of additional bins needed to separate different types of waste. This will be offset by savings made every subsequent year in reduced disposal costs.

The move follows recommendations approved by the council on 25 November 2021:

1. The council supports residents to increase recycling by adopting the new waste collection model as outlined in this report with a view to being fully operational in November 2023. This includes:

a.    The introduction of a new two weekly garden waste collection service

b.    The introduction of a new weekly food collection service

c.     The adoption of a twin stream recycling service to enable residents to further segregate recyclable materials and

d.    To adopt a three weekly residual collection model

Getting it right

Residents are being encouraged and supported to make good choices to ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ through our ‘Getting it right’ campaign. This encourages people to put the right items into the right bins. Reducing contamination (putting the wrong things into the wrong bins) will improve recycling rates.  

Other waste reduction measures include the incredibly successful reusable nappy scheme, which is helping residents with young families reduce nappy waste. Its popularity meant the scheme had to end just 30 days after its April launch date.  We also recently announced funding grants for setting up or extending existing repair cafes to discourage people from throwing away repairable household items.

Published: 14th July 2022