When it comes to reducing rubbish, our local community is a great place to start. The more we can share ideas and resources, the more we can all benefit, and at the same time, keep useful items away from disposal.
Community centres and other public areas are ideal places to have talks and advice sessions about how to reduce waste and save money, or may be able to point you towards local organisations that can help. Look out for posters and notices in public places and items in your local paper to find out what’s on and how you can get involved.
Try out some ideas below:
+ Reduce your community waste
Become a Plastic Free Community
Plastic free communities are a network of community groups lead by the charity Surfers Against Sewage. Communities aim to tackle single-use plastic from beaches and green spaces all the way back to the brands and businesses who create it.
Start a Plastic Free Community group in your area or join a group that already exists. Plastic free communities engage local organisations, schools and business, as well as holding events and talks inspiring people to cut down on single-use plastic and change the system that produces it. Find your nearest plastic free community here.
Register your community to get all the information and material you need to gain plastic free status. You will receive a plastic free communities toolkit with five objectives to guide you through the process of becoming plastic free with support all the way. Once your community has achieved these steps you will gain plastic free accreditation and continue to take action. Read about Sheringham Plastic Aware group here.
Join the Refill Revolution
Refill works by connecting people with locations where they can eat, drink and shop with less waste. Anyone can download the free refill app to find local refill stations near them. Visit Refill Norfolk to find out more.
Community groups can play a huge role in increasing reuse and refill in their areas, here are some ideas for how you can get involved:
- Start a refill scheme in your community to promote places for people to refill their water bottle, re-usable coffee cup or takeaway food container in your area. Encourage people locally to use the refill app, and get new business and venues to sign up to the scheme.
- Find a refill scheme near you and join in with a local group of organised individuals who are powering the refill revolution in their area. Search the refill map for your nearest group and local refill contact to see how you can get involved.
- Become a refill volunteer anywhere, even if there is no refill scheme in your area, to help map and promote local refill venues. After signing up you will receive a refill pack including window stickers, leaflets and posters for your local cafes and businesses to display.
Sky Lantern and Balloon Releases
Join the Norfolk campaign and pledge not to release balloons and sky lanterns from your community group or premises. Balloons and sky lanterns are examples of single use products. They are often released as a way of commemorating the passing of a loved one, or for a fundraising event. Sadly, unexpired sky lanterns pose a significant fire hazard. Livestock and wildlife on both the land and sea can be lost as a result of ingestion of parts from sky lanterns and balloon debris.
Click here to find exciting alternatives ideas, and get free downloadable posters and resources for your community group.
+ Reuse ideas for the community
Reusing items that you already have is a great way of reducing the amount the rubbish mountain. Why not give these community ideas a go?
- Hold a Give and Take Day – Invite people in your local community to donate their unwanted, reusable items and take away items they want and have a use for without having to buy them. Give and Take Days can include a range of different types of items or can focus on a particular type, for example books, furniture, shoes, CDs, DVDs, etc
- Host a Swishing Event – Swishing is a great way to swap your old unloved clothes for different ones. It involves a group of people bringing along their nice, clean, presentable clothes that are lurking unloved at the back of their wardrobes and swapping them with each other. For more information, visit the Swishing.org website
- Organise a Garden Produce Swap Day – Do you grow your own fruit and vegetables? Do you always end up with too many of one type of vegetable and wish you could swap it for something else? A Swap Day enables local gardeners to swap their excess courgettes for someone else’s excess carrots, or their apples for some pears
- Hold a Jumble Sale or a Car Boot Sale – Help people in your local community clear out some of their unwanted items and sell them to others who need them
- Organise a Knit and Natter – Arrange a group meeting used to develop local skills to mend and repair clothing or to create new items; it gives experienced knitters the opportunity to share their knowledge with beginners
Image of a rag rug from Homemakermagazine.co.uk
- Rag Rugging – Have a go at this traditional technique to create a stylish shopping bag or a funky rug. It’s fun to do and a great way to use up fabric scraps or recycle torn clothes that are beyond repair. Click the image to download the instructions:
+ Recycling in the community
Help promote recycling and to reduce the amount of waste going for disposal.
- Set up a Community Composting Scheme – Community composting enables local communities to collect garden material from households in the community, take it to a community site and make it into compost for use in their own gardens
- Install local recycling banks and collect recycling credits – Norfolk County Council pays recycling credits to organisations who collect recyclable materials. This helps us save on the cost of disposing of rubbish and helps Norfolk to recycle more and become more sustainable. Recycling banks can collect a wide range of household recyclable items, such as paper and cardboard, glass, cans and tins, textiles, shoes or plastics and recycling credit can be paid to non-profit groups like:
- Charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises
- Churches
- Guides and Scouts
- Parish councils and district councils
- Schools
- Community organisations (for example community composting groups)
In 2018/19 Norfolk County Council paid over £7.8m in recycling credits to district councils and non-profit organisations like charity shops and voluntary groups. This equated to over 173,000 tonnes sent for recycling, composting or reuse. Click here for more information about Recycling Credits.
+ Report Flytipping
Facts about fly-tipping
Everyone has a legal duty of care to dispose of waste correctly and is accountable even if their waste is fly-tipped by someone else. Use the links below for information on managing waste:- In Norfolk, over 80% of items that are fly-tipped could have been taken to the Recycling Centre for free.
- The majority of fly-tipping is carried out by rogue traders offering cheap waste clearance.
- The act of fly-tipping is a criminal offence punishable by Fixed Penalty Notice, unlimited fine and/or imprisonment up to 5 years
- Vehicles used for fly-tipping can be seized by enforcement authorities.
- Fly-tipping has a harmful impact on the environment, wildlife and people.
- Incidences can vary in scale from a single item to large quantities of waste and may include general waste, furniture, electrical goods, rubble, timber, mattresses, carpets and hazardous materials like asbestos or chemicals.
- Clearing up fly-tipping is an unnecessary cost to Norfolk’s taxpayers.
Fly-tipping can be classed as leaving items:
- Besides street bins and recycling banks
- On the floor of communal bin areas
- Outside closed recycling centres and charity shops
- On roads, paths and in the countryside
It also includes making sure anyone you allow to take your waste away, is an authorised waste carrier. There are many alternative ways to responsibly dispose of your waste. Read on to find out what you can do with your waste, how to check you’re using a legal waste carrier and how to report fly-tipping.
+ Community Fridges
Community fridges provide businesses and individuals with the opportunity to share food that otherwise would have been wasted. They are public places where surplus food is shared between the community. Anybody can access a community fridge, there is no need to register, simply turn up during opening hours and make use of the facility and help good food from going to wate.
Community fridges help people connect with their communities, access nutritious food, save money and reduce waste.
In Norfolk we have the largest community fridge network outside of London, click here to find your nearest community fridge.
Setting up a Community Fridge
If you would like to set up a community fridge in your local area Hubbub have created a How to guide and template materials to take you through, step by step, the stages for setting up a new Community Fridge.
They have also created the Community Fridge Network to connect all of the Community Fridge projects across the UK and IE, so you can exchange advice and get support.
+ Love Norfolk Hate Litter Campaign
The Love Norfolk Hate Litter campaign is calling on everyone to do their bit to stop litter for a cleaner county
Whether it’s joining your local community litter pick, setting up a new group or doing a 2 minute beach clean on your next trip to the seaside, there are plenty of ways you can get involved.
The councils in Norfolk are supporting this campaign, providing materials and downloadable resources, including a poster which can be printed off and displayed and a schools pack to help teach children about the harm litter can cause.
Love Norfolk Hate Litter is the idea of Norfolk man Nigel Ford, who has worked tirelessly to keep our beautiful county clean and encourage others to do the same.
+ Save Our Seals A Flying Rings Campaign
A flying ring is any type of throwing ring with a hole in the middle, including dog toy rings. They can easily get lost in water and end up as litter.
Young seals play with them and sometimes put their head through the middle. They can’t get them off and as they grow, the ring cuts into their neck causing injuries and sometimes death through infection and starvation.
How can I help?
Jenny Hobson, a member of Friends of Horsey Seals says:
Everyone can help to save our seals, here’s how:
- Pledge to not use a flying ring on the beach or near waterways, swap it for a solid frisbee
- Pledge to sell solid frisbees instead of flying rings in shops and beach kiosks.
- Tell your family, friends, schools and groups about the dangers of flying rings
- Download the Save Our Seals poster here and display it in your local area, school, or business.
What is happening in Norfolk already?
Visit Friends of Horsey Seals to find out more about their Flying Rings Campaign and their work to protect Norfolk’s seals.
Here’s what other Norfolk organisations are doing too:
- Great Yarmouth Sea Life Centre provides displays, video, and leaflets to raise awareness about the harm caused by flying rings
- Hunstanton Sea Life Centre houses a Seal Rescue Hospital
- RSPCA East Winch rescues and rehabilitates injured seals and other wild animals and raises awareness about the flying rings campaign.
- Norfolk County Council supports the Save Our Seals – Flying Rings Campaign through web pages, social media, flying rings pledges and banners at Recycling Centres.
- North Norfolk District Council have launched a “Safer Seals” campaign, to highlight some of the things beach visitors can do to help safeguard seals.
- Kings Lynn and West Norfolk District Council have banned flying rings from its beaches
- Great Yarmouth Borough Council have written to the government asking for a ban on the sale on flying rings, written to local businesses and carried out litter roadshows in partnership with Friends of Horsey Seals.
Countryfile recently featured our Norfolk seals and highlighted the dangers of plastic flying rings to seals when they are lost or discarded on the beach. Watch it here BBC One – Countryfile, Norfolk North Sea (January 7th 2024 BBC2 Norfolk North Sea).
Pledge not to use Flying Rings at the Beach:
