St John's Church Egham

Experience Hope

zero waste

The Way We Used To Do Things

by

To return to the main schedule – click here
For an overview of the events – click here

Saturday Movie Night: The Way We Used to Do Things

18th July 7-8pm

Once upon a time waste didn’t happen! There was the ‘Dig for Victory / Grow Your Own’ push throughout the war, and reuse of bottles and people shopped at smaller local butchers/grocers/bakeries. There were no supermarkets or out of town shopping centres.

Egham Museum will be taking us on a journey to discover how we used to do things and how consumer habits have changed over the years.

Join us for a 20 minute dedicated feature film by Egham Museum for some to reminisce about what they did as children and for others to learn what their parents and grandparents did.

The film is currently in production and we will update details when it is complete. Links to come soon. To register interest click here.

To connect with us:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/StJohnsEghamEcoChurch

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.facebook.com/StJohnsEcoChurch

https://www.instagram.com/stjohnsecochurch/

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.instagram.com/stjohnsecochurch/

Email: StJohnsEghamEcoChurch@gmail.com

To return to the main schedule – click here
For an overview of the events – click here

VDD: Reduce Your General Waste

by

To return to the main schedule – click here
For an overview of the events – click here

Church of England’s Prayer

The Journey to Zero Waste & Litter Free Environments

24th July 6-7pm: Ticketed Virtual Q&A

Shannon and Iris regularly plog the streets of Chertsey

Handling & processing waste costs money. Waste that is not recycled is incinerated, which means a resource is burned forever.

Check your knowledge of the waste terms here

Metal is the only material that can be recycled nearly an infinite amount of times. Recycling glass requires very high temperatures (over 800 degrees celcius which is higher than the temperatures of the incinerators) and materials like plastic and paper are downgraded with each “recycle”. I hear some of you saying “My council recycles plastic”, and some of you demand that “More plastic should be recycled”

When plastic is recycled, it can be recycled on average 6 times before it is deemed useless. Since September 2019, virgin plastic has been cheaper to purchase than recycled plastic.

To reduce the amount of waste that is processed, there are a number of initiatives from BYOR (Bring Your Own Reusable), Repurposing, Upcycling, and Reusing. Charity shops, preloved sites and freecycling are great ways to reuse items that are in good condition. Upcycling or repurposing using crafting methods has a finite number of times you will be able to divert your rubbish from the general waste. Our Eco-Brick project is a way to repurpose bottles and upcycle plastic rubbish we would otherwise have to put in our general waste. Another way is to find a Zero Waste / Refill shop in your area.

Mel from Bare + Fair, a Zero Waste shop, will be at the discussion

BYOR is a great way to refuse purchasing single use bags, coffee cups, take away containers and more. Some of the take away shops will use your containers if you ask them. Cups in Egham used to provide a 20p discount off your purchase if you brought your own container.

Neil has been campaigning and helping lead governance changes

There are many more ways to reduce waste and we have brought together a panel that actively reduces waste from a business/organisational perspective, resident perspective, and a political perspective

  • Iris and Shannon – Chertsey residents whose challenge is to pick up litter every day in their daily walks and have an Instagram account @RubbishADay
  • Neil – from Zero Waste Europe promotes and supports societal moves to zero waste, and the need for change at political and corporate level to enable that change at a personal level.
  • Mel – runs Bare and Fair, a refill shop in Woking to enable sustainable and low-waste living a realistic option

Come join us for a free live virtual dinner discussion on going zero waste on the 24th July 6-7pm. Register for a ticket below:

If you want to leave a question for this discussion please submit a question via our question form. Click here to access

To connect with us:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/StJohnsEghamEcoChurch

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.facebook.com/StJohnsEcoChurch

https://www.instagram.com/stjohnsecochurch/

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.instagram.com/stjohnsecochurch/

Email: StJohnsEghamEcoChurch@gmail.com

To return to the main schedule – click here
For an overview of the events – click here

Getting to Know Your Waste Terms

by

To return to the main schedule – click here
For an overview of the events – click here

What is the difference between recycling, reuse, repurpose, upcycling and more?

Zero Waste: is a philosophy with the goal to minimise waste that ends up in incinerators or landfills. It is an holistic pursuit that attempts to be systematic and scalable aiming for long term permanent solutions.

Recycling: when a material is broken down so that it can be used to make something new. “The action or process of converting waste into reusable material.” Recycling results in reduced demand for new material because the recycled material can be used instead. This is a scalable way to address waste meaning it can be done for large quantities of waste material typically by municipalities. Runnymede Borough Council collect the recyclables and Surrey County Council are responsible for where the recyclables go.

Image may contain: text
2017-2018 Waste Generation and Recycling Statistics

Reuse / Reusable: repeatedly using an item without significant alteration of the original (eg jars can be re-used – after cleaning and removing the label but without further modifcations). This is usually an individual effort except for some deposit systems and bottle re-use programs.

Repurpose: using a material in a way not originally intended but without significant alteration. This is usually not scalable but is typically done on a project basis. Eg using an old yoghurt container as a pot for plants. There is a limit to how many yoghurt containers can be used in this way.

Upcycling: turning a discarded product into something useful / of higher quality. Crafting with waste materials can be included in this. This is rarely scalable – meaning it is usually done on a one-off basis and is not an effective solution for waste reduction because it is time consuming and there may be little demand for the end product. A lot of upcycling requires the use of new materials as part of the project (paints, glues, some new parts, etc). Craft projects are generally not effective at waste reduction though they can sometimes be used to good effect as an artistic statement about waste.

Incineration: is sometimes referred to in the media as “recycling” as in “waste is recycled into energy” “Swedes recycle nearly 100 per cent of their household waste”. This is NOT recycling – it destroys the material, it does not recover it which is an essential part of recycling.

To connect with us:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/StJohnsEghamEcoChurch

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.facebook.com/StJohnsEcoChurch

https://www.instagram.com/stjohnsecochurch/

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.instagram.com/stjohnsecochurch/

Email: StJohnsEghamEcoChurch@gmail.com

To return to the main schedule – click here
For an overview of the events – click here