A number of charities and good causes have received donations from local residents, schools and businesses who took part in a waste reduction challenge organised by the Recycle Western Riverside campaign during January and February.

People living or working in Hammersmith & Fulham, Lambeth, Wandsworth and Kensington & Chelsea were asked to creatively reduce their weekly waste as much as possible over a period of seven days and submit diaries of the week to be in with a chance of winning win £100 for a good cause of their choice.

Residents and groups were provided with a challenge pack with tips and ideas of how to reduce, reuse and recycle more in order to work towards producing zero waste over the week. The entries included many innovative ideas for reducing waste including: turning an old t-shirt into a mop; purchasing a jug for tap water instead of buying bottled water; putting unwanted items on Freecycle to be reused by others; and ordering a compost bin to compost garden and food waste.

Organisations and projects benefiting from donations included Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity; the Mini Cooking Club, which provides free workshops for families to build cooking skills and learn about healthy eating; and Project Dirt, a social network connecting green projects and facilitating action on sustainable living.

The Zero Waste Challenge worked across the four boroughs to increase awareness of why it is important we all reduce our waste. Every year we throw away seven times our own weight in rubbish and the average family throws away £50 per month of good food. Most of this waste could have been avoided, creating benefits for us and the environment. If we all stop wasting food that could have been eaten, for example, the benefit to the planet would be the equivalent of taking 1 in 5 cars off the road.

Though the competition is over, residents are still being encouraged to have a go and take up the challenge by downloading the pack here.

 

April 16, 2013