Big Green Fair

Our Big Green Fair was held in the Guildhall, Lichfield on 4 May in conjunction with Whittington and Fisherwick Environment Group. With a variety of stalls selling ethical and local goodies, energy-saving advice, and renewable microtechnology, as well as music and morris dancing, talks from Penney Poyser and Wildlife Kate, workshops, face-painting and much more, it attracted an estimated 2,500 people, helped by the kind weather on what turned out to be a sunny bank holiday weekend.

We felt it went really well and will be hoping to make it even bigger and better next year following our experience in bringing it from Whittington to the centre of Lichfield for the first time.

Turbine or not turbine…

Our public debate on wind turbines held in October in Wade Street Church, proved to be a very successful event.

Held jointly with Whittington and Fisherwick Environment Group, it was chaired by Michael Fabricant MP and featured speakers from the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England CPRE), the University of Keele, Sustainable Hockerton, and Say No and Protest (SNAP). There was much lively debate as you might imagine!

Our wind factsheet dispels some of the myths about wind turbines.

A rough poll was taken as people came in and exited, and this showed that a greater percentage were in favour of a wind farm in Lichfield District following the debate than before. We are the first to admit, however, that it wasn’t a rigorously-controlled survey.

See our wind debate on YouTube

Beyond the blue wheelie bin…

Eight of us went off yesterday to see what happens after the dustcart empties our blue wheelie bins. Yes, we went by car, but we managed to squeeze into two vehicles to save on emissions. Lichfield recyclable waste is taken to a waste recycling plant run by Biffa at Aldridge. The people there were very welcoming and took us round to see what happens. We had to wear headsets to hear what the guide was saying, as it’s a huge building and some parts are quite noisy. We also had to wear high-visibility vests, hard hats, and goggles – we felt like the Village People! After arriving, everything is tipped into a hopper and fed onto the first of a series of conveyor belts. Most of the different materials, like steel, aluminium, glass and paper are separated out by machinery, but there is an element of manual labour in sorting the different types of plastics. Apparently, in Lichfield we can put any type of plastic packaging in the recycling bin, even when the manufacturer has labelled it as “not recyclable”. We heard about some of the odd things that turn up, like a dead snake, and artificial Christmas trees complete with baubles and lights; and the disruption that video cassettes can cause when the tape unwinds and gets round the machinery (so best not to put those in your bin!). The plant is operational 24 hours a day, 6 days a week. At the end, the different products are baled and sold on. We learnt that the white plastic milk bottles are chipped and re-processed back into milk bottles, and this is all done within another Biffa plant; and most of the paper is sold to China for use as cardboard packaging.
All-in-all it was very interesting and informative, and it was nice to see some new people on the trip, as well as familiar faces.

Low Carbon Lichfield