Consortium
Making the Consortium Better
Recycling News & Information
Please note that the Workshop staff are no longer able to organise and arrange disposal of household items. Tipping of waste at local refuse sites has been significantly curtailed recently which makes it very difficult for Dave Phillips and staff at the workshop to continue to dispose of waste. City and County of Swansea and Neath Port Talbot Local Authorities are able to arrange disposal of items – usually for the payment of a nominal amount. Please therefore arrange to dispose of household items through the local authority schemes that are available. Details of the arrangements can be found at the following website links:-
Neath Furniture/Household Recycling
Furniture Recycling Facility for purchasing and picking up:
Foothold CrochanUnit 3.2, Llanelli Workshops Trostre Industrial Park, Llanelli, SA14 9UU, Tel. 01554 750777
They will pick up your old furniture and sell it on at low prices, so you could also visit them if you wanted some secondhand furniture.
Recycling & Energy Priorities
The majority of all office and household waste can be recycled. But obviously this is not always possible depending on the area you live in and possibly even where you live, you might not have enough space for extra boxes and bins to separate different things. But there are many things you can do that do not require these changes from turning a light out in a room when you are not using it, to not leaving your TV on stand-by.
In this report you will find suggestions on small steps that can be taken to improve the recycling system that you currently have in place or help you to put a recycling system in place.
Office Waste - Recycling
Office waste would include:
Paper, cardboard, pens, staples, paperclips, etc.
As you know paper and cardboard is easily recycled and most Local Authorities have a curb recycling service where they pick your recycling up on a fortnightly basis and the larger supermarkets also have recycling bins in their car parks for you to use.
Only print out documents when necessary, this will save paper, printing costs and even electric – a small amount, but still a saving!
When you have paper that you don’t want anymore, instead of putting straight in the recycle bin, see if you can use it as scrap paper, make a note pad out of it.
When sending a letter to someone or into the office use the right size envelope, it costs more to you and to the environment if you use an envelope that is twice the size of the document or letter you are sending.
If you are sending someone a message, why not try emailing them instead.
Pens and other plastics aren’t so easy - some places recycle plastics and some do not, in this situation you would need to find out where your nearest Recycling centre is located and you would do this by contacting your Local Authority and asking them.
Why not swap staples for paperclips? Staples are made from steel and if each of the UK’s estimated ten million office workers used one less staple a day (by re-using a paper clip, for instance), 120 tonnes of steel would be saved every year.
Remember most things can be recycled it doesn’t have to stop at paper. Clothes, tin, glass, electronics, paint and many more things can be recycled just contact your Local Authority to find out where the local Recycling centre is.
Energy
Switch TVs, computers, printers, photocopiers off when you are not using them, don’t leave them on stand-by.
On average you could save your £50 a year by not leaving your TV on stand-by and you would be losing less energy.
Don’t put more water in the kettle than is actually needed.
Energy - Lighting
The most cost effective and energy efficient light bulbs are fluorescent tubes and compact fluorescent lamps (CFLS), these do cost more to buy but are the cheapest to run, so therefore cost effective.
Normal light bulbs are cheap to buy but most expensive to run, not at all energy efficient and do not last as long compared to the 2 already mentioned.
Another way of being more energy efficient is by turning lights on only when they are needed. You could also make sure that windows in the home are not obstructed and natural light can get through.
Energy – Heating
Only put the heating on when necessary and don’t have it too high. If you have windows open then you need to turn your heating down.
Here’s a tip:
If you have a room to heat and it just doesn’t seem to get warm put a shelf above the radiator in the room, this will force the heat from the radiator to go into the room rather than up the wall, this will distribute the heat more effectively and is extremely effective below a window.
If you do not use a room very often turn the heating off in that room or turn it down.
Make sure that your radiators are working effectively, if the heat in a radiator is uneven then there is probably air trapped inside, which means they need to be ‘bled’, this is a simple procedure and all that is needed is a cloth and a radiator key, get someone to help you do this if you don’t know how to do it or you could call a plumber, but this could prove to be expensive.
Use a timer for your heating rather than leaving it on all night this will save you money and will consume less energy.
(publication used in research: Green Office Action Plan, Friends of The Earth 2002)
