CRAG AGM MINUTES, 25th February 2004
This was a well attended and enjoyable evening.
Members of CRAG gave an overview of activities and highlights from the past
year, including:
- The design of the CRAG logo from entries
submitted by children at Grove Park School.
- The distribution of 3000 promotional leaflets to encourage Green Box participation in W4, resulting in several new requests for Green Boxes and a significant increase in kerbside collections in the area.
- The outcome of junk mail trials, showing that the display of a 'no junk mail' sticker by the letter box really does reduce the number of leaflets delivered.
- The inspiration for The Chiswick Recycling Directory, and funding of its publication by the BAA Environmental Awards, the Chiswick Area Committee and the Recycling Team at the London Borough of Hounslow.
- The development of the crag-online website to provide an online version of the Recycling Directory and an up-to-date source of recycling information for Chiswick.
Trevor Watkins, Hounslow's Principal Recycling
Officer, presented some interesting statistics on waste and recycling volumes
for the borough:
- Overall waste collected decreased by 5.7%
last year against the national trend. This is partly attributable to the
influence of waste action groups such as BRAG and CRAG, and the Home Composting
programme.
- Across the borough, recyclable materials are currently collected from 68,000 Green Boxes and 225 Estate Frames from blocks of flats with over 30 properties (covering 15,000 households).
- A new Hybrid System is being introduced to provide recycling facilities for smaller blocks of flats. About 100 Hybrid Systems will be installed to cover 2,500 properties.
- In a 12 week period from Oct - Dec 2003, an increase of 19,000 Kg of recyclable materials was collected across the borough and recyclables collected from estates was up by over 90%. During this period over 500,000 Kg of recyclable materials was collected in Chiswick equating to approximately 4 Kg per household per week.
- Over the last year, there has been an overall increase in recycling across the borough, with Chiswick showing the most significant increase. ECT Recycling have recently reorganised the kerbside collection rounds in W4, with the addition of two more rounds, due to the increased quantities of recyclables collected in Chiswick.
Councillor Ruth Cadbury gave an excellent update
on Hounslow’s present and future recycling activities:
- The recent door stepping campaign to
promote recycling has been very successful and may be
repeated in the Autumn.
- Over the next few months paper recycling bins will be placed outside some of the borough’s busiest tube and train stations.
The climax of the meeting was the launch of The Chiswick Recycling Directory. Cllr Cadbury cut the finely tied ribbon from around the first box of directories, and a champagne toast was enjoyed by all.