Down the Waste End

From: Stuart
Subject: Down the waste end
Date: 5th April 2006
Place: Penrith, Cumbria

After an hour spent dodging fume-belching juggernauts on Penrith industrial estates we finally found the place. We rested our bikes and trailers against giant cubes of crushed tin cans stacked four metres high and surveyed the scene. After a week in the Eden Valley, this was no Garden of Eden. The ground was awash with litter: tin lids, bottle tops, foil and squashed cartons. In the yard a forklift truck was loading old plastic drainpipes, cladding and conduit onto an articulated trailer. In the warehouse a bright blue baling machine sat waiting to consume a truckload of assorted plastic waste.

As we took it all in, the sun appeared from behind a row of grey wheelie bins, a man with a smile as bright as his day-glo suit. He made his way over to us, shouting to make himself heard over the pallets of ragged plastic flapping in the wind.
"You must be the mad family on a bike. I'm Ian Collingwood, General Manager."
"Will these be alright here?" I asked, pointing to the bikes.
"Of course," he said cheerfully, "I promise we won't recycle them."

Is it safe to leave our bikes here?

There's more to eco-touring than being at one with nature and we chose the west end of Penrith for the waste end of our tour, a visit to Eden Community Recycling, a not for profit community organisation committed to helping the people of Eden increase the amount they recycle and reduce the amount they send to landfill.

"We started as a charity in 1981, on the forecourt of Penrith fire station," explained Ian as he showed us around. "Back then we collected papers to raise money for good causes, but now we're a limited company recycling paper, glass, cans, plastic and more. We've our own depot and a contract with Eden District Council."

Since its humble beginnings, this Eden project has been led by Colin Nineham, a former fireman who started the paper collecting and ended up Managing Director of an entreprenerial recycling business. But it's no ordinary business, it's a not-for-profit social enterprise, successfully increasing recycling volumes, creating local employment opportunities, offering work experience to adults with special learning needs and making financial contributions to local schools and community groups. It's a rare trick to be able to create such treasure from rubbish, a trick our boys seemed keen to learn about as they scrabbled excitedly around the yard.

We paused beside bags of squashed foil take-away cartons and yogurt tops while Ian explained a little more about the operation. "We collect paper, cans, plastics and foil from twenty four recycling banks around Eden. Paper goes to our mill at Little Salkeld, the rest comes here for baling. We encourage people to recycle as much as they can and do a minimum of sorting to keep costs down. You've got to make it easy to make it work."

Ian Collingwood, General Manager, Eden Community Recycling

And when it comes to plastics recycling it's an approach that's been leading the way in Cumbria and the North West. Recycling plastic is a tricky business; the raw material is lightweight, bulky and costly to transport, there's lots of different types that need sorting to get good prices, and market rates make it difficult to recycle profitably. But it's a little easier for an enterprise with a strong community focus and no need to turn a profit. "You see we've always been led by general public, whatever they want we try and do it for them," explained Ian. "They wanted plastic recycling so we gave them plastic. Then they wanted aluminium so we gave them foil recycling. It's not easy or cheap, particularly in a sparsely populated area like Eden but we worked hard at it with the communities, with the processors and with the council and we've found a way to make it work. "

Ian's enthusiasm for their plastic scheme was infectious, "We try and recycle all kinds of plastic packaging, not just bottles, and get it all reprocessed in the UK. That trailer there is off to Leicester tonight where carrier bags get made back into black bin bags and bottles get milled down into granules then sold on to make drain pipes, insulation and even clothes." Since the plastic scheme started in 2003, they've recycled over 350 tonnes of the stuff including over 10 million bottles and 13 millions carrier bags, saving the council landfill and making money for good causes as well.

Working with the community is part of the ethos here, trying to put sustainability before profitability and provide the recycling services people want rather than just those which are financially attractive. Of course it's an approach which is easier when the profit motive is clearly out of the equation but one we could surely do with a little more of around the county. Perhaps the looming landfill crisis and rising landfill taxes will help shift the economics sufficiently for all councils to offer community based recycling facilities for more than just paper, cans and glass. According to Ian, the demand is there even if the profit isn't and that in itself is encouraging news.

And as if to demonstrate the point a van pulled into the depot with a trailer full of bike boxes. "That's the local cycle shop dropping off some support," said Ian, adjusting his earpiece and checking his mobile then excusing himself to take an incoming call. And while he attended to the business of recycling the boys continued their treasure hunt and Kirstie and I marveled at the colourful crushed bales of tin, aluminium, plastic and foil and the determination of people like Ian who are committed to making a difference in the less than savoury but ever so important world of waste.

As Ian returned, the guy from the cycle shop finished unloading his boxes into the cardboard recycling cage and gave us a wave as he headed back to town, perhaps wondering what kind of cycle tourists would visit a recycling depot. "So, what's next Ian?" I asked as we prepared to leave.

"Well, we were getting a lot of requests about those beverage cartons, so we're doing a pilot to see if we can find a market for them." It's another first for Cumbria and another example of how this small outfit is responding to community demands. "We've found a mill in Fife that's can separate out the cardboard, plastic and foil in juice, custard and milk cartons. Apparently they can turn them into paper bags, tissue and Christmas wrapping. It's amazing what people can do these days. "

Indeed it is. As we left Ian and the Eden Recycling Centre, the boys seemed particularly pleased with the visit and the recycled rocket they had made out of an old fork thrust into a plastic bottle complete with squashed tin wings and a foil nose. They clearly got the message about the value of recycling.

Rubbish is beautiful

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A miraculous contraption

From: Stuart
Subject: A miraculous contraption
Date: 4th April 2006
Place: Gamblesby, Cumbria

There's nothing unusual looking about Gamblesby Village Hall, an old Victorian schoolhouse in the fell-foot village of Gamblesby, a few miles east of Penrith.

From the outside it doesn't look like much has changed here in the hundred and fifty years since the school was built, even the warm red sandstone looks in pretty good shape for its' age. But things here are not what they seem; this is no grimy Victorian schoolhouse but a clean, green 21st century eco village hall, a transformation led by the local community following a nasty accident which led to the hall's closure.

"The village hall had been deteriorating over many years," explained Bill Mitchell, secretary of the hall committee. "It got to the stage where somebody leant back on a chair and went through the rotten floor. Then we knew we had to close and renovate. It was run-down, cold draughty and damp; the only heating was four electric heaters that burnt the top of your head and left your feet cold," he explained as he invited us inside.

Family on a bike arrives at Gamblesby Village Hall

Having seen a pub, shop and church close, the prospect of losing another community amenity ensured there was wide ranging community support for a hall refurbishment project. So, with the community behind them the committee developed plans for a project which used innovative renewable energy and insulation technology to attract grant funding, reduce the building's carbon footprint and ensure low running costs. It all proved very fashionable, practical and popular in a small village with limited funds, no gas main and ever reducing community amenities.

"Now we use a small ground source heat pump to run an underfloor heating system in the hall," explained Bill. Standing in the car park in the cold spring air, it was hard to believe that water pumped through large coils buried under the ground beneath our feet could pick up enough heat from the ground to warm a pancake let alone a village hall. But by a miracle of physics and technology that's just what a Ground Source Heat Pump does.

Dig down a few metres almost anywhere in the UK and the average soil temperature in the UK is between 8 and 13ºC year round; enough to warm up cold water slowly circulating in underground pipes by a few degrees. That's your ground source. If you couple that with a heat pump, a kind of fridge in reverse, then you can take this low grade heat and with a bit of technological trickery concentrate it to heat water up to 50ºC and feed your underfloor heating system, radiators or hot taps. This approach is cleaner, greener and involves lower running costs than heating with gas, oil or electricity.

And as if to prove the magic while it was no more the 5ºC outside, once inside the hall we were a positively comfortable 18ºC. Bill pointed to the old electric heaters still mounted high above our heads. "We kept those for back-up," he explained, "but we've not used them.We can't quite believe how good the system is. The first time we turned it on and watched the temperature rise to over 40 degrees it was like watching a miracle."

Of course it's not energy for free; the heat pump needs electricity to do its' business, and there's the capital costs of installation to factor in, but all in all the Gamblesby hall committee reckon the running costs of ground source are about one quarter of those for their old electric system, and with lower carbon emissions, they're feeling good about saving money and the planet.

But the people of Gamblesby are not content to stop there. The goal of the second phase of their project is real magic; to try and reduce the running costs and carbon emissions of the hall further by installing a small wind turbine, using wind generated electricity to pre-heat water, run the heat pump and possibly even generate a small income by selling any excess power to the grid.

Bill Mitchell, Secretary of Hall Committee

The whole project has had quite an impact on the community and the benefits go beyond cost savings and carbon reductions. The hall committee brought together long term residents and newcomers, farmers, tradesmen, engineers and other skilled professionals, who all put their skills to work for their community. "We learnt a lot together, really worked together, doing PR, fundraising, negotiating and hard labour," explained Bill, "and some in the village are now experts in heat pumps too." And alongside their commitment to developing their know-how and using green technologies, the committee made a commitment to go local, sourcing materials locally and placing contracts with local businesses and tradespeople. "The whole community was incredibly supportive and keen to lend a hand," explained Bill, "and we had a lot of volunteers who wanted to help too. So we used the skills, tools and heavy equipment available in the village and on the farms and just got on with it ourselves. It all helped keep costs down, made the whole project viable, built a great community spirit and got people thinking about energy efficiency and using renewables at home."

Bill showed us a video of the locals at work, shot and edited by a local camerman after a tap on the shoulder by the committee. As we sat and watched villagers in hard hats ripping out the old floorboards, hacking away at old plaster, trundling wheelbarrows, laying hardcore, digging trenches, laying floorboards, plastering, painting and hanging curtains, it was obvious that the Gamblesby project was no ordinary refurbishment project and the resulting hall was no ordinary village hall.

Once the video finished, Bill showed us around the hall, pointing out the fresh yellow paintwork, low energy lighting, polished wooden floors and bright red drapes. As we walked and talked it struck me how ordinary it all looked, how there was nothing here that looked that special apart from the pride that Bill evidently had in the whole project. He opened up a small wooden wallbox and showed us the rather ordinary looking set of pipes, valves and dials used to feed the underfloor heating. He handed us a few tufts of the Herdwick sheeps wool used to insulate the building and finally took us outside to a little shed where he showed us an unprepossessing box about the size of a small fridge. "And that's the magic, the heat pump," he explained. And even that wasn't all that impressive to look at.

The hall's smart but ordinary appearance conceals its' magic

I came to Gamblesby to see renewables at work, to see first-hand the magic of a Ground Source Heat Pump but what I found was a project that was much more than that, that not only used renewables and reduced emissions but also enhanced community skills and spirit, created an amenity that villagers feel a great sense of pride in and ownership of and encouraged people to think about the impact of their own energy consumption. Now that's the kind of eco-magic we could do with a lot more of.