Hold a ‘Bike MOT’ session where people can bring their bikes along for minor repairs or adjustments. Find volunteers who know how to fix bikes or see if your local bike shop can help out.
Greener Greenhill have tried this activity – to find out more about what they did check out their Facebook page or send them an email to greenergreenhill@gmail.com.
Organise a guided bird-song recognition walk in your local area. This is great for well-being and connecting with nature, and can lead to conversations about how we can help nature in our own homes and outdoor spaces.
Greener Greenhill have tried this activity – to find out more about what they did check out their Facebook page or send them an email to greenergreenhill@gmail.com.
Many people in Greenhill tell us they’re worried about waste from the amount of plastic we all use, and recycling uses only about 20% of the energy required to create new plastic. There are lots of types of plastic that could be recycled but, in Sheffield, are not collected for recycling.
A company called Terracycle does recycle lots of these ‘hard-to-recycle’ plastics. It works like this:
1) you buy a Zero Waste Box online,
2) fill it up with recycling,
3) send it back when it is full.
Terracycle recycle the plastic into pellets to be used in anything from bottles to children’s play equipment.
What did we do?
We had to decide what to recycle, where we could put the Zero Waste Box, and how to pay for it.
We work in partnership with Greenhill Community Library, so they were more than happy for us to put a box in their foyer. As the library is a public building, it meant the box was accessible to everyone in the community.
We decided to go for ‘oral health products’ – old toothbrushes and empty toothpaste tubes – as they were small enough to carry to the library easily.
The Zero Waste Box cost about £130. When we were thinking about how to pay for it, we wondered if a local business would be prepared to sponsor it. As we would be recycling toothbrushes, we approached a local dentist – GHB Dental – and they were very supportive and agreed to pay for the box.
The next step was to let people know the box was there. We put up a poster in the library and posted about it on our facebook page. We also contacted Greenhill Primary School, and were invited to speak to their pupils at an assembly.
How Did It Go?
We bought the Zero Waste Box in September 2021 and sent the full box off six months later. Greenhill Primary School were very enthusiastic and some of the pupils were so keen to get involved they arranged to collect the recycling at the school and take it over to the library.
Any advice, tips or lessons learnt?
We’ve started another hard-to-recycle plastic collection this autumn (2022) but decided to do it a bit differently! We are collecting both blister/pill packs and empty crisp packets but this time in a rather splendid home-made collection box – see photo! We’re going to empty it weekly and take the collected items to a specialist centre ourselves.
Order a Zero Waste Box here: zerowasteboxes.terracycle.co.uk
All branches of Superdrug now collect blister packs for recycling. Find out more here.
Find out where and how to recycle all sorts of items near you with the recycling locator tool at Recycle Now.
Hold an ‘e-bike trial’ for people who might by interested in buying an electric bike. Local people who already have an e-bike could let others have a go on them to find out what they’re like.
Greener Greenhill have tried this activity – to find out more about what they did check out their Facebook page or send them an email to greenergreenhill@gmail.com.
We’d love to hear you from you! Whether you have a ‘light bulb’ idea to share, or would like to tell us your story in more detail, your knowledge and experience can inspire and motivate others. Every initiative has something to teach us. Click here to add your activity.
We also want your feedback – let us know what you find useful, as well as what is not useful to you. These pages are a work-in-progress and the way they develop will be guided by you! Click here to leave feedback.
Hold an ‘e-bike trial’ for people who might by interested in buying an electric bike. Local people who already have an e-bikes could let others have a go on them to find out what they’re like.
Greener Greenhill put a TerraCycle box in the library for collection of hard-to-recycle plastics:
Organise a guided bird-song recognition walk in your local area. This is great for well-being and connecting with nature, and can lead to conversations about how we can help nature in our own homes and outdoor spaces. Greener Greenhill have tried this activity – to find out more about what they did check out their Facebook…
Hold a ‘Bike MOT’ session where people can bring their bikes along for minor repairs or adjustments. Find volunteers who know how to fix bikes or see if your local bike shop can help out.
We want to support this fantastic work by providing a platform where communities and local groups can share their ideas and enthusiasm and learn from each other.
We are sharing the inspiring stories of people, groups and organisations across South Yorkshire, who are working in our communities to make them stronger, greener, and healthier places for us all to live.
We’re gathering together a collection of ideas for community activities and initiatives.
We are building a list of community groups across South Yorkshire so you can find out what is happening in your neighbourhood, or perhaps even start your own group!
We have also set up a ‘group‘ on Facebook for community groups to get together directly and share their ideas, useful tips, and ask for advice.
Let us know about what you have been doing in your community. We’d love to hear your ideas, the things you have tried, what went well and what you might do differently. Click here to add your activity.
Tell us about your community group so we can add you to the list.
Join the group on Facebook.
And most importantly, let us know what you think about these pages. This platform is very much a work-in-progress and we want to know what is useful – and what is not – so that we build something that is of real benefit to communities across South Yorkshire.
High Storrs Environmental is a group of people living in the High Storrs area of Sheffield who have come together with a shared concern about climate change and the environment. We are keen to work together to find out more about some of the problems facing us, and what we can do about them.
We started in late 2021 by posting a leaflet through every letterbox on local streets, and then followed up by speaking to people on the doorstep about what their main environmental concerns were. From these initial steps, a group of around thirty local people signed up to join a Whatsapp group.
Based on what people told us, we’ve set up small groups to focus on specific activities, these are:
– Recycling
– Litter-picking
– Home insulation
– Traffic congestion and public transport
– Door-knocking and local discussion
– Reuse/Repair
We have set up a website and have a Facebook page where we let people know what we are doing.
Since then our members have been involved in lots of different activities – some have organised litter picks, others have begun investigating local plastic use and recycling. We’ve had a talk about retrofitting our homes from a Sheffield-based architect, and had a vegan food taster day!
Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust have useful information and guidance on starting a new community group, in their Nature Recovery Toolkit here wildsheffield.com/nr-toolkit/looking-after-your-local-green-space/new-group
