A Community Volunteer meeting

New River, Fly Tip
Originally uploaded by MrsEds

Saturday was a beautiful Autumn morning in Harringay, season of mists and mellow flytipping.

Tip toeing through the dog poo down the Passage and trying not to notice the smell, I dawdled my way to the Community Volunteers meeting, snapping pictures of dewy spiderwebs and the New River by Hampden Road, as well as the odd unwanted kitchen cabinet and dumped mattress.

I made my way to the Portakabin known as the Education centre at the Hornsey Refuse and recycle depot, full of delightful children's drawings urging us to reduce, reuse and recycle and met some of my fellow Community Volunteers. At last, I am with my own kind, people who care as much as I do about litter louts, overflowing bins and dumped stuff on the streets. Glad I'd left the cardigan at home, I settled down with a coffee and a pastry and took out my sparkly notebook, to listen and learn.

And learn I did, here are some snippets from my notebook:

Bags for food waste must have the correct symbol on them or will not be taken by the collectors

Garden waste will not be collected if it contains soil

If a hedge is overhanging and blocking a pavement, the council will cut it and send the owner the bill (whether this is paid is of course a different matter)

If there is rubbish in people's gardens that is causing a nuisance to neighbours (the 'dump old mattresses/furniture/junk' brigade) then the SNT have proved to be very helpful in encouraging people to clear it away. I will bring this up further at the LCSP meetings as I was not aware that the SNT could be part of our armoury on this, although it was the police who got my neighbour to clean up the street.

That there are 5 tetrapack recycling points in the borough. Find out where here

That the recycling from our box is sorted by some highly sophisticated machinery and a few humans at two plants in Greenwich and Rainham, it is not dumped abroad but the recycled materials are bought and shipped to overseas companies and glass is used in road surfacing.

That my next community clear up was soon, check here for yours.


The two young people running the session (and that is in no way meant to be ageist, they are young and I am not), Katie and Adam, struck me as the kind of council officers that we all hope are being recruited. They are intelligent, very committed to the cause of waste reduction and conservation of energy and water and full of excellent ideas. They deserve our support and our encouragement for their intiatives.

Which is why I am signed up to the Watch your waste challenge, trying to reduce my waste, which is mountainous this week because the nipperette had her 5th birthday and a whirl of partied have ensued. Have tried to recycle as much paper and booze bottle (whoops, I mean pop bottles) as possible but I feel I have given myself an unfair advantage as I'm bound to have less cava bottles next week (I hope).

Also please take a look at the Give and Take day here and consider going along. This is just the sort of event I've been advocating for a while and they are hoping to get a programme of these going.

When I left the meeting just after 12, Katie had been buttonholed by one of the more longwinded members of our group and it looked like she was in for a long session...way above and beyond the call of duty, I'd say, on a Saturday afternoon.