Minutes

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March 2020 minutes

Brentford Recycling Action Group
Minutes of Meeting held in the
Meeting Room, Brentford Dock      
on Tuesday 3rd March 2020

Attending:   Hugh Picton, Patti Horsnell,  Wendy Mackenzie,  Virginia Fassnidge,  Catharine  Browne, Douglas Benford,  Malcolm Crofts Continue reading →

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June 2019 minutes

Brentford Recycling Action Group
Minutes of Meeting held at
The Toll House, Brentford Lock
on Tuesday 5th June 2019
 

Attending:   Hugh Picton,  Patti Horsnell, Douglas Benford, Virginia Fassnidge, Wendy Mackenzie, Catharine  Browne,  Malcolm Crofts,  Rukmini West, Cllr. Guy Lambert, Denise Davies, Ealing Transition Continue reading →

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April 2019 minutes

Brentford Recycling Action Group
Minutes of Meeting held at
The Toll House, Brentford Lock
on Tuesday 2nd April 2019
 

Attending:   Hugh Picton,  Patti Horsnell, Douglas Benford, Virginia Fassnidge, Wendy Mackenzie, Malcolm Crofts,  Rukmini West

No Topics Action
1 Minutes of last meeting agreed.
2 Apologies for Absence: Paul Richens, Andrew Dakers, Catharine  Browne, Kath Richardson, Sam Thomas, Canal and River Trust, Sheila Churchill, Cllr. Guy Lambert
3 Noticeboard:  The plan to install a noticeboard in the selected site has been agreed and the result may be seen soon. HP
4 Restart Project: These events have proved popular and successful and will continue to be arranged.  The next one in Brentford will be later in the spring. Venue and information will be passed on in due course. Further details on this subject and other restart parties may be found at: https://therestartproject.org/RestartParty/ VF PH
5 Street Care Team, Litter bins:  Guy responded to our recent discussion (about the possibility of a pilot programme to segregate recyclable cans and PET bottles from street bins and maybe street cleaning.  If it were cost neutral, perhaps, at least there would be a reduction in plastic going out to sea, CO2 and pollution.) reminding us that currently LBH don’t attempt to recycle from street bins at all because they have always been too contaminated. They’re trying to change that in conjunction with West London Waste but it may take a while. All the street bin stuff is currently incinerated for energy: not ideal but at least nothing ends up in landfill or the sea. However, we still agree that BRAG should make every effort to find a way to recover as much metal from littered cans and reduce the amount of plastic (increasingly more bottles) which litter our streets and cause so much damage to the environment. MC PH
6 General recycling: TerraCycle, an excellent initiative, collect and recycle many forms of recyclable  waste.   Please look at the very comprehensive, inspiring website:  https://www.terracycle.co.uk/en-GB/ ALL
7 Ealing Repair Café: Ealing Reduce, Reuse and Recycle Support Group are a local group run through Facebook to support Ealing residents in living more sustainable lifestyles. They have already held a Make Do and Mend/Repair Cafe for clothing and textiles, and would like to expand to a full, regular repair cafe for all kinds of household items. Their next clothes repair and making events is on Monday 29 April, 7.30 pm at Northfields Community Centre, Northcroft Road, West Ealing. ALL
8 Green Goblet: This is a UK environmentally friendly company that is committed to see disposable cups being replaced with reusable goblets. http://www.green-goblet.com ALL
9 Brentford Together: London Sustainability Exchange, Friends of Cathja and Salopian Garden – Cultivate London have won a collaborative Big Lottery grant, starting in April and running for three years. Planned activities include Dr Bike sessions in Brentford Market 10-1 on the first Sunday of the month and sewing sessions on Cathja’s Barge. Please support. ALL
10 Festival of Waste: Last year Rin (Cathja) organised this event in Brentford and would like to do it again, getting together with other local groups trying to make this world a little less carbon toxic and more environmentally aware and inclusive and improving the environment in various ways, by increasing walking or cycling, litter picking, planting, awareness raising, outdoor skills etc. getting the community together to improve the area. This will be held in Public (Market) Square from 11:00 – 16:00 on Saturday 17th or Saturday 24th August (n.b. Bank Holiday weekend). BRAG have agreed to take part and will share a stall, as last year, with Friends of the Earth. Any other groups interested in taking part should contact Rin direct for further information:  Rin Roche, M: 07904 406507 E: rinny_r02@yahoo.co.uk
11 Great British Spring Clean: this initiative runs from 22nd  March to 23rd April and aims to inspire people to join forces to clear litter from our streets, parks and beaches, recycling as much as possible. Please check the LBH website for full details of what is happening near you: https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/news/article/722/the_great_british_spring_clean_in_hounslow_-_join_us_for_the_country_s_biggest_ever_clean-up
12 Marie Curie Coffee Mornings: These continue to be held every month in the Brentford Dock club room to raise funds for Marie Curie. The next one will be on Monday 15th April from 10:30 to 12:30. The Brentford Dock Residents Association have also started producing brunches on the first Wednesday in the month from 11:00 am. Next one will be Wednesday 1st May, all are welcome! ALL
13 Soup Lunches: These are held at Brentford Dock club room on the 4th Thursday of every month  1:00 to 2:30, next one Thursday 25th April. Tasty, healthy, homemade soup, bread and cake! ALL

NEXT MEETING: Tuesday, 7th May 2019
7pm at the Toll House, Brentford Lock.

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March 2019 minutes

Brentford Recycling Action Group
Minutes of Meeting held at
The Toll House, Brentford Lock
on Tuesday 5th March 2019

Attending:   Hugh Picton,  Patti Horsnell, Catharine  Browne, Virginia Fassnidge, Wendy Mackenzie, Malcolm Crofts,  Rukmini West

No Topics Action
1 Minutes of last meeting agreed.
2 Apologies for Absence: Paul Richens, Andrew Dakers, Douglas Benford, Kath Richardson, Sam Thomas, Canal and River Trust, Sheila Churchill, Cllr. Guy Lambert
3 Noticeboard:  The plan to install a noticeboard in the selected site has been agreed and the result may be seen soon. HP
4 Restart Project: These events have proved popular and successful and will continue to be arranged.  The next one in Brentford will not now be until later in the spring. We have negotiated an alternative venue and information will be passed on in due course. Further details on this subject and other restart parties may be found at: https://therestartproject.org/RestartParty/ VF PH
5 Street Care Team, Litter bins:  There is no more news on this (reminder: Guy let us know a little while ago, that LBH have recently established that aluminium cans are worth about 1.7p if they are sold to recyclers and, of course, aluminium extraction is highly energy intensive so this is an important eco goal as well. There are  so many initiatives ongoing with the recycling and waste team and with Hounslow Highways that he’s not sure we can realistically prioritise this at present unless we get retailers or other volunteers to play. Retailers will most likely want the 1.7p if they participate, but that doesn’t really matter if it saves the cans from incineration.  LBH are working on options to start general recycling from street bins again and this would be a better option if we can get it going. Guy will keep us up to date with developments.  In the meantime, spreading the word about the value of recycling cans will be valuable.) We will continue to follow. PH GL
6 General recycling: TerraCycle collect and recycle many forms of waste. Please look at the very comprehensive, inspiring website: https://www.terracycle.co.uk/en-GB/ ALL
7 London Borough of Hounslow, Food Waste Prevention Campaign: BRAG were contacted by LBH who are currently carrying a EU Campaign focusing on food waste prevention in the Borough. They been selected as one of 8 London Boroughs to take part in the TRiFOCAL (Transforming City Food habits for Life) campaign. Funded by LIFE of the European Commission the initiative is being led by Resource London – the partnership between WRAP and LWARB – together with Groundwork London. The €3.2 million initiative will pilot in London, as a test bed for other European cities. The three key aims are to encourage sustainable eating, reduce food waste and increase food recycling. For more information on the campaign and for the Council’s part please see the following links:

http://trifocal.eu.com/

https://www.hounslow.gov.uk/info/20002/recycling_and_rubbish/ 1940/small_change_big_difference

http://smallchangebigdifference.london/hounslow-small-change/

There will be some roadshows, Brentford’s  at Morrison’s on 7th and 12th March from 11am – 4pm.

The main event: Saturday 30th March from 11am – 4pm called ‘food for thought’ on Turnham Green (Chiswick High Road).  They are looking to have between 15 to 20 stalls including food retailers, companies such as Oddbox, Riverford, Olio and education stalls (including a council stall offering caddies, food caddy liners and tote bags as well as a having a smoothie bike). Our aim is to have a professional chef doing a demonstration of commonly wasted food and making a dish from this and some talks from people on the above key aims. BRAG will not take a stall at this event but we do hope as many braggers as possible will attend and support this very worthy initiative.
8 East London Textiles: This organisation asked BRAG if we could tell them how to tender for Hounslow Council’s clothing bank contract.  We passed on the address of Hounslow Council.
9 Ealing Repair Café: Ealing Reduce, Reuse and Recycle Support Group are a local group run through Facebook to support Ealing residents in living more sustainable lifestyles. They have already held a Make Do and Mend/Repair Cafe for clothing and textiles, and would like to expand to a full, regular repair cafe for all kinds of household items. Their next clothes repair and making events are on Thursday 14 March and Monday 29 April, 7.30 pm at Northfields Community Centre, Northcroft Road, West Ealing. ALL
10 Plastic Free Communities: Surfers Against Sewage has information on how to get councils to remove single-use plastics from their premises:

https://www.sas.org.uk/objective-1-local-governance/

 ALL
11 Green Goblet: This is a UK environmentally friendly company that is committed to see disposable cups being replaced with reusable goblets. http://www.green-goblet.com ALL
12 Brentford Together: London Sustainability Exchange, Friends of Cathja and Salopian Garden – Cultivate London have won a collaborative Big Lottery grant, starting in April and running for three years. Planned activities include Dr Bike sessions in Brentford Market 10-1 on the first Sunday of the month and sewing sessions on Cathja’s Barge. ALL
13 Marie Curie Coffee Mornings: These continue to be held every month in the Brentford Dock club room to raise funds for Marie Curie. The next one will be on Monday 18th March from 10:30 to 12:30.   The Brentford Dock Residents Association have also started producing brunches on the first Wednesday in the month from 11:00 am. Next one will be Wednesday 3rd April, all are welcome! ALL
14 Soup Lunches: These are held at Brentford Dock club room on the 4th Thursday of every month  1:00 to 2:30, next one Thursday 28th March. Tasty, healthy, homemade soup, bread and cake! ALL

NEXT MEETING: Tuesday 2nd April 2019
7pm at the Toll House, Brentford Lock.