Tag: zero waste
St Nicks’ Volunteer Story: Natalie Rea
We caught up with our Precious Plastic York volunteer, Natalie Rea, and asked her some nosy questions about what inspires her and how she hopes to help St Nicks make a difference. Tell us a bit about yourself. My name is Natalie Rea. I am an Earth enthusiast. Having studied Geology for my undergraduate degree, […]
Getting more out of waste – big changes are coming!
There’s a massive shift coming for the waste sector, what are the changes and what impact will they have? Plastic tax (scheduled for April 2022) Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging (anticipated to be effective from 2023) Deposit Return Schemes (DRS) and consistent municipal recycling collections (set to be introduced from 2023) Plastic Tax The […]
Back to basics blog 3: Single use plastics
There seems to be a lot of antagonism towards plastics, some of which is deserved but some plastics are very well engineered, versatile and are basically now life essentials. What we believe needs to be clearer is the detrimental impact our throwaway, single use lifestyles are having. When we say single use we are referring […]
Zero Waste Christmas
It’s been two years since I first wrote about waste at Christmas and my how attitudes have changed in that time! This year Christmas is looking like it won’t be exactly as we’ve known previously so let’s prioritise the things that matter; the people, pets and friends we love and minimise our impact on an […]
Back to Basics: The Waste Hierarchy
You may have heard people discuss the 3 Rs or the 5 Rs. The 3 Rs are typically Reduce, Reuse, Recycle whilst the 5 Rs are Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recovery and Rot. Each of these things refers to the waste hierarchy. The waste hierarchy is a list of processes to tackle waste, starting with the […]
Zero Waste – what, why, how?
On a personal level zero waste is a lifestyle choice where we aim to minimise the amount of waste we produce. This means making conscious decisions on where we spend our money and being aware of the lifecycle of the items we consume. This results in less landfill waste, less recycling generated and no mindless […]
Coffee: it’s about so much more than taste…
Recycling Coordinator Sam Taylor looks at the factors you may not think about when you buy coffee… Whenever we buy anything we are telling manufacturers and producers we are OK with how they package it, how they market it and even how they produce it. You may have heard the term “voting with your pennies” […]
Zero Plastic Challenge results & tips
As part of our work towards Zero Waste, four of St Nicks staff undertook a Zero Plastic Fantastic Challenge over the 2 months of April and May 2017. You can read up on the rules and what motivated us to avoid single use plastic and use as little non-recyclable plastic as possible over the time […]
