Recycle Week 2024 

Recycle Now’s ‘Rescue Me’ campaign for Recycle Week is almost here. 

Recycle Week this year will run from 14 – 20 October 2024 and will focus on rescuing recyclable items from your rubbish bin. For example, remembering to recycle empty deodorant or hairspray cans from your bathroom rather than letting them become rubbish. By recycling one extra item from our homes, we could make a huge difference! 

We will be sharing information about the ‘Rescue Me’ campaign on our Leicestershire Recycling Facebook page during Recycle Week.

 Halloween

Halloween can generate extra waste; it is reported by Hubbub that half of all Halloween costumes only get worn once before they're thrown away. Fun activities such as pumpkin carving, trick or treating, costumes, and decorations can all contribute to waste if we aren’t careful. But the good news is there are still loads of ways to enjoy Halloween without being wasteful and with planning, there are ways to save money in the process.  

We’ve come up with a few tips to help you kick start your low-waste Halloween celebrations. These ideas may help you: 

• Reuse old decorations or save this year’s ready for next year. 

• Eat the carved pumpkin parts rather than just throwing insides away. 

• Home compost any pumpkin that can’t be eaten. 

• Use clothes you already have and make costumes or buy second-hand items.

Autumn Composting 

As the weather cools down and the leaves start to turn brown, don’t forget that you can convert fallen foliage into composting gold.

Fallen leaves and woody prunings make a great source of ‘browns’ in your compost that can help balance lots of summer ‘greens’ such as grass clippings. You may also prefer turning your autumn leaves into leaf mould which is an easy process of piling leaves in a contained way that can be used as a soil improver or added to a compost bin. If you have large quantities of woody prunings and somewhere to store them, keep some back to use throughout the year.  

However, if you find your bin is already full from summer and is ready to empty, it's best to store compost in bags ready for use in spring as it can lose nutrients in the heavy winter rain. Spreading the compost in the spring a week or so before planting will give you the best results. 

Composting at home is a great way to feed your garden, saving you money, reducing your environmental impact and creates a useful product that can help the next season’s growing.

Batteries and Vapes

Every year, fire and rescue services have to attend at least 300 significant fires at recycling and waste management facilities across England. However, the total number of smaller unreported fire incidents occurring across the sector is estimated to be significantly higher than this, since hundreds of fires are extinguished by operators before the need to call the emergency services. 

In the last twelve months there have been five fires caused by batteries at Leicestershire Recycling and Household Waste sites. Numerous other fires have started in bins, waste collection vehicles, and at privately operated waste disposal and recycling facilities over the same period, many of which are thought to have been started or made worse by batteries. 

Batteries are commonly misplaced in rubbish and recycling bins in Leicestershire and these are a major cause of fires. Members of the public can help to reduce these risks by disposing of flammable items responsibly. 

These include: 

• Batteries 

• Vape devices

• Devices with batteries inside them

For advice on how to dispose on each item listed above, please click on the relevant link. There are battery recycling points at supermarkets, schools, libraries and many other public places. It’s easier than ever to do the right thing and recycle responsibly. 

Waste Site Changes Come into Effect in October

Changes to the opening days of some recycling and household waste sites (RHWS) in Leicestershire are to come into effect from the first week of October. 

From the week beginning 30 September, the following changes to waste site arrangements will take place:  

• Somerby RHWS will close permanently  

• Market Harborough RHWS will open three days a week 

• Shepshed RHWS will open two days a week  

• Kibworth RHWS will open four days a week

The sites at Coalville, Lount and Melton Mowbray will be open for the same number of days per week, but their opening days will change. Visitors to all sites are being urged to check the council’s RHWS website for the updated opening days and times before setting out for a waste site. 

The changes will save £300,000 per year.  

Environment Action Volunteer Recruitment

Environment Action Volunteers help communities help the planet 

Volunteers are being sought to support ongoing environmental action in Leicestershire.  

Environment Action Volunteers (EAVs) play a central role in raising awareness about a range of issues, from home composting to carbon, and new volunteers are wanted to take the scheme further. 

EAVs are a key part of Leicestershire County Council’s mission to protect the environment and tackle climate change, helping to raise awareness and encourage positive behavioural change.  

Volunteers can get involved in a range of activities, from advising on reducing food waste to helping manage non-native species, with no prior experience required. 

 
The scheme is a highly rewarding experience, as Anstey environment action volunteer Lynsey James testifies. 

“Leicestershire County Council supported me to complete a composting course as I really enjoy gardening and being outdoors, and at the events I attend with the council, I get the opportunity to talk about all things waste.” 

“This includes everything from preventing food and general waste to advising communities on swapping single use items for reusable ones, as well as home composting. I really enjoy inspiring and encouraging others to make small actions that will help to look after our planet.” 

So far, Lynsey’s volunteering efforts have been focused on setting up a pre-worn uniform scheme at her children’s school, which she has been running for around two and a half years. 

“We ask the school community for donations of good quality outgrown school uniform, including PE kits,” she explained. “Any unwanted or unclaimed lost property is also collected and we simply invite families to take what they think they can use at no charge.” 

A training session will be taking place on 12 October, where new volunteers will be given training across a range of topics to get them started in the EAV role. 

In addition to clicking on the button below, you can contact the volunteer co-ordinator by email at wasteprevention@leics.gov.uk   

Heritage Bring & Take Event - Sunday 20 October – 11am to 2pm

Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre are holding their first ever Bring & Take event this Autumn. It’s a heritage themed event, encouraging you to bring in all your unwanted treasures to enable them to be rehomed and given a fresh start with someone new. You may have items at home, in the cupboards or on display, that you no longer use or look at. Passing them on to someone else to enjoy is a great way of respecting our heritage and our resources. 

Heritage is a broad term, but we are interested in anything relating to the history or cultures of our country, such as: 

• Books (fiction or non-fiction) for adults or children, toys, board games, cups and plates 

• Paintings, postcards, and prints (in good condition) 

• Ceramics, sculpture, coins, jewellery  

• Textiles, tapestries, dressing-up clothes 

• Film DVDs, such as Gladiator, Elizabeth, Ben Hur, Troy, Braveheart, Schindler’s List, etc 

• TV DVDs, such as I Claudius, The Tudors, Horrible Histories, The Last Kingdom, etc

We do have a toolkit you can use to guide you through running your own swap event: Give or Take Toolkit 

Waste Management Adopts Greener Fuel

The council's waste management service recently took delivery of their first order of HVO (hydrotreated vegetable oil) fuel for use in vehicles and plant. They have joined Highways, who have been trialling HVO in some of their vehicles since 2022.  

The move to HVO fuel is part of efforts to reduce our carbon impact and lower our emissions of nitrogen oxide and particulate matter. HVO is synthesised from waste fats and vegetable oils and can be used directly in vehicles without any modifications.  

As well as lower carbon emissions, other benefits to using HVO include improved cold weather performance, better safety, storage and handling, and lower air pollution than diesel.  

Waste Management will be using the majority of the HVO in their fleet of heavy vehicles, which require significant amounts of fuel for hauling waste to disposal facilities.  

DEFRA Balsam Removal Project

The last few months have seen a significant reduction in Himalayan Balsam along a priority stretch of the river Wreake, from Brooksby Campus, Melton, to Frisby on the Wreake as part of a DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) funded project led by the Leicestershire & Rutland Invasive and Non-native Species Initiative (LINNSI) Local Action Group (LAG).

Himalayan Balsam is a very damaging plant. It increases the risk of soil erosion along our riverbanks, forming tall dense stands of vegetation, which increases local flood risk. In addition, the plant outcompetes many of our native plants, which negatively impacts on much of our local and native wildlife.

A collective effort of over 25 volunteer workdays collaborating with partners and landowners have taken place from late May to early July. These workdays have already resulted in the substantial clearance of an approximate 8km stretch of balsam along the river Wreake, making a considerable difference to the riverbank. In addition, volunteers have managed to clear a further 5,400 m2 of balsam from two adjacent woodlands.  

If you would like more information about the work of the LINNSI LAG, and our DEFRA funded project please contact: EnvironmentTeam@leics.gov.uk.   

And finally, a big thank you to everyone who has been involved with the project to date. 

 The Surprising Diversity of Leicestershire’s Roadside Verges

As summer 2024 comes to a close, Leicestershire County Council celebrates yet another successful year of its urban verge wildlife scheme in partnership with wildlife charity NatureSpot, led by the County Council’s Environment & Highways teams.  

The initiative which started as a pilot project back in 2020 has since seen a gradual increase in uptake annually by parish councils wishing to do more to tackle the biodiversity crisis, by helping to restore native grassland habitat. As of 2024 we have 77 individual verges in the scheme managed by over 60 parish councils, having started with 11 verges back in 2020. 

Each year NatureSpot helps us to undertake baseline wildflower and wildlife surveys of all new verges in the scheme, to help us monitor species trends over time and advise on the most appropriate management. 

Unsurprisingly, the species diversity is heavily influenced by the size of the verge, with larger verges typically having more space for more species, but that is not always the case as evident in this year's survey results.  For example, our smallest verge addition this year, in Newtown Linford, still supported a staggering 25 different flower and grass species, almost half of the average total of 43 across the 12 new verges added to this year’s portfolio. This demonstrates the amazing diversity of wildlife that can be found in often the most unlikely and sometimes smaller verge locations! Sometimes a simple reduction in grass cutting can make an enormous difference, at helping dormant species begin to thrive once more, as evident with a total of 211 varied species recorded on the 12 new verges contributing a total of over 610 new wildlife records, all without sowing any additional native seed mixes. 

In the autumn we will be taking expressions of interest for 2025 for any new, or existing applicants wishing to expand their green portfolio. If you would like more information about the scheme, please email: EnvironmentTeam@leics.gov.uk. 

Local Nature Recovery Strategy

In an inspiring collective effort to enhance and recover nature, the development of the first Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland is well underway.

With a remarkable response from over 1,100 survey participants and contributions from more than 40 farming and land manager individuals and organisations, the strategy is being shaped by the insights of a diverse group of stakeholders. This initiative represents a comprehensive and inclusive approach to nature recovery, ensuring that every voice is heard, and every sector of our community is involved. 

The LNRS aims to create bigger, better, and more connected areas for nature. To achieve this, we will identify key priorities and measures that will drive nature recovery efforts. A critical component of our strategy is pinpointing priority locations where actions will have the most significant impact. By focusing on these areas, we can maximise the impact of nature recovery actions, ensuring that nature can thrive. 

In addition, we are in the final stages of agreeing on the priority species that require special attention. This list includes not only animals but also 78 rare plants that need our protection.

Overall, the Local Nature Recovery Strategy is a testament to what can be achieved when everyone comes together with a shared vision of a greener, healthier future. By building on the insights and commitments of our diverse stakeholders, we are laying the groundwork for a sustainable natural environment that will benefit generations to come.