On Saturday 26th October from 1pm to 4pm, the WeRPollards team is hosting Sustainable Merton’s The Wheel project to run a Repair Café. They will come with friendly repairers who will be on hand to give household items a new lease of life. It’s all about repairing together and having fun while fixing.
They can repair textiles and small electrical items (sorry no power tools!). It is a free event with refreshment for the fixers and a chance for everyone who attends to learn new skills.
Whilst we are on the subject, it is national Recycling Week:
- You can find lots of tips and ideas on the ‘Recycle Now’ website here.
- Sustainable Merton also have some useful tips here.
The local WeRPollards project has its own webpage on the Sustainable Merton site here.
This campaign aims to reduce waste through reducing environmentally wasteful consumption and increasing reuse and repair of items which would otherwise go to waste. It also aims to increase recycling, tackle fly-tipping, and foster a greater sense of pride in the local environment. Volunteer Waste Champions receive training and support and are part of a close group of passionate, local people. Some activities which waste champions are taking part in are:
- Meeting with each other and neighbours to understand the challenges with waste disposal;
- Helping design a campaign to challenge waste disposal behaviour;
- Knocking on doors in teams to educate neighbours on better waste disposal behaviours;
- Organising fun engagement days e.g. trips to nature, litter picking, recycling art competitions, reuse workshops.
Here at the community centre we have heard mixed views of how the WeRPollards project is going. There’s no doubt that the volunteers are hard-working and dedicated, they stay in touch with each other, they report things. But, as we understand it, they only cover a couple of blocks so the rest of the estate has not benefitted, and as we have said before, strewn and dumped rubbish is a big problem. There is quite an attractive bin area just next door to the Moat offices, decorated with local children’s prize-winning art, but we understand that this will not be replicated across the estate as it costs too much money.
So we would very much welcome your feedback on the project and its impact, what else you would like to see happening or to get involved in, and don’t forget, any Monday morning, if you are able, pop down to the Community Café in the New Horizon Centre and tell us about the local environment things that bug you – noise, rubbish, dog poo – whatever it is, we want to help you to report it and get more things fixed.
