Transition Town Tooting

Tag: Sustainability

  • Number 5 in TTT’s ’12 tweets to Christmas’

    Here is tweet number five:
    No. 5 in @tttooting‘s 12 days to xmas: Broken Xmas present? Save it from landfill – head to a @RestartProject Party and learn how to fix it!

  • Number 4 in TTT’s ’12 tweets to Christmas’

    Here is tweet number four:
    No.4 in @tttooting‘s 12 day to xmas: Make decorations from recycled or found materials like these pretty snowflakes goo.gl/XHTJYc

    And…a tweet number four bonus for followers on the blog:

    Make your house look festive this Christmas with unique and simple homemade creations from recycled materials or natural materials.

    Get out in the crisp wintery weather and collect some pinecones. They look great as a table centre round a candle or hung from ribbons. When Christmas is over they can go back in the garden. 

    Plastic bottles are so versatile and come in a variety of sizes to make things from.  Try these bottle-bottom snow flakes or bottle penguins (click on the names to link to the websites).

    Use paper and wrapping paper off cuts to make these hanging decorations: click here or here.

  • Number 3 in TTT’s ’12 tweets to Christmas’

    Here is tweet number three:
    No.3 in @tttooting‘s 12 days to xmas: Don’t buy ‘stuff’, choose an activity (theatre, ice-skating). Share experiences, create fab memories.

  • Number 2 in TTT’s ’12 tweets to Christmas’

    Here is tweet number two:
    No.2 in @tttooting‘s 12 days to xmas: re-make, re-use & re-create to reclaim waste in new ways rebuildingcenter.org pic.twitter.com/uNsj5LroEg

  • TTT’s ’12 tweets to Christmas’: here is tweet no. 1

    TTT’s ’12 tweets to Christmas’

    We’re going to tweet every day from now until Christmas Eve on practical, creative, seasonal & interesting sustainability themes. 

    Here is the welcoming tweet:
    Today we begin @tttooting‘s 12 tweets to Christmas, built on our email newsletter last month ow.ly/FMPV5 Join in!

    And here is tweet number one:
    No.1 in @tttooting‘s 12 day to xmas: Source your dinner locally. Use a tool like @findlocalfood‘s ow.ly/FMQcO or @MadeInTooting

    Follow us on twitter (@tttooting) and retweet the messages, and we’ll follow you. The more the merrier….and please join in and tweet us your sustainability tips too.
    If you are not on twitter, you can read the posts here on the TTT blog, one a day. Do email us more ideas here.

    Yes it’s a challenge to be concise and fit a message into 140 characters – it must be good practice! Actually it is quite addictive…
    And we haven’t written these as a committee – the tweets are simply what diverse individuals have volunteered to share.
    If it catches on….we could do a run of New Year’s Resolutions in Jan?

    Our twitter address again: @tttooting 

  • Growing, jenga, community energy and wellbeing at St George’s Community Open Day, 15th Nov.

    Thanks so much to St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust for the invitation to have a stand at the Open Day last Saturday – our third year running.
    And thanks to all who came to talk, share ideas, participate in the games for all ages, and sign up to our email lists to keep in contact. 

    We chose three areas of what we do locally to share with visitors:

    • The Tooting Community Garden

    • Sustainable living and wellbeing games

    • Our sister project, the Furzedown Low Carbon Zone

    Some high points included:
     
    Playing with the planet: 
    plotting the sources of common foods on the world map

    Giant jenga, with green living tips

    There were twelve volunteers on the varied activities through the day, and there was a lot of preparation…

    Sometimes action takes over

    …the most valuable aspect of the day was having the time to talk to visitors about plans and ideas.


    Making drinks carton wallets
    Rhubarb on the St George’s Allotment

    Doing the day together as a team was also special.

    TTT and the Furzedown Low Carbon Zone have some great events happening in the next month – see our Events Calendar on the top right of this blog homepage.  

    All welcome!

      

    Plus: we are discussing future projects with St George’s. 
    We’ll share news soon..

  • So Much On At Foodival 2014!

    The 2014 Foodival looks set to be the biggest yet. In its seventh incarnation, Foodival now involves a presence at both the BATCA Funday and Foodcycle (both on Saturday 13th) where you can drop off food donations, have your photo taken in our photo booth and maybe be a late entry for Top Tooting Cook.

    On Sunday 14th at Samaj Hall, 26b Tooting High St, the line-up of bands and performers is incredible and we are really grateful for all of their offers to entertain us.  Similarly we are very grateful to the particpating restaurants cooking up your donated produce, the fabulous array of local groups who will be there, not to mention the special input of fanSHEN, Mark Watson and Tooting’s Phantom Knitter.

    Follow these links to head over to the Foodival website for more details.

    We hope to run into you enjoying yourself this weekend in the cultural food village that is Tooting.

  • Our 8th ‘Carbon Conversations’ series has begun

    We began last evening………..our small group’s exploration of understanding, choices and action on carbon reduction.
    The participants aren’t all starting from the same place on this journey. Some people in the group know a lot, some know less, and for all of us terms like a low-carbon future or carbon footprint may be simple words, but what do they mean?
    Yes, we’ve promised to be careful of jargon.
    However there is no getting away from the fact that it’s useful to become more ‘carbon literate’, and engage with some new terminology, and some measurement (‘where are all those tonnes of C02?’) –without becoming carbon bores or confusing people.

    Sketch of an earlier carbon conversation, by Alice Maggs
     

    We asked ourselves the question: why do we bother? to act on sustainability and carbon-reduction in our lives.
    Here are our responses, and no one needed to mention carbon at all in these personal and passionate comments:

    • I feel more powerful and in control, rather than helpless
    • It’s a crime not to
    • I wish to look after the world
    • I hate waste and with my ‘cheapskate tendencies’ I love to recycle
    • I care about the future, and my children’s lives
    • I believe doing positive things makes more positive things happen
    • We are all at risk – people, countries, nature
    • This is a global challenge, and I want to know what I can do

    These comments show a range – maybe some are from the head and are about understanding and facts; maybe some are gut feelings from the heart; some are about taking action that’s hands-on.
    We have a creative mix in the group for this series!

    This session was designed to frame the whole series, and the next meetings are focused on separate practical topics. The second meeting is Tuesday 27th May, and you can still join the rest of the series then.
    For more info, click here for the flyer.

  • Ecobuild 2014

    This year’s Ecobuild had plenty to catch the eye and ear.  I was particularly interested in the Resource section on reuse and the circular economy. Here’s three projects which sounded good:

    • The RSA’s Great Recovery Project about how redesigning systems can help conserve valuable resources and minimise waste. 
    • The London Re-use Network who give young people a chance to develop skills repairing unwanted household items which are then provided to those most in need, in social housing for example, at the same time saving more dumping in landfill. 
    • Rentez-vous which enables women to rent fashion items from each other and from fashion houses rather than buying wardrobes full of things rarely to be worn.

    Meanwhile a seminar we attended on Community Energy will definitely be helpful for the Furzedown Low Carbon Zone project.  As well as these highlights, Ecobuild as usual hosted the best in sustainable design, construction and renewable energy.  It’s invariably an inspiring event to sample all the latest ideas and to gather useful information.             dt

  • Work & Play Scrapstore in Tooting

    I made a visit to the recently re-opened Work and Play Scrapstore in Blackshaw Rd this week. Running for over 20 years, the Scrapstore promotes the re-use of resources for environmental and community benefit and has a great collection of card, trimmings, fabric, plastics, carpet pieces and costumes.  The Scrapstore is a registered charity and provides resources to  schools, community groups and local artists – TTT’s art making group SMArT visits regularly.  

    Many thanks to Scrapstore volunteers Alison, Elizabeth, Lucy & Susan (all pictured) for showing me around.  The ethos of the Scrapstore seems a good fit with Transition ideas, and would be a great resource for future events.  

    Meanwhile can anyone out there assist the Scrapstore with donations?  I was given a wishlist of desirable items so please do take any of the following down there on a Tuesday if you are able. dt

    Wishlist:
    finer fabrics, felt, metal bottle tops, coloured card and paper, ribbon, laces, haberdashery, buttons, sewing tape, zips, elastic, knitting wool, plastic offcuts, plastic foam in sheets (2mm thick and up), wine corks, paper cups and plates.

    Find out more at http://workandplayscrapstore.org.uk