We need scheme to get rid of unwanted junk

I HOPE you’ve had a lovely summer and some restful holidays. We enjoyed a cottage break with our daughter where we had the novel experience (for us) of using a coffee machine with coffee pods.

Having never used one before, and not being very practical people, it took us a little while to work out how to use it. But after a few spills on to the kitchen floor and serving my long-suffering husband a cup of cold coffee having accidentally switched the machine on to cold setting rather than hot, we were soon enjoying our usual three cups of coffee a day each.

And that is when the consequence of enjoying coffee this way became apparent — after a week we had
42 pods to dispose of, each a mix of plastic, metal and organic matter. Not easy to recycle. Had we been there a year we would have had 2,184 pods filling up the bin.

So, what happens to used coffee pods? The sad fact is that 95 per cent of them will end up in landfill. Plastic pods take 500 years to break down and will release methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere as they do so.

South Oxfordshire District Council recommends a service called “Podback” who will collect and recycle for free and here in the UK, plastic and aluminium coffee pods with the grounds being sent for anaerobic digestion and the aluminium and plastic being shredded and recycled. On its website (www.podback.org) you can enter your postcode and check whether they can collect free from your doorstep or via Royal Mail collection.

If you don’t want to be bothered with that, biodegradable coffee pods are available online from suppliers such as Volcano Coffee Works or in the supermarket with brands like Grind. These claim to be fully home compostable.

But why not try doing without them altogether? Our trusty stainless-steel cafetière has made tasty coffee for us, at the strength we like, for many years. I really couldn’t tell the difference between the pod coffee and our home-brewed with a good quality ground coffee.

But what can I do with the half-full tins of paint in my garage?

Our garage is probably like yours — a sad collecting place of junk you don’t know what to do with but don’t feel able to dispose of.

In 1993, a team of researchers in Leeds wondered just exactly what waste was in the average home’s garage or loft. They launched a research project called Waste Wagon to find out. Interestingly, one of the biggest categories of waste was paint with the average home having 17 tins of used paint stored. I can attest to this, we’ve lived in our house for many years and a count-up of the half-full tins of Farrow and Ball’s finest in our garage was north of 35.

Tucked away in cupboards and on the garage floor, having invested in Farrow and Ball’s taking-the-Michael prices I had always intended to be able to use them up. But there was never quite enough left, the colour no longer fitted with our new décor and instead they have sat there abandoned, cluttering up space we need for other things.

And there was always the very practical problem of disposal. We couldn’t simply take them to Oakley Wood recycling centre and allow someone else to sort the problem for us. For a long time, Oxfordshire County Council recycling centres did not accept paint and although they now do paint tins must either be empty or leftover paint hardened with sand, sawdust, cat litter or a commercial paint hardener. It’s quite a bother.

But this does seem like a massive waste. In the UK we throw away 50 million litres of paint each year of which 50 per cent is immediately reusable. So I was delighted to hear about Community RePaint, which was set up specifically to deal with the leftover paint problem.

I spoke to David Squires, from Community RePaint, who explained that the organisation grew out of that original waste study in Leeds into a national network. He said: “Community RePaint works as a network of 100 independent organisations who are willing to run a paint reuse scheme. We collect leftover paint and redistribute it to individuals and groups within the community who can make use of it”

“There is a variety of community organisations running schemes as well as local authorities and waste management companies who want to promote reuse. As a network each runs a little differently although there are two main models. Either paint is left at a drop-off point for others to pick up for free or a community organisation with a retail arm may sell pre-loved paint cheaply.”

Both individuals and businesses can donate leftover paint. Community RePaint even runs a paint mixing service called ReColour if you need larger quantities of paint for a community project for example and offers emulsion, masonry, chalk and garden paint at prices starting from a very affordable £6 per litre.

Across the country village halls, community nurseries, schools and playgrounds have benefited from a cheerful new coat of paint and saved thousands of litres of perfectly usable paint from being thrown away.

Well, having spoken to David this all sounded like a brilliant idea and just what I needed to clear out my garage and donate my half-full pots of paint to a good cause.

So I went on to the Community Repaint site to find where I could donate my tins and I was disappointed. Entering our Henley postcode, our nearest drop-off point is in Padworth, 13 miles away. South Oxfordshire does not offer a scheme.

Of course, a one-off trip to Padworth might not be too bad but the reality is that recycling services need to be convenient.

David told me that Community RePaint is very keen to widen the coverage and is looking to recruit more partners to run schemes.

It’s such a wonderful idea and it’s a great pity we don’t have a local network partner. Do you know of a local organisation who could host a Community RePaint scheme? There is plenty of help and support available for organisations wanting to set one up.

Or would you like to encourage the county council to set up its own scheme — perhaps at Oakley Wood or more locally? There’s a template letter to send to your local council (communityrepaint.org.uk/let-your-local-authority-know-we-want-a-scheme-in-your-area) to let them know of your interest.

As David pointed out, for a local authority, re-using left-over paint is cheaper than having to pay to dispose of it and stops residents from disposing of paint in black bags.

Will you join me in writing and see if we can get this off the ground in our local area?