Islington Friends of the Earth

Many years ago Islington Friends of the Earth visited the incinerator at Edmonton. In those days the people who ran the incinerator were proud of how much they could burn

These days it is all very different.

On 6th May we re-visited the former fiefdom of Martin Jones (ex boss of North London
Waste) – the scene of our famous foray in 1991.

The Incinerator has now been rebranded the North London Eco Park and the incinerator is only allowed to burn “the residue we can’t do anything else with”. The I word isn’t mentioned though as it’s an energy centre and also on the site are ash recycling (for incinerator residue)wood chipping plants, bulky goods recycling and highly confidential waste recycling amongst other stuff.

A motley crew of us were taken on a school bus to see the composting facility. This has been functioning for two years and deals with the green and/or kitchen waste from the 7 boroughs making up North London Waste(Hackney, Camden, Islington, Barnet, Waltham Forest, Enfield and Haringay.)It handles 30,000 tons of waste per year and produces 15,000 tons of compost.

The food and green wastes are mixed together in a giant cement mixer type vehicle and then shredded in a monster shredder. Next they are taken to one of 16 tunnels where the composting takes place: bacteria break down the waste in the presence of moisture and oxygen producing CO2 and water as well as compost. If the waste is landfilled it decays anaerobically and produces methane, a much more potent climate changing gas. It reaches a temperature of 78-80C which kills pathogens and weeds. The whole process takes 12 weeks.

The tunnels are made of a Goretex material which keeps rain out but allows moisture and gases to pass out but keeps the smells in, following odour related complaints in 2006.

The compost we saw at the end had a lot of pine needles in from people’s Christmas trees. They give it away to farms (over the last decade 15% of organic matter has been lost from agricultural land) within the M25 if possible and to allotments (hoping to give 4,000 tons to allotments in the 7 boroughs this year), the boroughs’ Parks & Gardens and they have compost giveaways where people can come and help themselves.

Things have certainly moved on in the last seventeen years. Once upon a time it was considered okay to dig big holes in the ground and shove our waste in it. Then we thought we could burn it. Now slowly, slowly we have begun to realise that we cannot keep, almost literally, brushing the rubbish under the carpet. We have to deal with it. The transformation of Edmonton Incinerator into the North London Eco Park represents that change in attitude.

Duncan plays the Prime Minister trying to ignore the exhortations of Debbie and John.

A climate change bill which excludes emissions from aviation is like going on a diet but eating all the chocolate you like. Or like introducing a drink driving law that excludes whiskey.

Other industries will have to play their part when the climate change bill becomes law. Why should the airline business be let off the hook?

Islington Friends of the Earth, along with FOE groups up and down the country, were out in force to remind Mr Brown that he must take into consideration aviation and shipping emissions in the climate change bill.

One of our members, Duncan, gamely volunteering to be our Gordon Brown for the day, tries to ignore the aeroplane John is launching at him, in the photo used in the Islington Gazette.

We are talking plastic bags here.
The pictures show you a few of the bags we saw littering Newington Green. If they were banned, then these kind of images would be a thing of the past.

We have joined forces with local residents of Newington Green to turn the area into a plastic bag free zone. Step one of the campaign kicked off with a survey on 29th March when we discovered that 94% of people questioned would be keen to see Newington Green go plastic bag free.

For more details on the campaign including more on why plastic bags are such a bad thing and how you can get involved, go to http://plasticbagfreenewingtongreen.blogspot.com

Stop Heathrow Expansion Public Meeting

Thursday 7th February
7.30pm
Highbury Baptist Church
corner of Highbury Place and Baalbec Road N5
opposite Highbury Fields, Highbury

Click here for a map of the location

The campaign to stop the third runway at Heathrow Airport is holding a public meeting on Thursday 7th February in Highbury. It is the only meeting about this issue in North London and your chance to express about the government’s misguided scheme to expand Heathrow Airport.

It is recognised that we need to take action now to cut CO2 emissions. After massive lobbying by Friends of the Earth and others the government has introduced a bill to create a legal framework to cut CO2 emissions.

If the third runway is built it will blow a hole in this government’s plans to cut dangerous greenhouse gas emissions. Aviation already accounts for 34% of London’s CO2 emissions. Expansion of Heathrow and more flights will mean that we will have to cut drastically other emissions such as heating our homes, travelling to work, and many other day to activities such as meet the planned cuts in CO2.

Further action

Find out more…
To find out more about the campaign and how else to get involved, go to http://www.stopheathrowexpansion.com/

Sign the petition…
Click here to sign a petition against the expansion

Respond to the government consultation…
The government is currently consulting on the third runway. If you would like to take part go to http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/open/heathrowconsultation/ The deadline is 27th February.

Come along to the mass rally at Central Hall in Westminster on 25 February

In their spare time some members of Islington FOE just love doing pub quizzes. On Friday 16th November all that extra-curricular activity paid off when we triumphed over several other teams to win the Islington Ecology Centre Quiz.

The quiz included questions on general knowledge, food and drink and Islington. There was also a section on the environment (taken from Nicola Baird’s book, Save Cash and Save the Planet). Luckily we didn’t embarrass ourselves too much on that bit!

It was a nail-biting finish as it came down to a tie-breaker but in the event we won through.

The event was organised to help raise funds for next year’s Gillespie Park Festival

We are planning a series of campaigning activities over the coming months:

The Big Ask campaign – we will be out and about putting the message across that the Climate Change Bill needs to be tougher

Recycling picks – following our recycling picks at the Emirates stadium last season we are planning further picks elsewhere in the borough, rescuing rubbish that would otherwise go to landfill

Camapaign Against Climate Change March and Rally – and we will joining many others on the Campaign Against Climate Change March on 8th December

There will also be our regular monthly meetings and no doubt we will organising a Christmas gathering to round off the year’s campaigning.

If you would like to get involved in any of these activities, get in touch with our co-ordinator. Email sltaylor001@yahoo.co.uk

The sun shone for us at the Angel Canal Festival

Jenny, Debbie and Andrew

We were much in demand by local politicians. John chatted to several Liberal Democrat councillors and Stephen found himself in demand to have his photograph taken with…

… Bridget Fox, formerly local councillor and current prospective parliamentary candidate for the Lib Dems in Islington South

and…

Sarah Ludford MEP

All Lib Dems. It’s good to see they support the Big Ask campaign.

Another eighty five people came by to sign Big Ask postcards, as well as Sarah and Bridget.

Islington Friends of the Earth will be running stalls at the Islington Canal Festival and the Gillespie Park Festival on the 2nd and 9th September.

The Climate Change Bill may come before Parliament this autumn so we will be using the opportunity to encourage people to send a message to our local MPs asking for it to be a strong bill that actually cuts greenhouse emissions.

The Canal Festival runs from 11am until 5pm at City Road Basin. Gillespie Park Festival is at the Ecology Centre from 2pm to 6pm.

If you are planning to attend either event do come along and say hello.

Our Annual General Meeting took a record breaking fifteen minutes to complete.
There were three items on the Agenda:
Review of the year
Treasurer’s report
Election of officers

Click on the links below to see the review of the year and the treasurer’s report.

Islington Friends of the Earth has three officers (current occupants in the brackets):
Co-ordinator (Stephen Taylor)
Treasurer (Debbie Haigh)
Membership Secretary (Andrew Fuller)

All the current occupants were re-elected unopposed.

Well Islington Council set up a mock Speakers Corner complete with some Emily Pankhurst lookalikes on Tuesday 5th on Islington Green and Roger Lawson from the Association of British Drivers and I used megapahones to shout at each other. Needless to say the ABD are against higher charges but seemed to drop their previous stand that climate change wasn’t happening. Anyway it was all pretty relaxed. Be interesting to see what the local papers make of it. Let’s hope more people go out and vote.