As part of a big drive to rethink waste, residents are encouraged to check out the range of repair cafés, libraries of things, community larders, clothes swaps and other great reuse initiatives happening in their local area.
With reduce and reuse top of the agenda, last weekend, representatives from South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils popped along to check out the great work happening at two local initiatives.
In South, Cllr David Rouane, Council Leader and Cabinet Member for Climate Action, visited Sustainable Didcot’s Repair Café, which runs on the third Saturday of every month, 2pm to 5pm in The Green Hub in the SOHA building.
The friendly repair café, run entirely by dedicated volunteers, will try their best to fix broken household items for free, ranging from repairs of household electrical items (including computers), broken toys, clocks and watches, sharpening blunt knives – even sprucing up old bicycles. They are particularly interested in repairing electrical items and they will PAT test them to make sure they are safe.
Cllr Rouane took along a faulty iron and was incredibly impressed by the warm welcome he received, as well as the handy fix on his iron. He said: “The Sustainable Didcot Repair Café is a wonderful place. I’m delighted to have my iron fixed. I’d urge everyone to rethink what they throw out – is there life in it yet? Can it be fixed with a little TLC? Not only will this help save the planet you’ll save yourself a few pounds by not having to buy new. Visit the Didcot Repair Café or find one near you.”
View a video of David’s visit with Sustainable Didcot here.
People can find their nearest repair café and a range of other reuse initiatives by searching on the CAG Oxfordshire website: www.cagoxfordshire.org.uk or visit the Repair Café Oxfordshire websitehttps://repaircafeoxfordshire.org
Rethinking waste
Both of the councils have approved a new joint Waste Resources and Street Cleansing strategy. People can view the strategy and find out more about rethinking waste and our plans to keep our streets clean and tidy at: www.southandvale.gov.uk/rethinkingwaste
Residents in the districts have consistently been among the very best recyclers in England for well over a decade. The two councils are now striving to take things to the next level and are encouraging everyone to rethink their approach to waste.
A key part of the new strategy is to encourage and enable people to reduce, reuse, repair, refill and rehome items, instead of throwing them away.
Representatives from the councils will be at the Eco Fair at Cornerstone on 2 November 2024, with the opportunity to chat about rethinking waste.
