Eco-Activity Type

VDD: Reduce Your General Waste

July 3, 2020 by Rima

To return to the main schedule – click here

The Journey to Zero Waste & Litter Free Environments

24th July 6-7pm: Ticketed Virtual Q&A

Shannon and Iris regularly plog the streets of Chertsey

Handling & processing waste costs money. Waste that is not recycled is incinerated, which means a resource is burned forever.

Check your knowledge of the waste terms here

Metal is the only material that can be recycled nearly an infinite amount of times. Recycling glass requires very high temperatures (over 800 degrees celcius which is higher than the temperatures of the incinerators) and materials like plastic and paper are downgraded with each “recycle”. I hear some of you saying “My council recycles plastic”, and some of you demand that “More plastic should be recycled”

When plastic is recycled, it can be recycled on average 6 times before it is deemed useless. Since September 2019, virgin plastic has been cheaper to purchase than recycled plastic.

To reduce the amount of waste that is processed, there are a number of initiatives from BYOR (Bring Your Own Reusable), Repurposing, Upcycling, and Reusing. Charity shops, preloved sites and freecycling are great ways to reuse items that are in good condition. Upcycling or repurposing using crafting methods has a finite number of times you will be able to divert your rubbish from the general waste. Our Eco-Brick project is a way to repurpose bottles and upcycle plastic rubbish we would otherwise have to put in our general waste. But we should be able to see beyond normal and see opportunities. Zero Waste / Refill shops have been popping up around the UK and globally.

Mel from Bare + Fair, a zero waste shop, will be at the discussions

BYOR is a great way to refuse purchasing single use bags, coffee cups, take away containers and more. Some of the take away shops will use your containers if you ask them. Cups in Egham used to provide a 20p discount off your purchase if you brought your own container.

Neil has been campaigning and helping lead governance changes

There are many more ways to reduce waste and we have brought together a panel that actively reduces waste from a business/organisational perspective, resident perspective, and a political perspective

Iris and Shannon – Chertsey residents whose challenge is to pick up litter every day in their daily walks and have an Instagram account @RubbishADay
Neil – from Zero Waste Europe promotes and supports societal moves to zero waste, and the need for change at political and corporate level to enable that change at a personal level.
Mel – runs Bare and Fair, a refill shop in Woking to enable sustainable and low-waste living a realistic option

Come join us for a free live virtual dinner discussion on going zero waste on the 24th July 6-7pm. Register for a ticket below:

If you want to leave a question for this discussion please submit a question via our question form. Click here to access

To connect with us:

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.facebook.com/StJohnsEcoChurch

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.instagram.com/stjohnsecochurch/

Email: StJohnsEghamEcoChurch@gmail.com

To return to the main schedule – click here

Clean Up Egham

July 2, 2020 by Rima

To return to the main schedule – click here

Clean Up Egham

Sat 25th to Friday 31st July 2020

Genesis 2:15
¹⁵ The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it

As part of the St John’s Eco-Festival, we are excited that Egham Residents’ Association (ERA) is co-ordinating a Litter Pick Week and is inviting you, as households, families or groups of neighbours to get together to Litter Pick on your road – or part of your road.

How to Start

Form your “group”, and choose a time during the week for your Litter Pick.
Email ERA to register your interest on residentsegham@gmail.com
ERA will draw up a timetable of litter picking, and post it on their Facebook Page: “Egham Residents’ Association (ERA)” https://www.facebook.com/EghamRA/
ERA will arrange for litter pickers and heavy duty gloves to be delivered to you in time for your litter pick. All Litter Pick Groups are encouraged to advertise that they are joining in by creating a poster and putting it in their window(s) – like the COVID19 Rainbows
Email a picture of your poster to ERA residentsegham@gmail.com and to St John’s Eco-Church* stjohnseghamecochurch @gmail.com and your poster will be published on both our Facebook pages as well as on St John’s Instagram.
On the day of the Litter Pick if possible please take Before and After photos. ERA will put these in an Album to celebrate your achievement – and encourage others to join in.
It doesn’t matter how big or small your Litter Pick patch is. Every piece of litter picked up is one less to pollute and endanger the environment.

*St John’s is running a small competition: see St John’s Poster Competition

After this Litter Pick week, ERA will be organising an Egham-wide litter pick as part of the Great British September Clean 2020 on World Clean Up Day, on 19th September.

Hope that individual, families and groups will enjoy taking part and please do check the government guidelines for groups outside your household that can gather as this is changing depending on outbreaks. Do also remember to maintain social distancing.

To connect with us:

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.facebook.com/StJohnsEcoChurch

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.instagram.com/stjohnsecochurch/

Email: StJohnsEghamEcoChurch@gmail.com

To return to the main schedule – click here

VDD: The Food Waste Cycle

July 2, 2020 by Rima

To return to the main schedule – click here

Make Food Last & Eat Great Food

17th July 2020 7-8pm – Free Ticketed Virtual Dinner Discussion + Q&A

The average UK household throws away £355.68 worth of food every year, equating to a startling £9.7billion across the country annually.
According to the research collated in February 2019, 65 per cent of UK adults admit to buying too much food that ends up being thrown away, with London and Newcastle reporting the highest rates of food waste.
Source: https://resource.co/article/study-reveals-uk-wastes-97-billion-food-each-year

Advocacy | FEBA — Image from: https://www.eurofoodbank.org/en/advocacy

As Christians we give thanks for our food and pray it blesses our bodies. However, there is a great deal of confusion about how long food can be kept safely.

Some believe we have been programmed to use an artificial date as a means of when to dispose of food products, instead of relying on our natural senses to look, smell and taste. When we grow our own food, we rely on those senses to tell us when food is inedible. Fruit, vegetables and freshly laid eggs taste so much better when you’ve grown it yourself, looked after chickens.

Heather will be sharing tips about growing your own

The Use By Date and the Best Before Date have different meanings. A Use By Date is about safety and a Best Before Date refers to the quality and shelf life of an unopened food product.

Every year, we throw away 7.2 million tonnes of food and drink in the UK, most of which could have been eaten. So think carefully before throwing away food past its “best before” date. The food will be safe to eat after this date but may not be at its best in terms of flavour, texture and nutritional value.

Suzanne from EdAbles Social Kitchen will sharing tips on cooking great food with food that may seem old

For more about food labelling see here: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-labelling-terms/

For handy tips on reducing food waste see here: https://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

Janet loves her veg

At the live Q&A session the panel consists of people who are dedicated to reducing food waste from purchasing, to cooking, to preserving to growing your own.

Suzanne from EdAble Social Kitchen: her social enterprise creates meals from food that would otherwise be wasted
Heather is a professional gardener who will be able to tell you about plants and composting
Janet is a veg lover who enjoys cooking and growing veg

Come join us for a free live virtual dinner discussion on making food last and growing food on the 17th July 7-8pm. Register for this event below:

If you want to leave a question for this discussion please submit a question via our question form. Click here to access

To connect with us:

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.facebook.com/StJohnsEcoChurch

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.instagram.com/stjohnsecochurch/

Email: StJohnsEghamEcoChurch@gmail.com

To return to the main schedule – click here

VDD: Developing Green Active Travel in Surrey

July 2, 2020 by Rima

To return to the main schedule – click here

Developing Green Active Travel in Surrey

Thursday 8th July 20:00-21:00: Free Virtual Discussion – Ticketed Event

Turning away from cars and increasing cycling and walking is a great way to reduce our individual carbon emissions while also improving our physical and mental wellbeing. https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/self-help/guides-tools-and-activities/five-steps-to-mental-wellbeing/

The Green Travel Action Group is comprised of residents of Runnymede who believe a healthy and happy neighbourhood is one in which encourages active travel. They have started a consultation with Surrey County Council and Runnymede Borough Council to develop better cycling and walking infrastructure within Runnymede.

Before you attend the session, you might like to see the comments that have been made so far: https://surreycovidtransportmap.commonplace.is/comments

You might also like to watch Xavier Brice’s webinar on Liveable Cities: Living and Moving Together

Jeff Wilson is a Transport Planner at Surrey County Council. As a member of the Transport Policy team, he is involved in the delivery of a number of active travel schemes in the county and the development of a Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan for the Runnymede area. He is a keen walker, bike user and public transport advocate.

Xavier Brice is the CEO of Sustrans, Sustainable Transportation, and has been fascinated by transport’s impact on society since childhood. He believes that how we get around shapes how happy we are as individuals, and how happy and healthy our society is. He thinks we could all be a lot healthier and happier and is thrilled to be in an organisation making that happen.

Prior to Sustrans Xavier was at Transport for London where he held a variety of roles. This included leading the modernisation of London Underground’s stations, and developing a new cycling strategy for the city, which led to the introduction of the Cycle Superhighways and Cycle Hire Scheme. Before this, he advised international businesses and organisations on their strategies

Resources:

The vision for cycling and walking

What are the steps to designing a cycling and walking infrastructure plan (LCWIP)

If you want to leave us a question for this discussion please fill in our question form. Click here to access

To connect with us:

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.facebook.com/StJohnsEcoChurch

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.instagram.com/stjohnsecochurch/

Email: StJohnsEghamEcoChurch@gmail.com

To return to the main schedule – click here

Eco-Brick Collection

June 30, 2020 by Rima

To return to the main schedule – click here

Be Part of the Eco-Brick Making Team

Throughout 2020

St John’s would like to create more seating areas, a well being garden with raised beds and potentially a shed.

As part of our commitment to reducing general waste, we would like to create these items with eco-bricks. An Eco-brick is a bottle stuffed completely with plastic so that the bottle is turgid and cannot be deformed. This locks away the plastic until a time when our technology is good enough for it to be recovered back as a resource. Currently our waste plastic will be incinerated.

Stuff the bottom with a single colour and ensure bottle is completely packed with plastic rubbish

Some of the ideas we have seen on the web to recreate within the church grounds:

To Make an Eco-Brick

If you would like to help us, then please read this resource here: https://www.ecobricks.org /how/

Alternatively you can watch this video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQYsXxHKgMk&feature=emb_logo

We will work with all sizes and all eco-bricks can be left for us at St John’s with the hope messages. One of our eco-team members will pick up your eco-bricks. Do notify us as well in our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/StJohnsEghamEcoChurch/ and/or via email StJohnsEghamEcoChurch@gmail.com

To connect with us:

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.facebook.com/StJohnsEcoChurch

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.instagram.com/stjohnsecochurch/

Email: StJohnsEghamEcoChurch@gmail.com

To return to the main schedule – click here

Poster Competition: Litter Litter, Why So Much Litter?

June 29, 2020 by Rima

To return to the main schedule – click here

Poster Competition:
Litter Litter, Why So Much Litter?

Competition throughout July

Genesis 2:15
¹⁵ The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it

We need your help to raise the awareness of litter in our environment by drawing a picture of the litter you see and its effect on our planet.

During our restrictive lockdown, many noted how little litter was around in our environment. With the relaxation of our lockdown, parts of our societies resumed “Normal” enjoying the good weather and participating in picnics + the re-opening of take-aways with the associated disposables often left behind.

Local councillors and others have been hard at work taking part in adhoc clean ups and using social media to encourage the public to take home their litter.

Cigarette butts, though small, are the most toxic litter. It only needs a few in a pond to kill our aquatic life, or a slightly larger amount stubbed out in a plant to kill the plant. Larger pieces of rubbish becomes junk food to marine life, birds and even cows and sheep. (There are diary farms in the area. For an extra point tell us where one is when you submit your entry) With plastic bits in their bellies, animal die from hunger or become infertile. Degrading plastic attracts toxins as well as releasing toxins. See Plastic Rivers by EarthWatch to find out the top 10 plastic pollutants in our rivers: https://earthwatch.org.uk/get-involved/plastic-rivers

Finally plastic disintegrates into micro-plastic and nano-plastic which we are now breathing, drinking and eating. Can you design a poster to encourage our society, people/everyone to become more responsible for their litter, to take it home with them to be reused or recycled; or to encourage businesses to reduce their packaging. There are three categories:

21 and over
13-20
Below 13

This competition will end on the 6th September 2020. Your poster will be displayed on Instagram & Facebook. We will choose our potential winners by using “Likes” as a measure. Winners will be notified 2 weeks later.

Send your posters to: stjohnseghamecochurch@gmail.com and include:

Your name
Age range (see above)
What inspired you to draw the images in your poster?
What do you like about a litter free environment?
Of the 10 types of litter identified in the EarthWatch article, which litter do you hate the most?

To connect with us:

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.facebook.com/StJohnsEcoChurch

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.instagram.com/stjohnsecochurch/

Email: StJohnsEghamEcoChurch@gmail.com

VDD: Climate Change Action & Eco-Anxiety

June 29, 2020 by Rima

To return to the main schedule – click here

Climate Change Action & Eco-Climate Anxiety

29th July 2021 at 8-9pm – Free Ticketed Virtual Discussion + Q&A

At COP25 (2019) climate scientists estimated the world had only twelve years to tackle the problem of greenhouse gas emissions. In November 2021 the UK will be hosting the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), with the conference’s ambitious aim of “Uniting the World to Tackle Climate Change”. The problem is, many nations lack urgency, and continue with Business As Usual. The UK says it will strive to be carbon neutral by 2050, which is twenty years after the “deadline’ set by the climate scientists. Does this remind you of an apathetic Covid response that large nations took?

Members of St John’s Eco-Church appealing to Runnymede Borough Council to create a Climate Change Strategy (*June 2021*)

How can we alleviate our own fears and anxiety about this? What can we do to redirect that energy to create positive actions to alleviate society’s contribution to climate change?

Join our discussion on the 29th July with:

Chris Hyde is chair of the Surrey Climate Commission transport group, and is working with others to deliver a more sustainable approach to transport across Surrey. He is also a transport planner and has worked with Transport for London. He was in the team that wrote the first Mayor’s transport strategy, briefing Mayor Ken Livingstone on walking and cycling policy and strategy.

Maria Gabauerova is an active member of Extinction Rebellion (XR) in Guildford since late 2019 and a member of Doctors for XR since mid 2020. Maria is also a student mental health nurse at the University of Surrey.

Esther Prior is St John's Vicar. In her last APCM, she outlined a bold vision to see St John become carbon neutral by 2030

Dal Hettiaratchi has been working as a counselor for about 15 years with a Christian charity who provide counselling to those who cannot afford to pay the full price for it. In her job she has dealt with many issues around anxiety and depression. Dal has a BSc in Psychology and BACP accredited integrative counselling diploma from Guildford.

This is a free virtual ticketed event with a limited number of places available. Please register below if you would like to attend.

If you want to leave a question for this discussion, please submit your question via our question form. Click here to access

Resources:

https://www.churchofengland.org/news-and-media/news-and-statements/general-synod-sets-2030-net-zero-carbon-target

Climate anxiety and the Church

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191010-how-to-beat-anxiety-about-climate-change-and-eco-awareness

To connect with us:

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.facebook.com/StJohnsEcoChurch

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.instagram.com/stjohnsecochurch/

Email: StJohnsEghamEcoChurch@gmail.com

To return to the main schedule – click here

Nature Adventure Activities

June 29, 2020 by Rima

Explore Nature at St Johns and with Naturehood throughout the Year

Nature Discovery at St John’s

Naturehood with EarthWatch

“A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt

Psalm 24:1: “The Earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it”

The natural world that our God created is a magical world with animals and plants that can do amazing feats. Who better to tell you about this than David Attenborough:

The UK’s biodiversity is in decline and we have an opportunity to change that in St John’s Church grounds, our gardens and in the wider community. We have nature activities that families and children can be part of to regenerate and heal our biodiversity: one is an ongoing project at St John’s which is an on going project as we rewild sections of the grounds. The other is at your home and when you are outside. See below.

Nature Discovery At St John’s

Learn and discover the biodiversity (flora, fauna and wildlife) within the St John’s church grounds (or your local church grounds) by using an App like PictureThis and Picture Insect to identify the plants and potential insects. Once you have discovered a plant and /or insect, then log the information at Caring For God’s Acres: https://www.caringforgodsacre.org.uk/our-beautiful-burial-grounds-project/share-your-records/

You will need to provide:

What you saw
Where you saw it
Date you saw it

Share your St John’s nature adventures in our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/StJohnsEghamEcoChurch/ and tag us on instagram @StJohnsEcoChurch #StJohnsEghamNature

Naturehood with EarthWatch

Naturehood is an initiative organised by EarthWatch for 16+ with tips and tricks and projects that can be undertaken at home or in the community (loads of excellent information for teachers). To find the actions you can take and to join a platform to be inspired and share with people who care, join Naturehood: https://naturehood.uk/ For more information, we will have a live Q&A session with EarthWatch on the 20th July. Join us for a dinner discussion at 6pm. See our listing on the main schedule for more details.

To connect with us:

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.facebook.com/StJohnsEcoChurch

@StJohnsEcoChurch https://www.instagram.com/stjohnsecochurch/

Email: StJohnsEghamEcoChurch@gmail.com

Eco-Activity Type

The Journey to Zero Waste & Litter Free Environments

Clean Up Egham

Make Food Last & Eat Great Food

Developing Green Active Travel in Surrey

Be Part of the Eco-Brick Making Team

To Make an Eco-Brick

Poster Competition: Litter Litter, Why So Much Litter?

Climate Change Action & Eco-Climate Anxiety

Nature Discovery At St John’s

Naturehood with EarthWatch

Footer

St. John’s Egham

Poster Competition:
Litter Litter, Why So Much Litter?