Wycombe Friends of the Earth

We hope you find this website a useful resource and return regularly to check our progress on campaigning for environmental justice within the Wycombe District.

Video Page

Eco Tip of the Month

Re-using bath water. During dry spells consider re-using your bath water to water your lawn/flower bed or wash your car.
This can be done by siphoning out the bath water with a garden hose.
If eco-friendly products (eg ecover shower gel) are used, the water can be used to water your vegetable patch as well.

Green Calendar

Food Chain Campaign and related work.
( Update 27th May 2010 )

Stop Press... July 2010 : We have just had this great news from National FOE

Thanks to incredible work by Friends of the Earth campaigners up and down the country, Robert Flello MP (Lab, Stoke-on-Trent South) introduced the Sustainable Livestock Bill to Parliament on 30 June. Congratulations - and massive thanks - to everyone involved!

Mr Flello was drawn 2nd in the recent Private Members' Ballot, which means he has a great chance to make his Bill become law. This is fantastic news for the campaign and sets us on a path towards meaningful Government action to fix our broken food chain.

Back in September last year, we held a successful discussion evening about Planet Friendly Farming involving three local farmers and then Wycombe MP Paul Goodman. A report of the event is still available on our Food Chain Campaign page. Since then, Wycombe FOE has continued to participate in the national Food Chain Campaign, and is now involved in another local food-related project.

Nationally, 259 MPs signed the Early Day Motion (the focus of earlier work) calling for the government to take account of the adverse impacts of intensive livestock farming, and to support a viable, sustainable and thriving UK industry - making it one of the most signed EDMs of the Session. During the election campaign, many local FOE groups including us, kept attention on the issue by writing to candidates and asking questions at hustings. The next big stage is to target those MPs who are drawn in the Private members Ballot on June 3rd to try to persuade them to take forward a Bill on this subject.

On the issue of a supermarkets ombudsman, something which triggered a lot of passion at the debate, the coalition government in its 5-year plan announced on 20th May stated: "We will introduce, as a first step, an Ombudsman in the Office of Fair Trading who can proactively enforce the Grocery Supply Code of Practice and curb abuses of power, which undermine our farmers and act against the long-term interest of consumers."

FOE continues to seek engagement with UK farmers to convince them that the goals of the Food Chain Campaign have the potential to benefit them as well as the environment, and later in the year the focus of the Campaign will be encouraging consumers to think more about their food choices and the environmental and other effects these have.

Locally, we are currently involved in a project with Transition Town High Wycombe, with part of the funding provided by a local councillor, to produce a Local Food Directory covering a 10-mile radius of High Wycombe. We hope that this will be a means of encouraging greater patronage of local farmers and producers with all the associated benefits for the local economy and land management.

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Reducing Unnecessary Packaging - Campaign Update

The most intensive part of this campaign is now over.

This document gives a comprehensive overview of the project as a whole.

March 20^th was High Wycombe's "Bring your own bag" shopping day.

A big thank you to those who participated in the event.

Update 23rd March 2010

Shoppers wearing giant badges, shops asking for a voluntary charge for bags, a street entertainer, a stall and display, and the ready availability of reusable bags, all served to convey the day's BringYourOwnBag message ; awareness was successfully raised as to the avoidable waste and harm caused by single-use plastic bags. Associated publicity via the WDC website news section and Midweek reached others, all hopefully prompting at least some people to adopt the bag-carrying habit permanently.

Our stall was a joint enterprise with Transition Town High Wycombe, and was part of a "Green Event" organised by the Eden Shopping Centre. Other exhibitors included the Energy Saving Trust, Wycombe Resource Zone, and Wycombe Wildlife Group / BBOWT.

requesting a charitable donation from customers who needed one of the store’s bags, with some even adding their own contribution for each customer who brought their own bag,

reinforcing and explaining existing practices and providing information.

They are listed below: (although care has been taken with this list, we cannot guarantee its absolute accuracy)

Shops requesting donations, some making top-up donations of their own:
Argos
Blacks
PMG Schoolwear
Fun Junction
Clairabella
Top Class
Trinity
Two Seasons
Every Days Household
Desborough Pets
Counter Culture
Lansdales Pharmacy
Interpart
Waterstones

Shops displaying information to support existing good practices, or raise awareness in some other way:
WH Smiths
HMV
Holland and Barrett
Ruby Moon
Halfords

Shops distributing flyers to shoppers who use the store’s single-use bags, to encourage behaviour change:
Tesco
Wilkinsons
Superdrug
Freemans
Carbase UK

Note that there are a number of shops who already charge for bags, have eliminated single-use bags as far as possible, or demonstrate best practice in other ways, and thereby are effectively supporting the BringYourOwnBag idea permanently. Our information suggests these include Holland and Barrett, WHSmiths, HMV, Marks and Spencers (food only), Lush, Bassetsbury Balloons, Office, Cargo, Ruby Moon, Halfords, plus several charity shops.

It is also noteworthy that we have learned that three shops have made positive changes to their bag policies since our project began in January: Two Seasons are moving from plastic to paper bags, British Home Stores have been set a target to significantly reduce bag usage, and H+M are introducing bags made from recycled plastic.

BringYourOwnBag Day was part of a project that WFOE are currently helping deliver on behalf of the Wycombe Local Strategic Partnership to reduce unnecessary and environmentally damaging packaging, initially focusing on single-use plastic bags. An earlier stage was a survey of High Wycombe Town Centre shops to ascertain their current policies and practices, reported on below. Other activities are planned.

This campaign follows up and builds on our achievements prior to the opening of Eden in 2008.

For more information on why plastic bags are a problem click here

Update 1st March 2010

174 retailers in all areas of High Wycombe took part in our survey to investigate current policies as far as bags are concerned and our thanks go to all who took the time to answer our surveyors’ questions. The results show that many shops are already seeing a reduction in plastic bag usage simply by asking a customer “Do you need a bag?” or “Can you manage without a bag?” From our survey data, it is estimated that this simple act can reduce the number of bags being handed out by a retail outlet by as much as 50%. Others have advanced to making a charge for each single-use bag being handed out or alternatively asking the customer to make a donation to charity if he/she needs to be provided with a bag.

Some shops are managing to avoid the need for free single-use bags at all. These include Ruby Moon and Holland & Barrett. With the exception of two isolated cases, none have reported negative reactions from customers as a result. Others, such as W H Smith, Waterstones, Sport & Ski discourage the use of single-use bags by making a charge in some form for them. Several others offer paper bags rather than plastic; this is better for the environment at the disposal stage, but as paper uses a lot of energy to produce, this is unfortunately not necessarily a better option at the manufacturing end. Many expressed a wish to work co-operatively with other retailers in the purchasing of bags and also in the disposal/recycling of plastic and paper. Can Wycombe District Council help here?

Lush provide a service of recycling their black pots and Superdrug can recycle batteries.

Summary of questionnaire results here

Therefore we say “please bring your own bag”. It really takes only a little effort but this could significantly reduce the current quantity of around 5 billion single use bags (4,740 tonnes of bags) being taken by shoppers at the tills of the leading supermarkets in the UK each year.

Thanks to major efforts by the supermarkets an almost 50% reduction in usage has been achieved since 2006.

Please support High Wycombe’s “Bring Your Own Bag” day on March 20^th. Be sure to bring a bag with you on that day in particular and - even better - make it a habit that will stick. Find yourself a small foldable bag to put into your pocket or handbag and take it with you always. And for the big shop – well, there are plenty of sturdy re-usable bags to choose from.

(more information on our campaigns page)

Press release issued 11th January

Questionnaire sheet used for survey of shops

Information sheet used for survey of shops

Green Stall at Hamilton School Fete

On Saturday 19th June, Ivan organised (on behalf of Wycombe FoE and Transition Town HW) a 'green stall' for the annual fete at Hamilton Primary School.

The fete was fairly well attended, although there were no queues for our stall it has to be said, just occasional visitors.
The most popular activity on our stall was the food competition organised by Celia. The display boards with posters were less popular. Apart from WFoE and Transition Town, exhibitors were Team Green Britain (biking), Wycombe Resource Zone (re-use) Council Rangers (conservation), Wycombe Wildlife Group, Revive the Wye and Freegle (re-use).

Thanks to Julian, Celia, Victoria and Mike Chadwick who helped run the stall, and thanks to Dawn M from Hamilton School who made this possible.

Many WFOE members and friends joined the masses at The Wave rally in London on 5th December, demanding a strong and fair agreement at the forthcoming Copenhagen Climate Change talks. En-route to the station, a small group braved the scurrying Christmas shoppers in High Wycombe Town Centre with the mini "Wycombe Wave" march / stroll.