Hollinswood and Randlay Parish Council now have a climate change working group in response to setting ourselves the target of being carbon neutral in 2030 and declaring a climate emergency. Over the next few weeks/months we want to share what we are doing as councillors, to reduce our carbon footprint as well as generally helping the planet. We would love to hear your ideas too!

HARPC Environmental and Carbon Impact Survey 2024

The purpose of the document was and is to identify all areas of Hollinswood and Randlay that could potentially be looked at to reduce our carbon footprint or environmental impact to help us achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.

In late 2024 into early 2025 the Parish Council undertook a significant step towards its goal of net zero by 2030.  Please see this page for the full details.  To give some idea of the overall carbon savings these projects have made, our CO2 footprint was approx. 26ts p/a,  With all the works undertaken, this has now been reduced to approximately 2t’s – of which the vast majority is currently due to our importing of electricity along with staff fuel getting to and from work and of course items purchased. As we continue to work towards reducing our footprint further, in the last 3 years, with the support of The Friends of Hollinswood and Randlay Valley, we have planted approximately 1400 trees, with a further 400 trees to be planted in and around the parish over the coming year or so.

Some ideas already started include:-

• Cutting down plastic use by using shampoo/conditioner bars.
• Reducing use of electricity by having one day a week without screens.
• Saving water by using the boiled vegetable water (once cooled) to water the garden.
• Reducing waste by taking a reusable mug to coffee shops, some even give discounts!
• Using less petrol by walking to every meeting.
• Reusing paper before it is recycled by writing my shopping list on the back of an envelope.

As a Parish Council, we are undertaking a review of all of our processes and as these are worked through will be listed here also.  Currently we are assessing

• Utility usage and renewals
• Options for an electric van
• LED lighting
• Solar

These are just a start and we know we have a long way to go. Click here for a sheet showing the last ideas we are working on or have achieved.

Useful Links

Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet

Free Recycling Programmes

Lots of drop off locations for recycling

Get a basic idea of your carbon footprint

A very easy tool to allow you to do that, have a look, takes about 5mins only to complete.  And will then provide some tips/ideas of how to slightly change the way you do things that all add up to making an impact.

Soft Plastic Recycling

Soft plastics recycling, the nearest store is Stirchley.

Veolia in Telford & Wrekin

We in Shropshire will have achieved Net Zero by Three Zero

“Save our Shropshire” will have facilitated that by educating and helping householders, businesses, farmers, and other institutions by engaging in behaviour change.  Visit our website to find out how this can and will be achieved.  We can and will fix it!

If you know of any other good links regarding recycling or how to reduce waste / carbon emissions which you would wish us to share please email it to enquiries@harpc.org.uk

Here are some ideas provided by the Councillors:-

Tip 1.

Changing to LED doesn’t have to be a huge cost all at once. Every time you need a new light bulb, purchase an LED one and eventually all of your lights will be LED.  It also means there will be no waste because you are using an item until it breaks. Old bulbs are not as energy efficient but you have to weigh up the options yourself.

If you put household bulbs in a clear bag on top of your recycling bin on the correct day, they will be collected by the kerbside collectors.