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Sustainable Enniscorthy has been following The Green Plan on ChangeX a project involving simple activities that have a positive impact on our environment funded by The Green Plan, ChangeX and Accenture. Sustainable Enniscorthy, in collaboration with Enniscorthy Tidy Towns and GoPaddle, took to the water on Saturday 23rd Sept with some extra volunteers to
 Sustainable Local Community Development – Slaney News
It was only after the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro concluded in June 1992 that the concept of sustainable development became an attainable goal for all the people of the world whether local, national or regional and supported by 179 countries and multiple non-governmental organisations did the concept filter through to communities worldwide. The major result of the conference was Agenda 21, a new program to achieve overall sustainable development in the 21st century. Sustainable Enniscorthy hosted its second Energy Saving Expo on Wednesday evening on 25 January in the Riverside Hotel. The free event gave people the chance to talk to local suppliers of energy-saving products and services to learn how to save energy and money in their home, transport, business and farm. The event was well attended, the atmosphere relaxed and the feedback positive.
This month we look at sustainability and parenting and explore some options that can reduce our environmental impact without compromising on the development of our children. As every parent knows, during the baby phase nappies fill our general waste bin and so reusable nappy options are worth exploring to reduce this source of waste. You can borrow a kit of reusable nappies from the Wexford Town or Enniscorthy Cloth Nappy Library for a trial and see if they suit your situation. Single-use wipes are another big source of waste, with about 68 billion individual wet wipes being consumed in the EU-28 in 2017. Many of these single-use wipes contain plastics and are notoriously difficult to break down, clogging sewage systems and polluting marine environments. Why not consider reusable options like repurposing cotton towels/facecloths to use instead – they are soft, clean really well and can be popped into the wash or a wet bag when out and about. If you prefer you can purchase reusable cloths and kits from Cheeky Wipes or check out local online business The Nappy Market.
At beginning of April the Final Report of the Citizen’s Assembly on Biodiversity Loss was officially launched, following agreement across on a potentially transformative suite of 159 recommendations. This marks a significant milestone along the journey to protect Ireland’s natural heritage and is a timely opportunity to consider what exactly is Biodiversity? And why is it so important to us?
Biodiversity is shorthand for biological diversity and refers to all life on Earth. The living world is a fascinating and varied place, encompassing a dizzying assortment of plants, animals, insects, birds and marine life, each carving a niche for themselves.  Stop Food Waste Reducing your food waste helps the environment and saves money too. Stop Food Waste is the national campaign to give you information and tips on how to make the most of your food and avoid food waste. www.stopfoodwaste.ie. Will you take the Stop Food Waste 7-Day Challenge? 1 March was National Stop Food Waste Day and we are invited to record our food waste for one week to identify what types of food we waste most. To record the food that goes into your food bin, you could:
The average Irish household can save around €700 a year by avoiding food waste. In the most recent national food waste attitudes survey commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency, three food types were identified as those wasted most often in Ireland:
Bread - Freeze it and Eat It!
Find Stop Food Waste on: ****************************************************************** Sustainable Enniscorthy is carrying out a community energy survey linked to the development of an Energy Master Plan for Enniscorthy. We’d appreciate you taking the time to complete it! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYhR18DpPgP6jP39MoFtZ8i_evCB11IiJm4gNrBVBWV5KaKQ/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0 Energy Saving - Jan 2023 Saving energy has never been more important, especially in the face of significant increases in energy costs and there have been lots of articles in the media over the past few months setting out the many ways to save energy from small tips and tricks to large retrofitting projects. But all this info can be overwhelming and it can be hard to know where to start and what actions will make the most difference in your home, so here is some advice from the Sustainable Enniscorthy team based on our experience of doing our own project and some of our expertise! 1: Know your use It sounds simple, but it is really important to understand what fuels you are using and how much they cost over a year, particularly for oil and solid fuels. Keep a track of your fuel usage for a year, both the amount of fuel used by type and the cost as this makes it easier to understand if changes to your heating system will reduce your costs. For electricity, it is really helpful to use an energy monitor, even just for a month or two. These can show you what appliances in your home use the most energy and help you figure out if there are any electrical goods using much more energy than you thought! There are lots of these available online such as the Owl Monitor of the Efergy Monitor. These are easy to set up yourself and are wireless and portable so you can easily walk around your home switching on and off appliances to see how much energy they are using. They can also give daily/weekly/monthly consumption as well. You can also borrow a Home Energy Saving Kit from Wexford Library, Gorey Library & Enniscorthy Library. The Kit contains six simple tools to help you assess how energy efficient your home is and identify possible problem areas for improvement. Knowing your electricity use in more detail can also help you figure out if solar panels might be a good investment to help you reduce your bills, especially now that electricity companies are paying for excess energy produced. 2. Short term goals There are a few relatively simple and low cost actions that most households can make over the coming year. These may not knock hundreds off your bill but can help make your current heating systems work more efficiently and burn less fuel.
Once you better understand what your heating and electricity costs are and have taken some of the smaller steps you can figure out if you want to look at bigger measures, like insulation or changing your heating system. Some of these are supported by grants through the SEAI. However there are also other actions that have a big impact but are not currently grant supported, for example changing from open fire or older stoves to new efficient stoves or upgrading your older oil boiler to a new boiler.   A BUSY YEAR The Sustainable Enniscorthy Team took a little break during July to recharge the batteries after a very busy year so far. Here's a short overview of all that we were working on and a preview of what's coming before the end of 2023! Irene Cadogan (Chair) ChangeX Projects The group have been working on three separate projects in association with ChangeX and Accenture. (1) The Green plan which aims to help people make simple changes to reduce their carbon footprint, (2) Freshwater Slaney, a citizen science project measuring water quality of the Slaney (3) Setting up our first Repair Cafe Find out more on ChangeX or our website Sustainable Energy Community Our energy master plan for Enniscorthy is almost complete and we look forward to launching it in the coming months. To support this work we ran two very success energy expo's to share energy saving advice across the community. Working with others We were delighted to work with other community groups and stakeholders to support the development of the TASC Community Climate Action report for the Town and we look forward to support the development of the suggested projects. We also continue to work with and support other groups such as Tidy Towns and the Community Allotments too. Coming Soon Over the coming months we will be hosting the launch of our energy efficiency master plan for the Town, more repair café's, biodiversity walks, topical talks, more Slaney News articles and some special events. Keep an eye on our Facebook page for more details! A massive thank you to everyone who has supported us and the work we are doing. I'd like to say a particular thank you to the hard working committee as well!! We're always happy to welcome new members as well, so don't hesitate to  Article on: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
When shopping have you ever considered the amount of packaging used on products you purchase? It is estimated that approximately half of plastic produced worldwide is single use. Vast amounts of plastic, metal, cardboard and paper are used in food, drink and other products we purchase. All this packaging has an environmental impact to produce, recycle and dispose. Are you familiar with the 3Rs term? Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Recently a fourth ‘R’ Refuse is gaining momentum. It is asking us to rethink and Refuse unnecessary packaging before we purchase a product. |
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