10:54am Wednesday 5th March 2003
By Patrick Bruce
With green issues receiving an increasing amount of attention around the world, more and more Croydon residents are taking responsibility for their environment through a variety of schemes across the borough.
Though the schemes range in their aims, size and scope, all are united by a common goal of reducing waste, cost and the impact of our lives on the places we live and work.
Peter McDonald, Croydon Council's Community Officer for Environment and Sustainability, told the Guardian that even in terms of people wanting cleaner streets and less graffiti, Croydon was maturing as a borough.
He said: "It would be fair to say that most people have some environmental awareness."
Describing Croydon's voluntary environmental sector as "varied and active", he said: "We've got a lot of neighbourhood partnerships, more than 70 residents associations and a lot of tenants' groups. That adds up to a lot of really structured community involvement."
One Shirley scheme to have an impact by looking to reduce waste by recycling furniture is the Meet and Greet project on Shrublands Estate.
Tina McMenamin runs the project, based at the estate's family centre, which looks to offer unwanted furniture free of charge to new residents who arrive on the estate lacking in basic household items.
Tina said: "Quite a few families come to the estate from bed and breakfast accommodation and just don't have furniture. They can take their pick of what we've got for free."
The project has been running for around five months now, and she estimates it has already helped 50 to 60 people.
She said: "Some people have needed a single piece of furniture, others have taken beds, tables, chairs, settees, chests of drawers, plates and cups."
As well as helping new residents in need of basic furniture, the scheme also helps to reduce the borough's waste.
Tina said: "Often there's nothing wrong with the furniture, it's just been replaced with something newer.
"People tell us it's fine if we don't want to take it because they'll take it to the tip anyway. We can make use of it!"
Mr McDonald said the scheme was an excellent example of a small scale, local project that has the grass-roots support and need so vital to its success, but which has also been given council backing to make it viable.
Croydon Council has supported the scheme by giving them the loan of two garages for storing the furniture, and funding a delivery driver.
For more information on the project, contact the family centre on 020 8777 1855.
Mr McDonald said the council was in touch with about 50 groups delivering environmental projects like Meet and Greet, and that the number was rising.
As well as the work that can be done as part of a group, he emphasised measures that could be taken by individual residents, and the impact they could have.
He said: "We could all recycle more. the first step is to look at what you are buying, and to buy things with less packaging so there's less to throw away. Buying more things made of recycled products really helps too."
We all have simple choices we can make - put in a low energy light bulb - it isn't complicated, take a shower instead of a bath, use recycled toilet paper - these are things we can all do that can make a big difference and save money and energy.
To illustrate what could be achieved, he gave the example that if all London's roof space was covered with solar panels, they would cover the city's electricity needs.
Street Champions was a scheme launched last summer to officially recognise residents who were prepared to volunteer some of their free time to help improve their environment.
The amount of time they volunteer could be a whole weekend to spare and you want to help to clean out a pond, but more often they simply have a few minutes to contact the council to report something like graffiti or a broken street light.
They also perform dozens of duties which can have a big impact on the way a street can look, such as keeping local trees watered during the dry season.
The scheme is run by Smarter Croydon, which has given out more than £300,000 in the form of various grants to help improve local environmental standards.
It has also spent a further £3 million on a host of capital projects and on setting up things such as the free graffiti removal service.
John Bownas, Smarter Croydon manager, told the Guardian of the Street Champions' success in the short time it has been operating.
He said: "We are finding that we are getting more and more information about individuals who have taken it upon themselves to look after a particular patch.
"We are approaching 200 Street Champions at the moment, and are getting more people signing up every week.
"It took time to get the scheme going, but we hope it will really be on fire by the summer."
He said other projects had proved equally successful in the fight to improve the borough's environment, such as litter collections and anti-graffiti schemes run by residents' and tenants' groups.
Giving the example of the Adopt a wall' project run by Holmesdale Residents' Association, where members take ownership of a wall and make sure it remains graffiti-free, he said this type of small-scale project was growing in popularity. He said: "It's going to be a fundamental part of how the council delivers environmental services in the future, and I think it will almost become a formal partnership."
Peter McDonald said the council were keeping pace with residents' environmental demands with schemes such as energy champions, where volunteers are trained to advise new residents on how to reduce heating bills.
He said: "We are on the verge of environmentalism becoming a lot bigger, but we can't carry on being on the verge.
"As the impact of our lives on the environment continues to grow, at some point it has to become part of the way we work and live."
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.croydonguardian.co.uk