In today’s environmentally conscious world we have to ask how sustainable is the site? With over 40,000 plots and some 741 sites in London and some 300,000 plots across the UK the ability for allotments to raise the bar on environment is very real. This is one of a series of opportunities to be covered over the coming days and hope that in doing so we stimulate discussion and maybe even action.
2. Recycling
Present a plot holder with a stack of pallets and you may
well return to find a shed, raised beds and even a bench all crafted out of
them. Barry Bucknell would be proud of the DIY craze he started some 60 years
ago.
Allotments have always encouraged and stimulated the inner
salvage hunter and builder in plot holders. Many would rather have a
hand-crafted greenhouse or shed than spend hundreds on a fancy new one. Others
will search the adverts for unwanted greenhouses, sheds and boards. This
recycling isn’t restricted to timber but includes pots, netting, cable and
water pipes and conduit, scaffold planks and many things throw into nearby
skips find their way to the allotments. Some near allotments simply put out
their unwanted stuff, and before the binmen arrive, it’s gone. You can often
look inside or behind some sheds and wonder if Steptoe and Son has a plot on
the site, minus Hercules the horse of course.
Recycling does not stop there. We have bags of used coffee
grounds and eight-foot bamboo canes delivered from our sponsors at Canary
Wharf. A neighbour often seeks me out to give me his latest used big water
vending machine bottles. I have not the heart to tell him I have enough, so my
neighbours are now starting their own collections and I pass them along.
Our trading shed was an old shipping container and rusting
and leaking and unusable, unable to be moved or scraped without a crane to lift
it over the fence. It would cost more to get rid of than reclaim. So, we reclaimed
it, relined it, re roofed it insulated it, gave it new external wall, even installed
a new floor and made new doors. Today it is weatherproof, soundproof and a brand-new
trading shed. A tribute to recycling. It typifies the allotment attitude to
make things work and to reuse what others would dispose of.
When my greenhouse was decimated by the gales, I rebuilt it
with timbers from the farm, what could be salvaged from the old one and an end
section someone kindly gave me as surplus. Today it stands more robust than
ever and ready for any gale.
The site used to have a skip twice a year, which was filled
as quickly as it was dropped. What was dumped in it was often more green waste
than bulk un-compostable material waste. So, we stopped hiring the skips, and
yes some have complained, but the rubbish still disappears, and household
rubbish goes home and old timbers can be added to the farm’s burning. Why
should all plot holders subsidise the throwaway nature or bad housekeeping of a
few?
What is interesting is when someone leaves. Previously, the
shed was picked over by plotholders even before anyone was formally told. Now
as soon as notice is given an inventory is taken and anything worthy goes to
the trading shed. The amount of old stuff in some sheds is more than in a
garden store. Why folk need multiple containers of the same stuff and more
trowels and tools than an army would need beggar’s belief.
The challenge on recycling is not the collecting of stuff to
recycle but the using of it to avoid building a collection of rotting timbers
and associated junk. After all there are only so many rainy days you can
collect for.
I think all allotments must pass the recycle sustainability
test.
