Where are we now? 
We are proud to say that we have achieved the ‘Silver’ award level of the A’Rocha scheme. We intend to build on this and achieve Gold by recycling more, encouraging our church members and other churches to follow environmentally sensitive policies, and looking after our site (the churchyard) to promote ecological diversity and the wellbeing of the natural world. As part of this, we are thrilled to say that we were able to host the YCCN pilgrimage to the Glasgow Climate Summit!
Greening our church grounds:
Not only have we planted a wildflower area (see below) but we are developing our Memorial Garden as a place for people to relax and refresh - and we have installed waterbutts to facilitate watering the plantings and the planters around the church.
Here’s our newly planted native (organic!) Yew hedge and our bee-friendly wildflower area which is showing good results!
Recycling Notice:
As from 1st April 2024 we are no longer accepting clothes or shoes for recycling. We may restart collections later in the year.
Please take your donations for recycling to a charity shop. We used to be able to rehome all the following items, but our existing destination can no longer accept them, so please let us know if you could help with any of these?
Recycling:
We have “recycling” boxes in the entrance to the Church and Hall where you can leave old mobile phones, stamps, spectacles and printer cartridges! These can often be sold to raise funds for the needy or passed to charities who can use them. We also can help with the recycling of many other things - contact us if you would like to help our Recycling efforts as we do need a new Coordinator!
We also try to feed the birds, encourage native wildflowers to grow in our grounds, and welcome people to use our space to relax - but please do so responsibly and do not leave litter! That’s what the bins and recycling boxes are for.
Waste and recycling survey:
To help combat climate change and recover valuable resources from our waste, the Government has issued local authorities with guidance on how waste and recycling
should be collected. Through these recycling reforms (see below for link)), recycling across England will be easier as all local authorities will collect the same materials from every household for recycling.
In Solihull, this will include the provision of a new weekly collection of food waste and a standard set of materials for recycling.
Solihull already collects most of the materials required through our existing recycling services, but in 2026 we will need to introduce a weekly food waste collection
service, so it is important that we start to make plans now for how we will deliver this new service in Solihull. It is vital that we make these changes as they will help us to increase recycling rates and further reduce the amount of waste that is placed in the rubbish bin for disposal (non-recyclable waste).
Most of these changes are compulsory and we need to implement them to comply with Government regulations which have been put in place to deliver England’s overall climate action plan.
However, it is important that we understand your thoughts and opinions regarding the changes so we can provide you with the right level of support and information to help you make the changes as easy as possible.
Please help us to get it right by answering the questions in the following survey. It should take around 10 minutes to complete. The survey will close on Friday, 16th August 2024.
To complete survey, go to:
https://yourvoicesolihull.uk.engagementhq.com/waste-and-recycling-survey
Government Guidance can be found at:
Government response - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
