Earlier this year our local sustainability group Greener Cuckfield had their first annual general meeting. In retrospect, it was a good event and the results of the election saw the committee retain their seats for another year. There was a lot of positivity in all of the annual reports. Highlights included news of our first grant award and an expansion for our recycling hub at The Queen’s Hall. The hub is now collecting four different plastic waste streams.

Since our annual general meeting, our recycling team has created posters to display all of the sorts of plastic waste that they will now collect from the bins at The Queen’s Hall. They have also launched an information page on our website that can be accessed here: www.greenercuckfield.org/recycling One item that will no longer be accepted is milk bottle tops from 1st December. This might sound like bad news but actually it is happening because you can now put milk top bottles in your blue recycling bins at home as long as they are screwed onto the empty bottle.

We also want to share our most exciting news. Greener Cuckfield are hosting a great event this month called Small Steps, Big Changes. This will be held on 17th November at the Village Hall on London Lane (aka Cuckfield pre-School). Doors will open at 7.15pm and will run from 7.30pm to 9pm. The talks will be short but informative and there will be something for everyone. Speakers include an expert in the field of culinary medicine and a Cuckfield-based sustainable energy specialist. Although entry is completely free, we would ask that you reserve your seats so we can get a good idea of how many people are coming. If this interests you, please go to www.bit.ly/3FLtRI2 to save your seat.

In late 2019, a few like-minded people in the village decided to get together to provide a place for local ‘green’ initiatives to unite under one umbrella to help Cuckfield become a more sustainable community. Now nearly 20 people strong and growing, Greener Cuckfield has just launched its first programme: a scheme to give more recycling options to the village. The group conducted a poll a few months ago to find out what materials people most wanted to recycle and the top vote was for: crisp packets! Over 6 billion packets of crisps are consumed in the U.K. each year, most of which ends up in landfill sites or blowing in the wind.

Working in co-operation with Terracycle, a global leader in recycling hard-to-recycle materials, the first bins have been placed in the Queen’s Hall (for public use, in the entrance hall next to the food bank bins) and another in the Village Hall entrance hall (for hirers’ use only). People can collect up their crisp packets and drop them in whether on their daily dog walk, on their school run, or while making use of the post office counter.

Over the next couple of months, more bins will be rolled out in some of our pubs and other public places. Not only will the bins help in cutting waste and keeping our streets tidy, but they will also raise bit by bit funds for us to do more to make Cuckfield a more sustainable place.

The group would love to hear from anyone who would like to help make Cuckfield a more sustainable, environmentally friendly place to live and should contact Vicky Koch at vicky@iamkoch.com.

Greener Cuckfield's Small Steps, Big Changes this November 2022

Recycle crisp packets at the Queen's Hall thanks to Greener Cuckfield