Brixtonians star in Zero Waste film
"Be Zero Waste - Join Brixton" film flyers, featuring local residents Sophie (with baby Evie) and Angela
On 23rd November at the Loughborough Centre, local residents were among the first to watch themselves and their friends on the big screen (pedal powered by our friends from Cycooldelic Revolution) – as the stars of “Be Zero Waste – Join Brixton”, a new short film showing simple steps you can take towards Zero Waste.
Tips included:
- Take your own shopping bags and buy unpackaged food: lots of the fruit and veg in Brixton Market can be bought loose, and even other types of food are sometimes refillable (for example, you can refill jars of herbs at Brixton Wholefoods, bottles of olive oil at Wild Caper, and jars of preserves at Cornercopia)
- Make the most of your food: only buy and cook as much food as you need; keep food cool (or even freeze it) to make it last; hang onto your leftovers and have a repertoire of recipes for reinventing them! Advice and cooking ideas to help prevent food waste are available from Love Food Hate Waste.
- Give real nappies a try: Sophie was surprised by how user-friendly real nappies were, and impressed by the money savings – even taking into account the costs of washing, real nappies work out 70% cheaper than disposables. In fact she liked them so much she’s started promoting them to other mums, as a nappy champion with Real Nappies for London.
- And of course, recycle the maximum: for an overview of Lambeth’s recycling services, visit this page. Recyclable items include paper and cardboard, glass bottles and jars, food and drink cartons, tins and cans, and many types of plastics (including bottles such as drinks, shampoo and washing-up liquid bottles; yoghurt pots, butter and margarine tubs, and other types of food containers e.g. ready meal trays). For a full list of what you can and can’t recycle, download a recycling guide here.
The film at its first screening on 23 November - with Choman pedalling alongside!
The film got everybody talking afterwards
“Be Zero Waste – Join Brixton” was made for Brixton Low Carbon Zone by a local company called Chocolate Films, and is available to watch on their website here.
It will also be part of a special Christmas screening – pedal powered once again – in Windrush Square between 4-5pm on Saturday 10th December. This is part of Brixton’s “Low Carbon and Zero Waste Christmas Celebrations” – running all afternoon from 12.30pm in the square, where you can:
- find out more about energy saving activities in Brixton Low Carbon Zone
- learn how to make your own Christmas decorations at no cost
- get your bike fixed at Doctor Bike’s surgery
- enjoy festive food and drink
- watch “Be Zero Waste” and other short locally-made videos on keeping your home warm and saving energy
- visit the Remakery stall to find out about our new shared workspace for re-use and upcycling enterprises, opening next year
For details of this event download the Brixton LCZ Xmas poster.
Cooking on gas: Loowatt at the Urban Physic Garden
Loowatt toilet at the Urban Physic Garden
The toilet bowl is "made from royal horse poop, sourced from the Queen's cavalry"
At last, I made it down to the Urban Physic Garden in Bankside yesterday – sadly, its final day – determined to see for myself the amazing Loowatt, “a revolutionary waterless toilet system that creates local economies around waste treatment”.
Handy information about the Loowatt system on the inside of the toilet door...
Bio-gas storage behind the loo
Since June, the Loowatt anaerobic digester has been producing a steady supply of biogas, used for cooking al fresco lunches at the Physic Garden’s café.
The anaerobic digester tank
The Loowatt system powers gas cooking in the Garden's outdoor kitchen
Can we install one at Brixton Reuse Centre and manage human waste to cook our meals? I’m going to investigate…
It has been a few months since the Brixton Upcycle Project workshop on transforming waste into opportunities for local businesses. Andrea Speranza – Brixton Low Carbon Zone’s Waste Prevention Adviser, who set up the project – has been busy exploring ideas with some of the participants. Now she is inviting Brixton businesses to a second free workshop on Wednesday 10 August, 3 -5.30 pm, at the Ritzy. An opportunity to focus on putting a few of those ideas into practice!
Christian Dillon from the Pallet Project will be inspiring us to reuse Brixton wood waste by sharing his successful experience in East London: eastlondonfurniture.co.uk
Pallet Project
Virginia Nimarkoh, a local resident, will be presenting an enterprise proposal based on food waste from Brixton businesses that could potentially benefit the Brixton community in different ways.
Following up on Niina (The Green Workshop) and Anne’s (Cornercopia) ideas of composting at Brixton Village market, Pawel Ryczan, Lambeth Recycling Officer, will show how to make a wormery using recycled materials.
There’ll also be information available on a new waste prevention loan fund for businesses committed to waste minimisation, and other funding opportunities to share. The workshop is an opportunity to meet and network with other local businesses. So please come along and contribute to building a zero waste Brixton together!
To book, RSVP to Andrea: ASperanza@lambeth.gov.uk
Jumble Sale anyone?
The New Gallery have been running a jumble sale on the third Saturday of every month for a while now. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to any sort of jumble sale and I feel there’s a void to be filled. So I’m eagerly awaiting the next one coming up on the 16th. It’s not just any jumble sale however – among the selected vintage bits and bobs and other more conventional jumble sale fare are recycled and re-purposed hand-made, one-off creations in the form of clothes, jewelery, prints and other bits and pieces. Also expect DJs, workshops, great food, bargain bins and even a portrait booth so you can have your drawing taken! See you there.
The Remade Quiz: unidentified remade objects wanted!
Have you seen a URO (Unidentified Remade Object) recently?
We are collecting pictures of interesting, beautiful and remarkable “remade” products… Items that used to be one thing and are now something else!
The more unrecognisable they are… the better! Because we’re putting together a Remade Quiz – fun for all ages at summer events like the Lambeth Country Show (16-17 July) and the Urban Green Fair (4 September).
For each picture, the challenge is to guess “What it used to be” and “What it is now”.
If you attended Brixton Green’s Family Fun Day back in May at Dexter’s Playground, the pictures below might look familiar. I won’t give away the answers here as these will continue to be part of the quiz (so the captions only tell you who made them and where – please note lots of them are local!)…
If you have any potential additions to the gallery, please get in touch – email remadeinbrixton@googlemail.com with your photos of Unidentified Remade Objects! (Remember to identify them in the email so we’ll know what the answers are for the quiz – and please credit the makers too.)
Looking forward to discovering more of the inventive and intriguing remade creations out there…
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- by Doy Co-operative (Philippines)
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- by Velo-Re (Herne Hill)
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- maker unknown (UK)
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- maker unknown (Nigerian, sold in Brixton market)
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- by Fuzum Assassinos (Brixton)
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- by Pli Design (West Norwood)
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- by Rashad Salim (Streatham Hill)
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- by Herman Guppy (Tobago), photo by Andrew Hitchcock
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- Remade Quiz at Brixton Green Family Fun Day
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- It drew crowds!
Makerhood website on the way…
Looking forward to the launch of the Makerhood website, a marketplace for artists, designers, growers – anyone from the local area who makes anything – to display and sell their goods online. The emphasis is on locally made goods from locally sourced materials, making it pretty unique among the huge majority of websites that currently sell goods from all over the world to people anywhere in it! It’s good to see people facilitating things that others seems to want – given the choice, most of us would choose to buy local goods to build more self reliant local economies and help move towards a more sustainable way of living. Makerhood makes it just that bit easier and on top of that, ‘you get to have cool, unique things’! Win, win.
You don’t have to be a professional to use the site so anyone can sell their stuff. Each maker will have a ‘stall’ (a page of their own on the site to showcase their goods) on the site and unless you sell something, you don’t pay a thing. And even then, it’s only 4% of the price which goes towards maintaining the website. Sounds fair to me.
The website will cover Brixton, Camberwell, Herne Hill and Stockwell but people who wish to get involved and come from elsewhere are encouraged to start up their own version in their local area. So expect to see local produce websites cropping up all over London before long!
If you’d like to get involved or just want to learn more about the project and meet some of the people behind it, why not go along to maker’s meeting – the next one is tomorrow at 3-4.30pm in Cafe Roha on Acre Lane.
IT’S ALIVE!!!
The Remade in Brixton blog is up and running again after a somewhat lengthy silence! I’ll be helping Hannah round up some interesting bits and pieces from the world of reuse and recycling as well as news and updates about what we’re up to at Remade in Brixton. So look out for upcoming events, exciting new projects and news and views from the world of reuse! Next post coming soon…
Charlie
Say curtains to cold weather
Sewing workshops at the Loughborough Centre
Save money this winter. Keep the heat in and the noise out with newly lined curtains. Sewing machines and free thermal lining provided.
In collaboration with Brixton Low Carbon Zone, Transition Town Brixton is organising a series of curtain lining workshops for residents in the Zone to insulate their homes.
These will be led by expert curtain maker Morag Selkirk and there will be a training session for volunteers who want to help with the project on Saturday 9 October, 1.30-5.30pm at the Loughborough Centre, Angell Road, SW9 7PD.
Curtain lining workshops will then be held fortnightly on Saturdays 16 and 30 October, 13 and 27 November, from 1.30-5.30pm at the Loughborough Centre. Subsequently we are looking to set up a resident-led social enterprise to continue the project.
Don’t miss out – book your place now at one of these free curtain lining workshops. Email: kfrederiks@lambeth.gov.uk or call 020 7926 6241.
If you enjoy sewing and would like to volunteer on this project (and are available for training on Saturday 9 October) please email remadeinbrixton@googlemail.com.
What can you do at Brixton Village now we’re not there?!
2nd Avenue, Brixton Village
If you’re missing Brixton Skill Share why not…
Pop into the Community Shop (Unit 6, 1st Avenue) and get to know the other projects that are part of Transition Town Brixton, working together towards a low carbon and more fun future Brixton – including the Reskilling Group, Food & Growing Group, Energy & Buildings Group and the Brixton Pound. There’s also the Give & Take table outside where you can bring anything you don’t want, and might just find your next favourite pair of shoes, a book that changes your life, or even (as we did recently) an old slide projector in perfect working order…
TTB Community Draught Busters (a new social enterprise) is also now based at the Community Shop. They have stocks of cheap draught busting, insulation and other energy saving materials. They can help you organise Draught Busting Saturdays in your community and they have a draught busting training session scheduled for Thursday 21 October 6.30 – 8 in the shop. For more information email Martin Abrahams.
Check out the Brick Box (Unit 41-42, 2nd Avenue), a new community arts space that aims to explore and develop new models of collaboration and possibility between ‘experts’ and ‘novices’. They offer a pool of resources for art events and performances (e.g. borrow a PA, projector or screen if you need one). You can also book the space for free for workshops and events.
Find locally grown and market-sourced meals at Brixton Cornercopia, sell your home-made jams and pickles there, or bring used glass jars for refilling.
Explore the whole market and taste foods from every continent, discover treasure troves of vintage clothes and salvaged nick-nacks alongside new designers and artists, stock up on fruit and veg, meat and fish, or household supplies. For regular updates join the Brixton Village facebook page. Come along on a Thursday night (6-10pm, special events and performances every week) or Saturday daytime to catch the market at its bustling best.
Listed below are contact details for some of the regular contributors to Brixton Skill Share. If you don’t see the person or skill you are looking for, please ask remadeinbrixton@googlemail.com.
Darren Shaw
Desired States / Advanced Communication workshops – NLP and life coaching techniques
www.desiredstates.co.uk
darrenvshaw@yahoo.com
07534 945 253
David Style
Carpentry
07967 497 886
Ima – Healing Arts
Japanese language and calligraphy, mime, stress-free movement, tea ceremony
info@yokunaru.co.uk
07707 750 438
Kalefa Sennah – Kalefa Naked Foods
Raw food catering and workshops
www.kalefanakedfoods.co.uk
kalefa@kalefanakedfoods.co.uk
07533 577 615
Karen Livesey
Shiatsu massage
www.karenliveseyshiatsu.co.uk
hello@karenliveseyshiatsu.co.uk
07947 518 868
Katiushka Borges
Love coach and key organiser of 15 Minutes of Inspiration @ Brixton Skill Share
www.loverslikeus.net
Laura Lombardi
Greetings cards, notebook making, graphic design, language lessons (Italian, Spanish, French)
laurablix@gmail.com
07553 821 628
Maggie Winnall – Sewin Simple
Basic machine sewing, creative quilting and textiles workshops
maggiewinnall.wordpress.com
maggiewinnall@googlemail.com
07946 439 415
Pascale Gibon
Success Coaching
www.pascalegibon.lifesuccessconsultants.com/Services/Mastermind-Groups/
pascalegibon@lifesuccessconsultants.com
07932 340003
Philip King
Solar cookers
philip@coconino.co.uk
07905 863 263
Rijole Bitata – Nerua Phut Accessories
Jewellery making including beading, wire wrapping and fabric jewellery
neruaphut@hotmail.co.uk
Sofia Bustamante and Mamading Ceesay – London Creative Labs
Social Startup Coaching – support for social entrepreneurs getting new projects off the ground
www.londoncreativelabs.com
sofia@londoncreativelabs.com / mamading@londoncreativelabs.com
07913 088 975 (Sofia) / 07981 226 189 (Mamading)
