Before the Wasteless Society
In the mid 1990's a small border town took the time to look at what it thought was important. High up on the list was waste. Important because it was unnecessary to have quite so much of it. So rather than wait for the problem to be solved by someone else, they formed a Wasteless Society to deal with it. That small town was Bishop's Castle in Shropshire, the place from which the Wasteless Society has grown.
The Early Years
Formed in 1997, as simply a gathering of local folk , it started as most people do, with the easy thing - recycling. Membership grew with people from across the Marches joining in. It pioneered the collection of green waste materials and took it one step further - converting it to energy with the help of a neigbouring farners's anaerobic digester. Now our local authority leads the way in waste management using anaerobic digestion. The Society continued trading in waste materials, eventually converting itself into a community owned company in 1992.
Growing Up
All through the waste management days, members were conscious that they were only scratching the surface of the problem. Recognising that the abuse of the planet is linked directly to our use of the earth's resources, we saw that it was time to change. 2003 saw us recognise climate change as the thing we wanted to do something about, and 2004 witnessed the Waste Less Energy project, mapping the "carbon footprint" of the Bishop's Castle area, which resulted in our Community Climate Change Strategy. 2005 was a year of planning the next move, applying for grants and examining different strategies for carbon saving and spreading our thinking to groups beyond our local patch. This brought a realization that we could not survive indefinitely on grants alone, and had to devise ways of becoming more businesslike and generating an income stream.
2006
In January we launched our own 100% biodiesel pump in Bishop's Castle, made from locally obtained used vegetable oil. This gained us valuable publicity and helped a local business remain open. In April we launched the Escape project with the aim of surveying 400 homes in the area, and then following this up with reports to householders with suggestions on how they could improve their carbon footprint. For the first time the Society took on paid workers to manage this, but continues to rely on a growing army of volunteers to do the actual surveys (This project has now been moved to an independent organisation - Light Foot - who continue to carry out free Household Energy Surveys). We also launched the Energy Club to enable those who had been surveyed to obtain more detailed help with improving their houses. In July, well attended meetings were held in Knighton and Presteigne which led to the formation of local groups in both towns. The Presteigne group is now flourishing and is known as 'Green Presteigne'.
We are now talking to other potential groups from other areas. Where do we go from here ? - Watch this space.. !
2008
Bishop's Castle Community Energy Group formed. This is a steering group formed to investigate the feasibility, practicality and level of community support for a Community-Owned local energy production company. This would include investigating Anaerobic Digestion, Wind Power, Solar Power, and other renewable sources of power.
