FEBRUARY 2019
News
Alban Way Litter Pick
Sunday 10th February at 2pm
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Bring your family, friends and dogs, pack your gardening gloves and litter pickers (if you have them) and join us at 2pm at the the Alban Way gate to Morrisons car park on Hatfield Road, St.Albans on Sunday at 2pm.
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Along with Plastic Free St.Albans we'll be keeping this important linear wildlife haven and path clear of plastic and rubbish.
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Email stalbansfoe@hotmail.com with queries.
Sustainability Festival 2019
With 140 events registered for this year's Sustainability Festival, there's going to be plenty for everyone.
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Can you help? We'll be holding a stall at the SustFest Market Takeover on Sunday 19th May helping members of the public reduce their carbon footprint - we'd love your help and suggestions about the best way to do this.
Is our love of fashion killing the planet?
On Thursday 20th May from 7.30pm we'll be getting together with Plastic Free St.Albans and holding an evening at The Fleetville Larder on Hatfield Road.
We'll take a look at Stacey Dooley's eye opening documentary 'Fashion's Dirty Secrets' and then discuss with a panel of experts from within the industry how, or even whether we can enjoy the fun of fashion with a clean conscience.
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Tickets give entrance to the evening where you can purchase food and drinks from the Fleetville Larder's usual, delicious menu. Any proceeds will be given to support TRAID a charity working to reduce the environmental and social impact of our clothes.
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Tickets are already selling here and numbers are strictly limited.
Sign Plastic Free St. Alban's
"Don’t Let Go!"
Petition
Inspired by the Marine Stewardship Councils campaign, Plastic Free St. Albans is seeking to prevent local balloon releases, and to discourage the use of balloons by businesses as promotional materials.
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Why?
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When you let a balloon go, you’re littering upwards. Why is this acceptable, when most of us wouldn’t dream of dropping litter on the ground?
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Latex balloons are often marketed as biodegradable, but in practice take many years to break down. They also often have plastic ribbons attached to them, which do not biodegrade.
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Balloons and their ribbons are very frequently found as river and beach litter, where they kill wildlife. Sea creatures and birds mistake them for jellyfish, blocking their intestines, and animals get entangled in the ribbons.
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It’s also a waste of helium, a finite resource needed for medical purposes.
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Do they just out to spoil the fun?
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No! By all means use balloons for parties, but please make sure you hold onto them, and dispose of them correctly. This campaign is focused on preventing mass littering events, not spoiling 6 year olds’ birthdays.
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If you do however want to stop using balloons completely, there are lots of lovely, creative alternatives available. Check out the Balloons Blow website for ideas
Sign the petition to Herts County Council, to ban balloon releases on their land.
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In line with the MCS Don’t Let Go! campaign they have included sky lanterns too, because they also pose a threat to animals through ingestion and entanglement, and the additional hazard of fire and can be an alternative to balloon releases.
Heathrow Expansion will fuel Climate Change
Friends of the Earth is taking the government to court for failing to take climate change seriously.
This spring, Friends of the Earth lawyers will fight for people and planet inside the High Court, arguing that the government did not fully consider climate change and sustainable development when it approved the third runway at Heathrow airport.
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But they need your help to show that climate change must not be sacrificed for aviation industry profits.
As part of our demonstration, they want to display hundreds of messages on paper planes, to show that people all across the UK care about climate change and want this climate-trashing third runway cancelled for good.
To get your message there, just complete this sentence:
A third runway will increase the noise and air pollution faced by local people, and aviation emissions will wreak climate havoc for all of us.
Heathrow airport is already the biggest single source of climate emissions in the UK. With expansion it would produce as much greenhouse gas emissions as Croatia. If we’re serious about tackling climate change, we can’t let the government get away with this.
Our Planet, Our Future are holding a meeting on Monday 11th February, 7.30pm, Pullman Room upstairs at The Harpenden Arms, AL5 2TR with Feargal Sharkey talking about Our Local Chalk Streams in Crisis.
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Book your tickets and join us for an inspiring evening with our guest speaker Feargal Sharkey, the punk-star turned fisheries chairman and environmental activist. Feargal will talk about water use, as well as the urgency and action needed to save rivers, such as our rivers Lea and Ver.
Book here.
St Albans Greens are hosting a public meeting on climate change, in on Wednesday 20th February.The event will feature three excellent speakers, who will discuss the challenge of climate change and what society can do about it:
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Laura Mackenzie from Friends of the Earth
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George Barda from Extinction Rebellion
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Ian Troughton from St Albans Green Party
The meeting starts at 7.30pm at Fleetville Community Centre, Royal Road (opposite Morrisons on Hatfield Road). Refreshments available from 7.20pm.
If you're on Facebook you can register your interest- otherwise just turn up!