Love Thame hate waste

Overview

This umbrella campaign has been developed to help educate and enable Thame residents and businesses to reduce their waste and, by doing so, save money and have a substantial positive environmental and social impact.

Our consumer society in the UK has increasingly come to produce more than we collectively need: we frequently buy more than we require, all protected by varying quantities of packaging that is usually thrown away, and we have moved away from a ‘repair society’ towards a ‘throw-away society’. This not only has a substantial environmental impact, but is at a time when increasing numbers of people in the UK live below the poverty line (estimated to be more than 14 million). The long term goal of the Thame Green Living Plan is to move Thame to become a more circular society.

Objectives

Reduce the supply of and use of single use plastics (businesses, schools and consumer) measured by achieving Plastic Free Thame and Plastic Free Schools status, and establishing town-wide reusable and recyclable coffee cup scheme
Reduce litter – with teams of ‘wombles’ regularly picking up litter and educating children in schools about importance for environment of not dropping litter. Connecting to Duke of Edinburgh Award.
Increase Terracycle collections, through additional collection points and increased number of products
Reduce amount of food wasted, through Thame Community Larder, increased use of sharing apps such as Too Good to Go and Olio, and family food waste challenge with Zero Carbon Haddenham.