Claire AdlerWe’ve been asking the Queen Edith’s community for ideas on how to live more sustainably, impacting our environment in a positive way. Do you have any more suggestions? Let us know via this form.
Inside our homes
| What we can do individually | What we can do with our neighbours |
| e.g. Composting at home | e.g. Club together with your neighbours to buy solar panels for a price reduction: |
| e.g. Repair and adjust clothes and furniture. Keep an eye out for Repair Cafés to help | Find somewhere to plant a tiny forest |
| e.g. If you have made too much food you can always advertise spare portions on Life is a gift | Cambridge City | Local neighbourhood solar generation |
| e.g. Use a watering can rather than hose to water garden | Press planners to ensure that maximum use can be made of solar panels by orienting houses appropriately |
| Mending objects that are broken rather than binning them | |
| As you wait for hot water, run the tap into a container and save water for growing herbs etc | |
| Eat more good stuff so you don’t have room for the bad stuff | |
| Eat local produce | |
| Share sewing and mending skills | |
| Reduce the water you use | |
| Collection of tetra packs and crisp packets – Perne Road Co-op does now collect tetra packs | |
| Promote recycling of items through the Queen Edith’s News newsletter e.g. one example a week | |
| Everyone use Bokashi boxes | |
| Got any more ideas? Let us have them here! |
In our gardens
| What we can do individually | What we can do with our neighbours |
| e.g. If you have fruit trees that are more abundant than you can eat, put a box of windfalls outside your house | e.g Match with people who do not have gardens but would like to do gardening. Is this a Facebook page? Or a QECF service? |
| e.g. Plant insect friendly plants | Bug hotels |
| e.g. Don’t mow your lawn too often to let insects, worms etc make the most of the grass and weeds | Community initiative to get everyone to use water butts |
| e.g. Make your garden hedgehog friendly, including making a log pile and a hedgehog gate | Share produce |
| Buy peat free compost | Encourage keyhole gardens |
| Buy plants that can survive dry conditions | Organize community hedgehog pathways |
| Encourage more to home compost | |
| Use green waste – free from Waterbeach Amey site [???] | |
| Make front drive into a garden | |
| Have chickens or a greenhouse in back garden | |
| Grow plants that are best for butterflies | |
| Have a water butt | |
| Plant a tapestry lawn | |
| Recycle more | |
| Got any more ideas? Let us have them here! |
On our streets
| What we can do individually | What we can do with our neighbours |
| e.g. Next time you buy a car replace it with an electric car | Pick up litter |
| e.g. Water trees on verges | Fendon road – plant back 2 trees that have been taken our And put plants in the space next to the roundabout where plants used to be but cut out the city council |
| e.g. buy a litter pick and pick up litter | Speed limit of 20mph everywhere – and police it! |
| Cargo bike hire scheme | Plant more trees |
| e-cargo bike? | LED street lights. Lights that turn off when there is no movement – this will protect the moths |
| Car share / Zip | |
| Plant more pollinators on the street | |
| Charging points needed for cars | |
| More cycle lanes and bike parking | |
| Clear gutters of weeds | Protect our green spaces. No more parking spaces. |
| Litter pick with uniformed groups (scouts/ guides) | No mobile mast on wulfstan way green – masts should be set back from road and obscured by plants |
| Plant bee friendly flowers/ plants along the road | |
| Identify space for trees or greenery | |
| Got any more ideas? Let us have them here! |
In our public spaces
We all have a responsibility to maintain our public spaces and also to push for them to be maintained by the council.
| What we can do individually | What we can do with our neighbours |
| e.g. Take a litter picker with you on a walk and collect litter as you go. They can cost just a few pounds. You could also take up Plogging … running and litter picking at the same time! | e.g. Develop a project about increasing the green space in your local school, church or work place. Grants are sometimes available |
| Please only cut the green verges once a year | Insist on solar panels and energy efficient heaters/ boilers |
| Wild flower verges | Repair cafe |
| Café and toilets in Nightingale Park – from another respondent – yes please this would be great for hospital visitors too | Defibrillator available outside of surgery hours |
| Mobile café/ coffee etc in parks/ ice cream in summer | Tool library |
| The QECF to find a meeting space | Friendship café – maybe an hour before the litter pick |
| Item of the week to be recycled in the QECF newsletter | Skills swap |
| Plant more fruit trees | Identify subject experts in QE who can respond to developments and consultations e.g. water management |
| Look for funds from the council environmental improvement. | |
| Get shops to maintain pavements | |
| Got any more ideas? Let us have them here! | Local recycling points so we don’t have to drive to Milton |
At the shops
The starting point for greener shopping is to reuse, reduce and recycle. There are a number of initiatives in Queen Edith’s that can support you to do this.
| What we can do individually | What we can do with our neighbours |
| e.g. As part of the Food Hub QECF also have a collection of clothes, toys, DVDs and small household goods for people who need them.
Therefore if you have good quality items to donate email hello@queen–ediths.info | Council change policy of only allowing one type of shop (food/ hairdresser/ café). We need more variety! |
| e.g. get your fruit and veg delivered by one of the local box companies | Pull shops out extra 1.5m. so fit for modern retail [???] |
| More local shops and more local food shops | Repair cafes with transition Cambridge form buttons to small electrics |
| Bagless shopping and bring your own containers | |
| Don’t go anywhere near the meat counter. Buy more veg and fruit | |
| Make your own bread | |
| Go to grocer and butcher | |
| Buy spare eggs off neighbours who keep chickens | |
| Encourage more independent shops to promote shopping locally | |
| More community owned facilities | |
| Got any more ideas? Let us have them here! |
Do you have any more suggestions? Let us know via this form.