Borough council and parish councils

Zero waste to deal with environmental crisis

We sent GAIA's Zero Waste to Zero Emissions report to Swindon Borough Council's Councillor for Climate Change and The Shadow Spokesperson for Sustainability. We asked for positive action to deal with plastic pollution and develop zero waste systems, and support for our organisation.

Oasis litter picks

Our series of blogs on the appalling state of the Oasis and our efforts to clean it up relate to the borough council and the 99 year lease they provided for Seven Capital.

Be The Change campaign omits plastic

Swindon Borough Counci's Be The Change campaign fails to mention the growing contribution of plastic to climate change, directly and indirectly. We wrote to Keith Williams, borough councillor for climate change, to ask that this be remedied. Our request has been denied. Hence the borough council are potentially enabling further plastic production / pollution by omitting this vital public information.

Wrong messaging on waste incineration enables plastic pollution

Swindon Borough Council's messaging on waste incineration / waste-to-energy is incorrect. Despite knowing this, they will continue to disinform the public. They claim the Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) plant at Cheney Manor to be one of “a number of initiatives that continue to benefit the Council, its residents and the wider borough”. How is polluting the environment of benefit to anyone? Read more.

Plastic not mentioned in Carbon Reduction Strategy

In November 2020, the council released their draft Carbon Reduction Strategy 2020 for consultation. They have since agreed and published the strategy. There is not a single mention of plastic even though our use of plastic is a significant and growing factor in climate change both directly and indirectly. The document attempts to convey the use of waste-to-energy as environmentally and socially beneficial. So we submitted a response which seeks to set the record straight and provide genuine solutions. We followed that up by contacting borough councillor for climate change, Keith Williams. Full details here:

Council elections 2021

With urgency to change how plastic is dealt with in Swindon, we wrote to each party asking if they would support the implementation of a system of zero waste. 3 out of the 4 main parties agreed to do so. Read in full.

Keep Swindon Tidy campaign

We have been working with parish councils in various ways for the Keep Swindon Tidy campaign.