OUR WASTE prevention PROJECTS

Generous Scotland brings together charity shops, reuse projects and local authorities as a partnership. It helps charities to access the thousands of tonnes of reusable goods currently going to landfill and helps them to manage the waste from unsuitable donations. Practical support to help increase donations and reduce waste includes producing and distributing highly successful charity shop and reuse maps.

Edinburgh Charity Shop and Reuse Map

Kitchen Canny works with community groups to engage householders in their area to reduce food waste. Participants are given our Householder Action Kit, which is designed to help them think through and try out ideas to reduce kitchen food waste. So far, participants have shown a 42% waste reduction after using the kit. See our Kitchen Canny mini-site for more information.

The Real Nappy Project encourages parents in Edinburgh, East, West and Mid Lothian to use real nappies as an alternative to disposable nappies. We give parents expert advice and the opportunity to try real nappies out with the help of our Real Nappy Volunteers.  The project regularly holds community events and support is available for low income parents. See our Real Nappy Project page for more information.

Waste Education Service We talk rubbish – and schools love it! Changeworks offers FREE talks and workshops for nurseries, primary and secondary schools in Edinburgh, that really make a difference. Our practical educational interventions reduce school waste and help schools achieve Eco School Award status. What’s more, all our activities are Curriculum for Excellence linked and run by education professionals. See our Schools page for more information.

The Waste Free Edinburgh project aimed to help residents in South Edinburgh reduce their household waste by 10% (or 2kg a week), the weight of two regular bags of sugar. During the summer of 2010, Changeworks' Waste Prevention Advisors knocked on the doors of over 12,000 households and spoke to 4,000 residents, providing them with information on reducing the amount of waste they put out for collection. An independent evaluation of our activity has shown that household waste reduced by 6.5% (+/- 7.5%). This provides good evidence that promoting waste prevention can be an economically viable way to reduce household waste.

The Waste Information Service aims to prevent waste from going to landfill by offering information and practical advice about reducing, reusing, recycling and home composting in order to safeguard natural resources and to help reduce climate pollution. See our How to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle page for further information and resources.

Waste Wise Armadale, working in partnership with West Lothian Council, supported the community of Armadale in West Lothian to reduce its waste in 2007. Trained advisors engaged householders through doorstep conversations. These conversations helped to understand current values and interests and encourage further action to reduce waste. An independent evaluation revealed these door-step conversations were effective in reducing the total amount of waste produced by the community by 6.1% and residual waste by 9.2%.

The Zero Waste Scotland Volunteer Project (formerly known as the Master Composter Project) recruits and trains volunteers from across Edinburgh and the Lothians to deliver waste prevention advice within their local communities.Volunteers attend events and deliver talks and workshops on home composting, food waste, unwanted mail and going ‘peat-free’. See our Home Composting page or our Zero Waste Scotland Volunteer page for more information.