What Brasted Parish Council are doing to support the Sevenoaks District

Brasted Parish Council are actively supporting Sevenoaks District Council’s plan to lower carbon emissions.

There is much we can all do to help fight climate change. If we all just do a little, like recycling or turning lights or plug sockets off that are not required, it will make a positive contribution to our village, our town, our country and the planet.

This link from Uswitch shows over 100 useful energy saving tips: https://www.uswitch.com/energy-efficiency/free-energy-saving-tips/

Many Parish Councils across the UK are bringing together local residents who would like to take an active part in their community to help reduce their Local Carbon footprint. If you would like to join, please use the contact details below or use the contact form on the website.

Brasted Carbon footprint report

Brasted Impact Report This report tells you about your community’s carbon footprint – both the scale of emissions and the main activities responsible for the emissions. This information comes from Impact – an online region-level carbon emissions estimator: https://impact-tool.org.uk/.

The tool was developed by the Centre for Sustainable Energy and the University of Exeter, initially to make carbon footprinting at parish level possible. Since its inception a number of improvements have been made, including the ability to look at larger geographical areas.

Your report shows both ‘consumption based’ and ‘territorial’ emissions, and also shows how your footprint compares with the district average and the national average.

Solar Panels

We are following various initiatives, such as promoting the purchase of solar PV panels. This is a widely and successfully used model that started in the Netherlands based on communities using a single source supplier to order from creating a bulk purchase discounted rate.

Solar Together Sevenoaks has been very successful and due to the increase in demand, they have closed the decision period of accepting your personal recommendation.         

If you wish to be informed of when the next round of registrations is open, subscribe to Solar Together Sevenoaks.  If you want to know how the scheme works here is a short introduction video https://youtu.be/p56RJp9c6Yo

Recycling & Litter Bins

We have also started to install some very smart looking recycling bins in Brasted in the hope that more pedestrians will use the bins appropriately and continue to keep our green spaces clean and tidy.

 The bins complete the much-improved village green space which now has new benches and wooden planters for Brasted residents to enjoy. 

 Platinum Jubilee Orchard 

Some residents might also have noticed that we have invested in planting a new orchard, on the westside of the allotments in Brasted. This was planted for Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022.

How you can make a difference 

If everyone contributes just a little bit towards combating climate change it will make a big difference.

The top things you can do right now that will make a difference to your home and the planet.

Cut your shower time – No one times themselves under the shower but we probably realise when we have been under the shower a long time so even if you cut down your time in the shower, you could save over hundreds of litres of water every month!

Have one meat free meal a week – In a year, a household of two people having a plant-based meal just once a week would avoid producing greenhouse gases equivalent to driving to the South of France.

Turn your thermostat down by 1°C - it may not seem like a lot but over a year, it should cut your bills by about 10%!

Buy a reusable water bottle - In the UK alone, the production process of bottled water produces 45,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere! By switching to a reusable bottle, you can save around 150 single-use plastic bottles from use every year.

Unplug your devices - Seems insignificant but devices that are turned off and plugged-in still use energy, which contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Uswitch.com have 102 energy saving ways https://www.uswitch.com/energy-efficiency/free-energy-saving-tips/

Know what to recycle?

Recycling using your clear sacks

You can put the following clean items into your clear sacks:

• Newspapers, magazines, other paper and shredded documents
• Cardboard boxes and packaging. If a box is too big to go in your sack, flatten it and place it under the sack or please take to your
• local cardboard recycling bank.
• Cans, including empty aerosol cans, tins, metal bottle tops, jar lids, biscuit, and sweet tins
• Tetra Pak® and other food, drink, and long-life cartons
• Aluminium take-away and ready-meal trays, meals-on-wheels trays and clean kitchen foil
• Plastic bottles and tops. Please do not include plastic bottles from hazardous chemical containers or motor oils and spray and push tops
• Plastic yoghurt pots, margarine and ice cream tubs, fruit baskets and trays. Please put black plastic pots, tubs, trays or lids, or film lids in your black sacks.

Black sacks

• These are used for household rubbish that cannot be recycled
• Please do not put any sharp objects in your black sacks
• Your black sacks are taken to a waste energy plant where they are burnt to generate electricity.

Garden Waste

Dispose of your garden waste the easy way with a fortnightly garden waste collection service from Sevenoaks District Council. There are several options available using bins or sacks.

Source Sevenoaks District

Fighting Climate Change Group

If you have an interest in matters related to Climate Change or want to help your community reduce their Carbon footprint, we would be interested to talk to you and hear your views. Our aim is to produce a Fighting Climate Change Group to share ideas.

Please contact the Clerk: clerk@brastedpc.org.uk