Food Waste Archives

27/04/201718/05/2023

EAUC Annual Conference

We are pleased to be exhibiting at this year’s EAUC Annual Conference, showcasing our work with Swansea University, Bournemouth University, Brunel University, East Kent College and University of Chichester.

This year’s conference theme is Global Goals: Local Action and will recognise the critical role universities and colleges across the planet have to play in finding and implementing a solution to climate change and realising the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on a local level within their communities.

Across the universities we work with, we turn the benefits of protecting the environment into cost savings associated with reductions in electricity, waste and water use. We also engage staff and students in activities that improve their wellbeing which reduces numbers of sick days and increases productivity. Through our programmes, universities also get to make a positive impact on local community projects and charities with the donations we make available.

Make sure you catch our Managing Director, Graham Simmonds, at the Swansea University talk at 1:45pm on 29th March talking about one of our flagship engagement programmes – ‘Swell’. We’ll be exhibiting on the 29th and 30th and we’ll be happy to chat to you about how our award-winning programme can help your university or college save energy, water and waste and improve wellbeing.

07/04/201718/05/2023

Cut waste by composting

Did you know that 30% of your rubbish bin could be composted instead of thrown away? Home composting is the process that transforms your food waste and garden waste into a nutrient rich food that will keep your garden blooming year after year. Now that Spring has arrived, it’s the perfect time to get out to the garden and start composting.

Where should I compost?

You can buy a compost bin or create a compost heap in your garden. It will be most effective when placed in a sunny spot on bare, level soil.

What can I compost?The key is feeding your composter equal quantities of brown and green materials.

50% should be ‘Browns’ – dead and dry materials like twigs, fallen leaves, shredded cardboard or newspaper.

50% should be ‘Greens’ – fresh materials like grass cuttings, raw fruit scraps, tea bags and coffee grounds. Garden waste and food waste can be added to to your composter as and when it is produced. Many people find it easier to gather food waste in their kitchen in a small caddy or used ice cream tub which they can then empty into their compost bin.

For a detailed step by step guide to composting, visit Recycle Now.

Good luck composting!

03/02/201718/05/2023

Could worms end your food waste?

Food waste makes up to 30% of our rubbish in the UK – even though food waste can actually be recycled! If your local council offers food waste collections it’s easy to keep food waste out of your rubbish bin. You can usually collect all your unavoidable food waste, such as fruit and vegetable peelings, bones, coffee and tea ground and eggshells in a kitchen caddy before sending this outside on your collection day to be recycled. Make sure you check with your local council to see if you can get your food waste collected and how this process works. If you’ve got a garden, you can compost your food waste alongside garden waste to produce a free, rich fertiliser for your garden. For those of you without a garden or food waste collection service, what can you do to prevent your food scraps filling up your rubbish bin? Our team have been trying out another solution.

Meet the worms!

Worms can transform your ordinary food waste into a rich compost in your own home! All you need is a small wormery that you can keep in your in your garden, kitchen or balcony. They usually contain 2 compartments, one to feed the active worms and one for the fertiliser they produce.

The worms will eat most raw vegetables and any cooked vegetables; any fruit except for citrus peel; egg shells; coffee grounds and tea bags; bread; newspapers and small amounts of garden waste. The best way to keep the worms thriving is to feed them a small amount of your food waste, often. It will take up to a year to fill a wormery with compost that can be used for potting plants.

Wormeries also provide a liquid that makes great fertiliser. If you don’t grow your own plants, you can give your compost and fertiliser away to a friend or relative who may be glad of it! There’s a whole range of styles and colours you can buy and there’s loads of advice available online – so get hunting if this seems like the solution for you. Your worms even arrive through the post, so it couldn’t be much easier to get started.

20/01/201718/05/2023

Jump launches at Bournemouth University

Just under two weeks ago, Bournemouth University became the fourth UK University to launch our award-winning programme – Jump. The exciting new pilot has been designed to help to boost campus sustainability and employee wellbeing.Thanks to Jump, employees at Bournemouth University can now win prizes for taking small, simple steps at work to reduce their environmental footprints and improve their own wellbeing.

The prizes include:

• One of 6 prizes for the top performing individuals every month (from a choice of a £10 M&S voucher, £10 One4all voucher, one month gym pass, bus pass or loan bike).• One of 15 raffle prizes every month (from a choice of a reusable cup, reusable bottle or £3 Chartwell’s voucher).

• £100 for the top team to donate to their favourite local charity from a shortlistThese are the charities to choose from: •

Children’s Foundation • Bournemouth Foodbank • RSPCA• Bournemouth Hospital Charity

• An opportunity to run your own fundraising event for a charity of your choice The employees who have signed up to the programme compete in their teams to earn Green Points for a whole range of actions under a number of different themes to keep things interesting.

Here are the 5 themes:

• Sustainable travel • Resources • Energy saving • Health & Wellbeing • Positive actions

01/12/201618/05/2023

Jump shortlisted for 6 awards in 2017

It’s been a fantastic year for our Jump programmes – with high engagement and successful results including an 8% average energy reduction across all client schemes and an average of 307,590 miles travelled sustainably. We are delighted with the positive results that our programmes have achieved so far, proving their success in creating sustainable behaviour change. And with these high impact results, our programmes have been receiving recognition across the country, with 6 of our Jump clients shortlisted for awards in 2017. These include the BIFM Awards, the Better Society Awards, the Employee Benefits Awards, the Guardian University Awards, the Sustain Wales Awards and Edie’s Sustainability Leader’s Awards.

Earlier this year, RBS won the prestigious ‘Bank of the Year’ in the Better Society Awards 2017, and Michael Lynch, Head of Sustainable Workplace Culture at RBS said: “We are delighted to have won this award and be recognised for our innovative Jump programme which is making significant savings in costs, energy and other resources by engaging colleagues in simple, positive steps.”

At the 2017 Sustain Wales Awards, our programme at Swansea University (Swansea SWell) received a High Commendation for its work in sustainability engagement. The university has seen some impressive results from the programme, including 23,000 kg of CO2 saved from employees travelling sustainably, a 19% reduction in carbon intensity, over 105,000 miles travelled sustainably and over 45,000 positive actions logged.

Our Jump programmes provide a sustainability and wellbeing engagement platform for employers to motivate their employees to take part in activities such as saving energy, travelling sustainably, increasing exercise and investing time in wellbeing activities. Through motivation, ongoing communications campaigns and rewards to reinforce behaviour change, Jump has the functionality to help employers save energy, reduce carbon emissions and create an environment for employees to feel happier, healthier and more fulfilled in the workplace.

For more information or to request a case study, email [email protected]

23/05/201618/05/2023

New Recycling Reward Schemes

It’s an exciting time for Jump (Local Green Points) with two new Recycling Reward schemes launching in West Norfolk and Waltham Forest.

West Norfolk Recycling Rewards got off to a great start in its first week. The scheme rewards residents of the Borough of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk with individual and community rewards for their recycling efforts.

May has also seen the launch of Waltham Forest Recycling Rewards, a scheme rewarding residents of purpose built flat blocks for preventing waste, reducing contamination and recycling what they can. Alongside the new scheme in Waltham Forest we are running a door-to-door recycling project with our new team of recycling advisors.

We’ve had another great team of advisors working on our door-to-door project in Westminster since the end of April where they are advising residents on their recycling services and how to reduce contamination.

18/04/201618/05/2023

Love Peterborough, Love Your Community nominated for National Recycling Awards 2016

Love Peterborough, Love Your Community has been shortlisted for the National Recycling Awards 2016 in the ‘Communications’ category, recognising those who have taken a fresh approach to promoting behaviour change. To help encourage and increase recycling across the city, Peterborough City Council set up the Love Peterborough scheme in partnership with Amey and ourselves, Jump (Local Green Points). The scheme utilises our ‘Community Points’ platform to engage residents in recycling and waste minimisation behaviours. Since launching in October 2015, Love Peterborough, Love Your Community has engaged residents in a range of positive behaviours from recycling garden waste, bulky waste and electronics to donating unwanted items to charity and switching to reusable nappies! Residents earn Green Points for their recycling efforts which go towards rewards for themselves and their community. Winners will be announced 6^th July 2016 at the National Recycling Awards ceremony.

08/03/201618/05/2023

More local authorities adopt our community points model.

Jump’s ‘Community Points’ model for incentivising and engaging residents in waste and recycling is being increasingly adopted by local authorities.

Torbay Council was the first local authority to adopt our Community Points model for their Torbay Green Points scheme, which was launched to all 66,000 Torbay households in July 2015. Since then, Peterborough City Council, St. Helen’s Council and the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham have all opted to use our Community Points approach for their recycling rewards schemes. These will soon be joined by the Borough Council of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk who are set to launch their new scheme with us later this year.

Our Community Points Model uses competition, gamification and a sense of community to motivate, engage and encourage residents in to carry out positive waste behaviours. Research into the psychology behind lasting behaviour change shows that a strong sense of community identity and of being seen to do good by those around you can be highly motivating – perhaps for some people more so than a monetary reward! Thus a key step in the development of a Community Points model scheme is to involve residents in deciding how communities are divided and named, ensuring they identify closely with their community for the duration of the scheme.

A dynamic leader board shows participants how their community is performing at any time and there are also rewards for top performing individuals. We find this combination of personal and community rewards to be ideal for motivating waste and recycling behaviours. Using a community approach also allows us to focus heavily on supporting local charities and community projects, an element which has long been part of our schemes and proves ever-popular with residents.

18/02/201618/05/2023

Meal planning minimises food waste.

Here at local Jump we try to find ways to make waste reduction as easy as possible. Following a few easy steps for planning your meals is a great way to make the most of the food you buy, so you can save money by wasting less.

1. Plan: Try planning your evening meals for the week. A great way to start is by looking through your fridge and cupboards to see what needs to be eaten up first, making it easy to choose recipes that use ingredients you already have.
2. Buy: Make a shopping list and stick to it! Buy exactly what you need for the meals you have planned.
3. Store: Store your food correctly to make it last as long as possible. Check out this Love Food Hate Waste link to find out exactly how to keep things fresh.
4. Cook: Cook the right amount for the number of people eating. This can be hard, especially if cooking for one. Try and get your hands on a spaghetti measure or rice scoop so you don’t end up cooking too much and wasting it.
5. Save: Make sure you either eat the whole meal or store your lovely leftovers correctly. Left over dinner makes an excellent packed lunch or can often be frozen and saved for a meal later in the week.
6. Recycle: Finally, don’t forget to reuse and recycle the waste created in the process of preparing your meals! Think about composting your food waste and recycling your packaging.

06/01/201618/05/2023

Jump celebrates signing up 400th local rewards partner and reflects on a year of growth.

2015 was an exciting year for Jump, with new reward schemes launched across the UK – from St Helens in the North to Torbay in the South West and adding our 400th local reward partner in December was a milestone, demonstrating our commitment to provide residents with really attractive rewards that motivate positive waste behaviours.

Our 400th local reward partner to sign up is Sonny’s Fresh Fish Shop, a family-run fishmonger based on Elm Park high street in the London Borough of Havering. Sonny’s Fresh Fish joins a wide network of Jump local reward partners covering barbers, cafes, leisure centres, gift shops and general retailers, all of them independent local businesses.

In addition to our 400 local reward partners, our wide network of national reward partners continues to grow and means we are able to provide a wide range of national reward options from M&S vouchers to iTunes, Garden Gift Vouchers and even compospheres for the garden.

In 2015 we saw over £15,000 donated to local charity projects through our local authority reward schemes and by the year end our tally of charity partners ranged from local projects like Thamesmead Youth Voice to national charities such as Trees for Cities.
Kate Sheldon, chief executive for Trees for Cities is excited to be involved and says: “For us working with Jump is a no-brainer as we get donations generated through a mix of recycling and reduced disposal waste, plus lots of increased awareness for our cause.”

We think that 2016 is going to be another exciting year for Jump – with plenty more innovative projects to come! We look forward to sharing our news with all our partners and wish everyone a Happy New Year.

Graham Simmonds
Managing Director
Jump

BACK

27/11/201518/05/2023

Jump in.

Employee engagement is more relevant than ever. With millennials choosing their workplace based largely on corporate social responsibility and employee turnover on the rise, the importance of employee engagement cannot be overstated.

Research clearly shows that when employee engagement is high, organisations prosper. Higher levels of employee engagement correspond with better performance and productivity, more customer satisfaction and lower rates of absence through sickness, therefore having an engaged workforce is essential for growth and survival.

While most executives do see a clear need to increase employee engagement, many have yet to develop ways to measure and tackle this goal. Our Jump program makes it easy for companies to improve levels of employee engagement and therefore, their business.

JOIN the movement towards Employee Engagement! Take the first step and not only will you see your company productivity soar, but your employees will thank you. A highly engaged workforce can increase innovation, productivity, and bottom-line performance while reducing costs related to hiring and retention in highly competitive talent markets.

UPGRADE your environment. Create an environment for well-being to thrive, as an organization filled with healthy, balanced and fulfilled employees is a productive workplace. Incorporating a culture of employee engagement can not only help employees connect with one another, but it can also help create new innovations and ideas.

MOTIVATE your employees to take part in daily sustainability and well-being tasks to earn points for their team and themselves. Not only will they earn rewards for their efforts, they can feel good about being a part of something bigger! When you develop and support effective teams, you enhance the power and feeling of satisfaction of individuals working on the team. Employees need to feel that their organisation is equally invested in them.

PRACTICE what you preach. Get involved yourself, make time to participate in wellness activities and create sustainability events for your staff. Giving employees a sense of shared values and purpose by creating a relationship with them is important. Senior leadership should continuously demonstrate that employees have an impact on their work environment and are an asset to the company.

Connecting engagement to business performance requires considerable effort and top management focus but there is enormous opportunity for companies that get it right.

In today’s fast-paced business landscape employee engagement is truly one of the most beneficial investments a company can make.

29/10/201518/05/2023

Recycling rewards with a local focus

Love Peterborough, Love Your Community, a joint project between Peterborough City Council, Amey and Jump (Local Green Points) launched just over a week ago and already hundreds of residents have signed up to take part. The scheme reaches 35,000 homes in the seven wards of Eye, Thorney, Stanground, Hampton, East,Walton, Paston and North Bretton, which have been identified as having lower than average recycling rates. Residents who have joined the scheme have a chance to earn rewards for themselves as well as rewards for their local community.

Individual rewards will take the form of vouchers for local leisure and shopping centres, as well as for composting starter packs, garden gift vouchers and electrical items. Love Peterborough, Love Your Community also focuses on rewarding communities for improving their recycling rates, with residents of the communities that recycle the most able to vote for which local charity projects they’d like to receive a share of £3,000.

The scheme encourages residents of Peterborough to take actions that not only result in less waste being produced, but that are also good for their communities – such as donating to charity shops, donating and buying items from WEEE reuse facilities and reporting flytipping.

To find out if their household is eligible to be part of the scheme, residents should send their address is using the contact form.

For more information, and to sign up for the scheme, please visit www.lovepeterborough.com

Tag: Food Waste