Climate Emergency

"The Coat of Hopes is a patchwork coat on an ongoing walking pilgrimage through the UK towards the end of the climate and ecological emergency"

The Coat of Hopes is a coat featuring hundreds of blanket patches made by groups and individuals who have encountered it on its journey.

“It has been made by and worn and walked by many hundreds of people on a journey on foot of around 1500 miles so far. It carries people's hopes for the places they live, sewn into the blanket patches of which it is made.”

A new recycling scheme for medicine blister packs has just started. There are now four different locations you can now take your empty blister packs. 

They are Trinity Church, Uncle Sid's Zero Waste Store, and the Mayfly cafe, all in the High Street, and The Olive Centre, next to the library in Clapham Road.

The scheme is a Most Easterly Community Group initiative, called Use It All, supported by Lowestoft Town Council. It's very much a pilot scheme, designed in part to estimate need.

Did you know this is Big Plastic Count Week, 11-17th March?

If you were on Lowestoft's sunny South Beach on 28th August you may have seen people writing in the sand. It was a huge postcard to Rishi Sunak, our current Prime Minister. 

“Dear Rishi, hear our voice, save our beach, Floods 1953. Love, Lowestoft xxx”.

Many people watched and commented, and some Lowdown postcards – Lowdown's favourite social media – were completed. Being a holiday town, it wasn't just locals. 

Local community group #We Are Here Lowestoft (#WAHL) has had a significant influence on our MP, Peter Aldous, and on this government's response to the Climate Change Emergency.

The Government has been forcing through parliament its Levelling-Up and Regeneration Bill. Some intense lobbying of politicians over several years resulted in several important amendments being inserted. In a classic to-and-fro between the House of Commons and the House of Lords the amendments were removed in the Commons and re-instated in the Lords. 

Use It All is having to take a break.

We currently do not have anywhere to store collected recyclable material.

We hope to return in October, but in a slightly different form.

Still be collecting...

We will be collecting TetraPaks and possibly medicine blister packs on a regular basis. Other things we used to collect are now fairly easily dropped off at shops and supermarkets.

Waveney May Day People's Festival

Monday May 2nd 2022 12 noon 

United Reform Church, London Road North, Lowestoft, NR32 1HB

Free Festival – featuring Mark Burrell, artist; Open Mic stage with Anna Moreira, Junior Campbell, Jon Griffin and many others; a Use It All stall and four discussion sessions: Tomorrow's World – Where are we going?/Climate Emergency – Code Red/End Apartheid: Free Palestine/Stop the War: Stand up to Racism. There will be a collection for Ukrainian Humanitarian Fund

At the Norfolk and Suffolk Coast and Estuary Conference on 15th October in the Orbis Energy Centre Peter Aldous MP had some critical things to say about 'Central Government' (which is his government since 2010).

He said “...governments – whether it's wind-farms or solar farms, or dare I say it, fracking, governments impose these things on communities... but governments shouldn't work with communities, communities should lead projects.”

21 November 18:00-21:00, East Suffolk House, Melton

The next full Greenprint Forum event – their first in-person since the pandemic – which they intend to use to hear about the challenges faced by communities in the face of climate change, how communities are making positive changes towards resilience to face these challenges, and what the aspirations of our communities are.

This will be held at East Suffolk House, Melton,on the evening of Monday the 21st of November 2022.

COP27 is on right now. There are already some dire warnings. Hard to tell where the UK stands these days, but it's well worth following on the news at least. And watching what's being done locally by our politicians and business leaders.

COP27 is the latest annual events known as the ‘Conference of the Parties’ (hence COP)

COPs are the process by which the nations of the world – almost all of whom are signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – come together to negotiate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.